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Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

A Big — Very Mixed — Day For Washington Museums

Well, it was a bizarre day for Washington museums. First, late morning, the Smithsonian Institution killed the Hirshhorn Bubble — officially, as we all know that this has been coming for weeks if not months. (More about this in a minute.)

9012 Lot 12 A Sickle-Leaf carpetThen, this afternoon, the Corcoran laid an egg: The carpet it decided to deaccession, estimated by Sotheby’s to fetch $5- to $7 million, actually brought $33.8 million, including the buyer’s premium. The so-called “important and revered 17th century Clark Sickle-Leaf Carpet” set a new world auction record for any carpet “by a significant margin,” Sotheby’s said, and also establishes a new record for any Islamic work of art at auction. Indeed, that price was more than three times the previous record for any carpet, Sotheby’s expert Mary Jo Otsea, the auctioneer and the senior consultant, rugs & carpets, said in the press release.  It added: ‘ At least four bidders fought for over 10 minutes for the star lot.”

Corcoran trustees may be rejoicing at their windfall, but one has to ask, why again was the Corcoran selling a crown jewel? Another lot, btw, the The Lafões Carpet, also from Persia, was purchased for $4.6 million, against a pre-sale estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million.

All told, the Corcoran was selling 25 carpets from the collection of William A. Clark, and every one of them sold. The grand total was $43.8 million. Now the Corcoran, despite the financial straits it is in, says it will use the money for its acquisitions fund, as directed by museum ethics rule. Sotheby’s did not identify the buyers, but chances are we will not see these carpets again in the public domain.

It’s too bad that some deal could not have been made to keep these carpets in the collection of a museum: The Textile Museum in D.C. is opening a new building in partnership with George Washington University next year, and that would have been a nice home.

Now, back to the Hirschhorn: As I wrote here in mid-March, director Richard Koshalek’s “dream of erecting an Inflatable Seasonal Structure at the Hirshhorn for programming and creating a culural think-tank, is all but dead” and that was a follow-up to a February post in which I said: “If I had to guess now, I’d say it’s over.” The board has been divided about this bubble for some time, as I related then.

Significantly, it was the Smithsonian,  not the Hirshhorn, that made the announcement that it “will not move forward with plans for the Hirshhorn’s Seasonal Inflatable Structure, known as the Bubble.” Richard Kurin, the Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture, put his name to it, but it was clearly Secretary Wayne Clough’s call. Here’s the party line:

The decision to suspend the project was made by Kurin and Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough following consultation with the Smithsonian Board of Regents, the Hirshhorn’s Board of Trustees, museum staff, art museum directors inside and outside the Smithsonian, budget officers and others. The Hirshhorn’s board met May 23 and was unable to reach consensus on the Bubble; it made no recommendation to the museum director about proceeding with or canceling the project.

“Without the full support of the museum’s board and the funding in place for the fabrication and a viable plan for the operation of the Bubble, we believe it is irresponsible to go forward,” said Kurin. “Architects, artists and Smithsonian staff have praised the bold vision of a temporary bubble-shaped structure on the Mall, but after four years of planning and fundraising, there was not enough funding to construct the Bubble and, more importantly, to sustain programming for years to come.”

For once, when money spoke, it said the right thing. Although I did write about the idea dispassionately for The Wall Street Journal in 2010, I’ve always been a skeptic. Koshalek talked about his plans to create an “educational exchange” in the Bubble, in the belief that museums “have to curate the public spaces and educational programs as well as exhibitions.”

I think they have their hands full with the last two in that list. Well, not quite – museums should experiment, but starting a think tank, a cultural Davos, as Koshalek wanted, struck me as grandiose and not right for the Hirshhorn. Now what? It should go back to better execution of its main mission.

Oh, btw, Koshalek is leaving as of June 29, though he “will serve as an adviser to the Smithsonian until Aug. 31, advising on exhibitions, programming, acquisitions and curating public spaces.” Kurin appointed Kerry Brougher, the deputy director and chief curator of the museum, to be acting director starting June 30, while he leads “a nationwide search for a successor to Koshalek, who has served as Hirshhorn director since April 2009.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Sotheby’s

 

 

 

 

A Cliff’s Notes, Of Sorts, Encompassing All Art History

TheBooks That ShapedArtHistorySummer’s almost here, and you plan to catch up on your art history, right? All those seminal books you’ve never read. Or maybe you just want to learn, and perhaps understand, more about the history of the visual arts.

A new book has come to the rescue: instead of reading everything on your wish list, you can instead turn to The Books That Shaped Art History, edited by Richard Stone and John-Paul Stonard and published in March in the U.K. by Thames & Hudson. It provides essays, commissioned by The Burlington Magazine, on 16 foundational texts in art history. And what might they be? In alphabetical order, by author:

  • The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the 17th Century, by Svetlana Alpers
  • Matisse: His Art and His Public, by Alfred Barr
  • Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, by Michael Baxandall
  • Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, by Hans Belting
  • The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, by Bernard Berenson
  • The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art, by Kenneth Clark
  • Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution, by T.J. Clarke
  • Cezanne: A Study of His Development, by Roger Fry
  • Art and Illusion, by Ernst Gombrich
  • Art & Culture, by Clement Greenberg
  • Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations Between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque, by Francis Haskell
  • Religious Art of 13th Century France: A Study of the Iconography of the Middle Ages and Its Sources of Inspiration, by Emile Mâle
  • Principles of Art History, by Heinrich Wölfflin
  • Early Nederlandish Paintings, by Erwin Panofsky
  • Pioneers of the Modern Movement, by Nikolaus Pevsner
  • Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, by Rosalind Krauss

In publishing this book, T&H writes:

An introduction by John-Paul Stonard explores how art history has been forged by these outstanding contributions, as well as by the dialogues and ruptures between them. Supplementary documentation summarises the achievements of each art historian and provides a detailed publication history 
of their texts, with suggestions for further reading.

