Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Music Lessons for Museums

Over the past year or so, I have had the pleasure of working with the Wallace Foundation on its Building Audiences for Sustainability program, which has been funding initiatives at performing arts organizations for the past few years.

My project–a case study that was just published–involved the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and it took me to Seattle twice this year to interview SSO officials and audience members and to view the three new concert concepts that SSO had started to appeal to the “new urban cultural consumers” in booming downtown Seattle. Like most symphonies, SSO had been experiencing declining audiences, and the new formats were more informal than its core “Masterworks” series.

Wallace provided funding to conduct market research,  both focus groups and surveys, and to analyze ticket sales–all of which helped SSO learn what it was doing right, and what it might do better.

Although the article was about music, there’s a lesson in it, I think, for museums. You should read the whole article to understand the dynamics in Seattle, the new offerings/initiatives SSO devised, and the nuances. But let me distill a few takeaways:

  • Along with the informality and an earlier start for the most promising new initiative, called “Untuxed,” SSO added “engagement” activities–e.g., a host for the concert, the opportunity to sit on stage and to talk with musicians, etc. The market research showed that, while these add-ons were nice, they did not add to the lure of those concerts. Rather–and this is good, imho–the ticket-buyers came because of the programming, the music! Nothing else. And that’s good. They also wanted to hear music that, in advance, they knew that they would love. They were less adventurous than expected.
  • This discovery led to course-corrections in what music was programmed to these concerts–and how they were programmed.  SSO had been making its musical decisions partly on what was easiest—which pieces were being rehearsed at particular moments, for example. No longer.
  • A few “engagement” activities were critical in maintaining audiences, but not those “add-ons.” Rather, it was those that created loyalty among members, that enhance the customer experience–an initiative called “Surprise and Delight.” For example, new members are greeted by name when they come to concerts, and some are given free drink tickets.
  • The whole staff is also being trained in customer relations.

 

 

 

Get Out And Go For A Walk!

It’s That Time of Year…

This is just a reminder: TEFAF is in New York again, at the Park Avenue Armory, opening to the public on Saturday and to collectors on Friday. And before that, as I mentioned last year at this time, dealers on the Upper East Side are hosting an art walk on Thursday night to kick off October Art Week. That begins at 5 p.m. Details about participating galleries are here, along with a map.

Before I left on vacation on September 30, I did a little piece about this for Avenue magazine online, headlined Art Walk Sexes Up the Upper East Side Old Masters.

If you for to either, or better yet both, you are sure to see some excellent or at least interesting art works. I’m posting a few here.

 

 

The Voracious Collector

That headline could apply to dozens of people, especially nowadays in this age of competitive, ostentatious collecting of contemporary and modern art. But I was referring to J. P. Morgan, who in his lifetime purchased more than 20,000 works of art, including rare books and manuscripts.  And he did it all in the space of about 23 years, those after his father died. That’s more than two items a day, every day for 23 years.

The sheer number astonishes, as do the results. Morgan bought:

1,157 ancient Near East cylinder seals; 3,000 cuneiform tablets; 600 rare Medieval manuscripts; more than 800 portrait miniatures; 250 watches and clocks; the largest collection of Rembrandt etchings in the U.S.; nearly 250 Renaissance and Baroque bronze sculptures; the “most complete” collection of painted Renaissance enamels extant during his lifetime; more than 1,500 pieces of Chinese, Meissen, Sèvres and other porcelain; and about 130 snuff boxes. He bought paintings, glass, tapestries, on and on.

I take that paragraph from the review I wrote of Morgan: Mind of the Collector, now on view at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. It was published while I was away, with the headline A Mogul’s Voracious Appetite for Art.

In the exhibition, curator Linda Roth tries valiantly to explain Morgan’s collecting “mind,” but it’s difficult to do within a display of just 110 objects (including just a couple paintings). But I give her credit for trying! She focused on three areas: antiquities, sacred treasures and historical objects. Others might have found different themes.

I am posting here a picture of an an object, the Morgan Cup, that perhaps epitomizes her themes and his mindset. As I wrote in the review:

One scene-stealing object is a rare Roman cup (c. A.D. 1-99), just 2.5 inches tall. It’s a white-on-blue cameo glass depicting a woman making an offering to Silenus in hopes of becoming pregnant, and Morgan bought it at auction in Paris (outbidding the Petit Palais and Baron Edmond de Rothschild ) against the advice of curators from the Metropolitan Museum, who questioned its authenticity. But Morgan was right, and “the Morgan Cup” is now in the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass.

