Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

The Repercussions For Christie’s Begin

As I’ve written, I am saddened and aghast that Christie’s is aiding Detroit creditors who want the collection of the Detroit Institute of Art to be sold to pay them by assessing the collection’s value for some unnamed creditor.  I wrote:

If I were a collector wanting to sell, I would not patronize Christie’s because of this.

Yesterday, I received my first email with a collector who came to the same conclusion. He sent me a copy of a letter he just sent to Christie’s and is allowing me to republish here without his name and with a few edits, indicated by CAPs:

As you know, in the past year, Christies auctioned for me three lots, TWO CONTEMPORARY WORKS and ONE ITEM OF EUROPEAN DECORATIVE ART. They were three items from the list that NAME OMITTED evaluated in her letter to me of June 12 of last year. I am about to begin the procedure of selling at auction eleven more items from that list, for sale presumably in the fall of 2014.

I regret to inform you that I will no longer do business with Christies. My reason is that I have learned about Christies’ predatory behavior toward The Detroit Institute of Art. I was dismayed to hear of their positively rapacious attitude, displaying mouth-watering glee at the possible prospect of their treasures being torn from that museum, to pay off debts that it did nothing to incur.

I hope you will convey my attitude and decision to those in the upper echelons of your company.

Meanwhile, permit me to say that I have nothing but the warmest feelings for you, personally. It has been a great pleasure working with you and doing business with you. I always felt you used great care and attention in working on my behalf, and I commend you to your employers.

Now, no one is under an illusion that Christie’s would pass up what will no doubt be a very large commission if it does auction the DIA’s art in favor of keeping individual collectors happy. But that doesn’t mean individuals shouldn’t voice their objections. I’m glad this man did, and I’m happy he let me share it with you.

For all we know, others may have written to Christie’s withdrawing business as well.

 

Just Three More Days! MFA Lets You Listen And Learn Free

MFAMusicalInstrumentsI’m writing just a quickie on this, because there’s a time limit. About six weeks ago, I received an interesting press release from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, headlined MFA PUBLICATIONS DEBUTS ITS FIRST HIGHLIGHTS SERIES E-BOOKS, MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND ARTS OF KOREA. They were “full-color, multimedia-enhanced digital books,” for $9.99 each. The musical instrument one seemed especially intriguing because it promised 25 audio and 23 video clips accompanying the text. It features more than 100 instruments in the museum’s collection.

But I don’t have an iPad, and I can’t try it out myself. So the idea went to the back of my head until a friend recently brought it to my attention again — he called it “terrific” and told me that MFA is letting people try the book for free until Aug.1, which is Thursday.

I have written about the future of art publications and catalogues in a 2010 piece for The Art Newspaper headlined Cataloguing the Changes. It outlined some experiments.

Now MFA has a new one, a pretty good match between subject and format, so — you have three full days, at least, if you have an iPad, to try it free.

It’s also available in softcover

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the MFA

Breaking: Schjeldahl Retracts

Not kidding, this just in: WHAT SHOULD DETROIT DO WITH ITS ART?: THE SEQUEL — published on the New Yorker website.

Among his comments:

I retract my hasty opinion for two specific reasons, and because I have a sounder grasp of the issues involved. First, the facts: I am now persuaded that a sale of the D.I.A.’s art, besides making merely a dent in Detroit’s debt, could not conceivably bring dollar-for-dollar relief to the city’s pensioners. Further, the value of the works would stagger even today’s inflated market. Certainly, no museum could afford them. They would pass into private hands at relatively fire-sale prices….

…Finally, some acute attacks have shown me the indefensibility of my position. For example, from a blogger, would I “suggest that Greece sell the Parthenon to pay its crippling national debt”? The principle of cultural patrimony is indeed germane, and it should be sacred.

That last was from Hrag Vartanian, which I highlighted here.

The Obamas Commission An Art Gallery

In the midst of all of our fixation on Detroit, Cindy Adams got a little scoop: art news from the White House.

renovated-oval-officeWriting in her column for the New York Post, Adams disclosed that President and Michelle Obama have decided to turn their “plain, family-style” first-floor dining room into an art gallery. Adams isn’t sure she likes what she knows:

First Families redo their private quarters, but redesigning a 21st-century art gallery according to your own taste is A) fraught with peril, B) not done before and C) ain’t anyone mentioning how this non-sequestrianized project gets paid for.

Good question, that last one. A bigger one is what the Obamas will put in the gallery. Other than giving the general notion that it will be contemporary art, we will have to wait to see.

In any case, they seem to have hired Santa Monica-based designer Michael Smith to do the job. They also used Smith to redo the Oval Office and the private quarters of the White House starting in January 2009, right after Obama was first elected. (More on that at the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.) As I recall, many people thought his Oval Office was bland, far from an improvement, pictured here.

Peter Schjeldahl Is Mistaken, I Believe

hragLike many in the art world — take a look on Facebook — I was surprised that Peter Schjeldahl wrote on the New Yorker website that he favored the sale of the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection to pay the city’s creditors. I saw the headline, wondered what this esteemed art critic had to say, and immediately read the piece, to see what I had been missing in this argument.

As it turns out, nothing. I was amazed by the shallowness of the piece. Sure enough, I was not the only one. Before I could even contemplate how to respond here, an email from Hyperalleric landed in my mailbox, with a piece by Hrag Vartanian (at left). It begins:

Would New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl suggest that Greece sell the Parthenon to pay its crippling national debt? How about Italy or Spain or Portugal or Ireland, which have financial problems of their own — should they sell off national treasures, maybe a national forest, or part of their coastline to pay creditors? The stodgy critic known for his purple prose seems to have, obliviously or not, penned a poisonous exhibit A for justifying the shameless “asset stripping” of a museum collection held in trust for the public. …

…It’s worth noting that Schjeldahl’s post on the New Yorker website is without any real facts that demonstrate the dangers Detroit is facing, and it is mostly filled with vague notions of culture and concern for retirees…

With that, I agree (hence my surprise). Vartanian says of the sale, “I personally don’t think it will” happen — and I agreed from the start of this. Now I am not so sure. I think the art may have been put on the table in some sort of political game of chicken. But that game could not be stopped once the number of players in it increased dramatically to include powerful creditors. They, let’s face it, are only about the money. The governor, emergency manager, mayor and other pols do have other considerations — like the future of the city. Looks as if they should never has started this, because it can no longer be contained.