Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Public Sculpture Is Home On the Range In Dallas

Dallas likes to think of itself as an arts city, what with the growing Dallas Arts District, which includes the Dallas Art Museum, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, the Dallas Opera, the Texas Ballet Theaters, and much more.

NasherLogoBut as of Oct. 19, as I mention in an article in today’s New York Times’s special section on Fine Arts and Exhibitions, it has busted out of those confines because of the Nasher Sculpture Center’s 10th anniversary exhibition — called Nasher Xchange, partly as a pun on the Roman numeral. Instead of celebrating on its own premises, the Nasher has commissioned 10 sculptures for its show and placed them all over the city, as I say in In Dallas, 10 Sculptures for 10 Years. Further, in all but one case the participating artists worked with local communities, which is also signaled in that title.

The Nasher came up with this idea because, as Jeremy Strick, the Nasher’s director, told me, “Some of the most interesting work being produced today is for the public sphere and therefore by definition doesn’t fit into the context of a museum or even in our garden.” It’s also a link back to Ray and Patsy Nasher’s history with sculpture, as you’ll see in the article. Plus,

He and his curatorial team selected artists whose approaches were varied enough to make “Nasher Xchange” tantamount to a survey of contemporary public sculpture. “With 10 works you can’t cover it all,” he admitted, “but you can begin to suggest the range.”

sculpture-2013-10Rochelle Steiner, former director of the Public Art Fund in New York and former dean of (now professor at) the Roski School of Fine Arts at the University of Southern California, was one of a couple sources who told me she had heard of other places who’d like to have city-wide sculpture exhibitions. Of course, some, like those in Munster and Munich, already exist.

But back to my lead paragraph, above. Last winter, when the Nasher center announced the exhibit, the city’s mayor, Mike Rawlings said “We’re closer than ever in Dallas to becoming that international arts city that we want to be. Believe me, the world is watching.” And he also said that Nasher Xchange would “challenge us to rediscover, reconsider and reclaim our city.”

At the time, the Dallas Business Journal also said that “Rawlings cited benefits of art, ranging from the ability of sculpture to inspire and define public spaces to fueling growth, stimulating tourism and encouraging companies to relocate. Rawlings said he believes great art and great business go hand in hand. He said the public art program will touch all corners of the city.

I never like to put that burden on art, no matter how true it is — but I can’t  help wishing that Rawlings’s comments would find their way into the ears of Kevyn Orr and his bankruptcy team in Detroit.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Nasher Sculpture Center; Liz Larner’s X at right

 

 

 

The Frame-Up In California

BB-current frame 2What’s wrong with this picture, at left, of The Blue Boy, Thomas Gainsborough’s 1770 masterpiece?

Nothing perhaps, except that styles change — and sometimes change again, reverting back.

That’s what’s going on right now at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.  Henry and Arabella Huntington purchased this famous painting in 1921, for the then-record sum of $750,000. But people didn’t like the painting’s “bulky 19th-century frame.” And in 1938, the complaints were wearing down the Huntington’s curator of art collections, Maurice Block. Then,

According to a memo written on May 6 of that year, “We have cut down one of our old frames to put the Blue Boy into it.”

The replacement frame [a blog post by Catherine Hess, the chief curator of European art at the Huntington, says] appears to have been an extra supplied by [Joseph] Duveen and probably had been in storage for some time in the Huntington Art Gallery basement. This frame [i.e., the one in the picture at left] is of the so-called Carlo Maratta type, widely used in England from 1750 through the turn of the 20th century.

Lots of other works in the Huntington’s collection similarly have frames supplied by Duveen.

But the Huntington recently decided to reframe The Blue Boy again.

We first approached Michael Gregory, frame specialist at Arnold Wiggins & Sons in London, a workshop specializing in the adaption and reproduction of antique frames….Noting that the frame aroundThe Blue Boy appeared a bit heavy on the picture, Mr. Gregory suggested several 18th-century English frames as possible replacements. Working with Kevin Salatino, the Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Collections at The Huntington, I helped select a splendid Rococo example that complements the framing of Thomas Lawrence’s Pinkie.

So that’s what is happening now. By the end of next month, Blue Boy will look like the digital mockup below.

BlueBoyNew

So what do you think? Which is best for the Boy?

Photo Credits: Courtesy of The Huntington

Who Has Power In The Art World Now?

ArtReview magazine is out with its annual list of the most powerful 100 people in the art world, and it is topped this year by Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, head of the Qatar Museums Authority, sponsor of international art projects and spender of some $1 billion a year on art.

Can’t beat that for power.

power100logo2011aThe next three spots are for dealers, this year in a different order than last: David Zwirner is #2 (up from #5), Iwan Wirth is #3 (up from #4) and Larry Gagosian is #4 (down from #2).

The most powerful museum director? Nicholas Serota, of course, at #6, followed by Glenn Lowry at #8 — both moved up a notch or two.

The most powerful artist? Ai Weiwei at #9 followed by Marina Abramovich at #11. He’s down, she’s up.

Are there surprises? I think so. Michael Govan is a “reentry” at #57 — I’m surprised he ever fell off, and that’s a low number for him.

New entries? Dealer Eva Presenhuber at #59, artists Ryan Trecartin at #64, Yayoi Kusama at #67, Hito Steyerl at #69, and Lars Nittve, founding director of Tate Modern, at #73 head the list of 19 newcomers all told. For that, we can be grateful.

These lists are fun, but I can’t take them too seriously, right?

 

Getty Research Gets A Great Gift

Since I love books and I love gardens, I was thrilled to see the announcement yesterday from the Getty Research Institute: Collector Tania Norris, has donated her collection of botanical books, 41 rare specimens that “provide unparalleled insight into the contributions of natural science to visual culture in Europe from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, while also offering rewards for scholars researching global botanical trade and its influence on Wunderkammer culture from the Renaissance to the baroque period.”

norris_limonAmong the highlights, all quoted from the release:

  • Crispijn van de Passe’s Hortus floridus (The flower garden) from 1614, the first book to employ a protoform of microscopy in the author’s use of magnifying lenses to examine flowers for engraving;
  • Johann Christoph Volkamer’s 1708 book Nürnbergische Hesperides (The garden of Hersperides at Nuremberg), which documents both the introduction of Italian citrus culture to Germany and the ensuing revolution in urban planning as private orchards designed for the cultivation of fruit also began to serve as semipublic parks;
  • a volume of Maria Sibylla Merian’s Der rupsen begin (Birth of the butterfly) from 1717, the first book to depict insect metamorphosis and one of the few surviving copies reputedly hand-colored by Merian’s daughter.

Norris apparently bought the books invididually over the last 30 years from booksellers in the U.S., Europe and Australia. Some have already been on deposit at the GRI; now it will have the whole collection.

Said she: “I never collected expecting anyone else to think my books of interest. But now at the GRI, anyone can view them; some have been or will soon be in exhibitions and programs. More importantly, they will be preserved for generations to come.”

“You don’t need much money, just passion to collect and you just never know what treasures you may have,” she added.

Photo Credit: A page from Volkamer’s book, courtesy of the GRI

 

The True Cleveland Story…

I didn’t want to disclose this, but as it is now out in the public domain, I will link to it.

The reason David Franklin quit as director of the Cleveland Museum of Art was indeed “personal.” It involves an affair he had with a woman at the museum, and her subsequent suicide. His continued position at the museum was untenable, and I don’t quite frankly know how it lasted this long. It has been five months since the death.

Cleveland Scene has the story.

I have no comment other than how sad for all.