So, I say, go see the exhibit and think about the themes you might have chosen, even within this small sampling of his treasures.

 

 

Contemporary Photography, Old Masters and Me

Everywhere you look in art fairs, galleries, and many museums, you’ll see contemporary photography–it’s often more interesting than other forms of contemporary art, at least to the public. A few years ago, however, I discovered (at an art fair) a contemporary photographer with a yen for Old Masters. I took a couple of shots of the booth (which, I know now, was Robert Klein Gallery) and looked up the artist when I got home.

Her name is Paulette Tavormina, and I recently wrote a short profile of her for Traditional Home magazine. It’s in the October-November issue.

This time, it was good that a long interval occurred between the time I was first attracted to her work and an opportunity to write about it–earlier this year, she had an important exhibition, which I mention in my lede (yes, that’s how we spell it in journalism):

With the eye, or perhaps the soul, of an Old Master, Paulette Tavormina is a rare bird among contemporary artists. Her glorious still life photographs could hang comfortably alongside 17th- and 18th-century paintings by Dutch, Italian, and Spanish masters—which, in fact, they did recently at the legendary 225-year-old Colnaghi gallery in London.

You can read the rest of the profile on the Traditional Home website. It has different photos from the ones I’ve posted here.

I also want to tell you that I’ll be away for a couple of weeks, plus a few days.

While I’m away, check the Avenue Magazine website today; it will have (if all goes as planned) a short item by me about the upcoming October Art Week, with the art walk taking place on Oct. 26 on NYC’s Upper East Side.

Also, while I’m away, The Wall Street Journal will be publishing a review of a recently opened exhibition–that’s all I can say now, and I’m not sure exactly which day. If you miss it, I’ll post it when I return.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Paulette Tavormina

 

 

 

So You Think You Know Zurbaran?

The Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University is currently exhibiting Zurbarán: Jacob and His Twelve Sons, Paintings From Auckland Castle, a noteworthy exhibition for a couple of reasons. First, the paintings are totally fresh to the American audience–only one of the 13, Benjamin, has been shown in the U.S. That was exactly 30 years ago, when the Metropolitan Museum* presented Zurbaran, a comprehensive show of his works, in fall 1987.

Second, as I write in my review of the exhibition for The Wall Street Journal, which was published today, you will, if you go to the Meadows, “see Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664) in a new light.” (That’s among other things–as you will see in the review.) The paragraph says:

These paintings date to the 1640s— near the end of the Spanish Golden Age—but they are unlike most Zurbarán works. They are naturalistic, but not as mystical, sculptural or intense. His palette here is more colorful; his lighting less dramatic. They feature not Christ, saints or monks, but Old Testament figures. And their commissioner is unknown, not an ecclesiastical patron; some speculate that they may have been intended for export to the New World.

The show is also noteworthy because of the presentation. The paintings that are the show’s focus fill only one gallery, albeit the main one and one that is quite large. But the exhibition includes four other galleries. The first is an introduction to Zurbaran and to the (art) world in Seville during his time there. The second is devoted to the print sources Zurbaran drew on to devise the costumes and poses of his 13 figures. Then comes the main gallery, followed by one devoted to the discoveries made by the conservation team at the nearby Kimbell Art Museum, which has been working on the paintings for a year. Finally, there’s a small gallery for a case study, illustrating what the analysis and research discovered about one particular painting–Zebulun.

The end result is, as I ended my review, “They greatly enrich the visitor experience and make “Zurbarán: Jacob and His Twelve Sons” a many-splendored thing.”

Not every museum would make the space for all those components. The Meadows is a teaching museum, after all. And not every museum has such space–the painting are coming to the Frick* this winter, and I am sure they will look fantastic in its East Gallery. But there’s no room for the other components, except perhaps as captured in a video (which I think is the plan).

See the show in Dallas if you can (visit the Meadow website for some content)–I gave more reasons in my WSJ review–and see it at the Frick too!

In the meantime, you can read my review on the Journal site using the link above, on Facebook, where I posted it for the public (not just friends), or on my personal website (for which there is a link on my bio page on this blog).

Photo credit: Courtesy of the Meadows Museum–the portrait of Levi, from the series

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met and the Frick Center for the History of Collecting