Then:

Each chapter – with writers including John Elderfield, Boris Groys, Susie Nash and Richard Verdi – analyses a single major book, setting out its premises and argument and mapping the intellectual development of its author, discussing its position within the field of art history, and looking at its significance in 
the context both of its initial reception and its legacy.

This is a good idea, especially for non-academics. We don’t have to read all of those volumes. Better yet, while I have not perused the book myself, it has been well-received.

When The Guardian reviewed it, in April, Kathryn Hughes wrote:

Sometimes these magi agreed, sometimes they argued, more often than not they pointedly ignored one another. As a result, the overlaps between these 16 foundational texts are often messy and contested. Stonard’s promise that this book will provide a “road map” of art in the 20th century may be misleading. What it does, in fact, is conduct an expertly guided tour along a rather marvellous scenic route.

Meanwhile, here’s what Jackie Wullschlager, in the Financial Times, said, and Daisy Dunn, in The Telegraph wrote:

The Books That Shaped Art History is a thought-provoking reflection on a century of brilliant Art Historical scholarship. To the Art Historian it offers still more. Praising the masters while accepting and assessing their errors, this volume sets the bar for the next generation. It heralds a bold approach.

So there you go — a legitimate cheat sheet for summer reading.

Art For Thought: Climate Change

Abeyta_SmGoing through my inbox today, I was disturbed to see that I forgot about an idea I had for a post a while back about the Biennale — the one in Norman, Oklahoma, not Venice.

This biennale was sponsored by the National Weather Center, along with the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma and the Norman Arts Council. It was called the National Weather Center Biennale, and asked artists for submissions in an attempt to show “art’s window on the impact of weather on the human experience.”

Some people may think this is a bad idea, as art ordered up isn’t always the best art. Art, in their view, isn’t supposed to do something. But no one minds when a novelist takes up the subject of climate change, as Ian McEwan did in Solar. Ordered up or not, though, art has to stand on its own. It can’t be given points for a making a point. If it works, it works.

The NWC Biennale was open to artists of any nationality over the age of 18 — see additional eligibility rules here. A jury of the sponsors whittled the 700-plus entries to the final 100 and then a jury of Christoph Heinrich, director of the Denver Art Museum, artist Spencer Finch and Jacqui Jeras, a meteorologist at WJLA-TV in Washington made the final call. They chose a Best in Show and winners in three categories of painting, photography and works on paper. Details here.

The winners’ entries were on view from Earth Day, April 22, through June 2 — which is what caused my self-annoyance. But better late than never, I guess.

You can see them here. I rather like the Biennale’s logo, posted here, above.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the NWC

The Magnificent Durer: Worth The Trip

NGADurerIf you can at all get to Washington, D.C., this week, you should go. It’s the last few days for the National Gallery of Art’s  magnificent exhibit, Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina. Arranged beautifully around galleries in the East wing are 91 watercolors and drawings from the Albertina, 27 of NGA’s best related engravings and woodcuts, and 19 “closely related drawings and prints” from the NGA’s collection.

The Albertina’s drawings in this show are almost never on view even in Vienna, art historians in Europe tell me. In fact, they are astonished that these works are on view here (There must be a story behind the loan somewhere.), which is why I am writing this so close to the end. I visited the show in early April, but have been distracted by other things.

DurerCowslipsIf you can’t go, you can still enjoy a look at what you are missing here. Although listed on the NGA website as a brochure, it’s actually a 38-page mini-catalogue, with excellent illustrations.


r if you’d like to read something about it aside from newspaper reviews, Andrew Butterfield has written a piece for the New York Review of Books.

I can’t close this without posting one of Durer’s works: how about his Tuft of Cowslips, a gouache from 1526 that the NGA has blown up for the entry to the show?

Photo Credits: © Judith H. Dobrzynski (top); Courtesy of the NGA (bottom) 

 

 

“Boston I Love” Hits It Mark At The MFA

mfa-memorial-day-wkdMemorial Day was last weekend, of course, but I want to catch up on a release that the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston put out a few days ago: over that miserable three-day weekend, weatherwise, a record number of people visited the museum — in part because it was free and an opportunity to show solidarity in the wake of the Patriot’s Day Boston Marathon bombing.  MFA staged a “Boston I Love” Community Weekend, which — while hardly a celebration — was an opportunity to commune with other Bostonians. It worked.

Says the release:

Of the 29,391 people who attended the event, 9,759 visited on Saturday, 10,373 on Sunday, and 9,259 on Monday.  The Museum, which was open each day from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., welcomed an average of 1,400 people per hour—the most visitors per hour in nearly 50 years.

There were lines to get in — see the picture in the release — and while they were there, visitors contributed about $6,500 to The One Fund Boston.

As RCA readers know, the Metropolitan Museum has lent three paintings in support. Museum-goers joined in, with “several thousand visitors participat[ing] in the collage-making project “Boston I Love,” creating about a thousand pictures that illustrated the spirit of Boston. Works were hung near the glass wall of the Druker Family Pavilion Community Classroom in the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art.”

Another outpouring came from people all over the world in the form of more than 1,700 flags made in tribute to the people of Boston. They were hung in the museum’s courtyard, which when it opened a few years back was criticized by some as being cold and off-putting. Chihuly’s Lime Green Icicle Tower helped, but from afar it seems as if it had never looked better than last weekend:

BostonMFA-flags

I love it when an art museum proves its worth as a place people want to go for an uplifting experience.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the MFA