Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

You Say TomAto, I Say TomAHto

venice_biennale_collection_square Half the contemporary art world is in Venice for the Biennale, and those of us left behind are (mostly) either moaning and saying maybe next year, or pretending we didn’t want to go. One guy I spoke with today bemoaned the long lines to see the pavilions, and said he’d rather go later in the year on anyway. I can’t pretend I wouldn’t want to be in Venice, even if I have no patience for it.

But here’s a crib sheet for others not in Venice, in the guise of a pronunciation guide. It was published online by Artspace, which sells art online, and begins:

With the rampant growth of the global art world, biennales and other international art exhibitions can be rough on the feet of intrepid travelers trying to take it all in—but even harder on the tongue, with the names of the unfamiliar artists continually flummoxing you with their consonant clusters and secret diphthongs.

In it, you’ll learn how to say Imi Knoebel, KutluÄŸ Ataman, Zhou Chunya, and others.  This list complements an earlier edition that I didn’t know about, Art 101, How to Pronounce Artist’s Names, Vol. 1. It tackled the likes of Albert Oehlen, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Cyprien Gaillard, Guillermo Kuitca, among others. Reading them, I learned I’ve mangled a few artists’ names — so thanks to Artspace for correcting me.

And now, when all those people return from their art travels, at least you’ll know who they are talking about.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Artspace

A Step In The Wrong Direction — Or False Advertising?

What comes after crowdsourcing and crowdfunding? Crowd-deaccessioning, of course.

Smol_Le Village Innonde_4660Yup, the Georgia Museum of Art (at the University of Georgia) has opened an exhibition of five paintings (one at right) from its collection by the French artist Bernard Smol (1897–1969). The museum wants to keep just one of them because of “limited storage space and evolving collecting philosophy.” Four, then, will be deaccessioned. But instead of making that curatorial decision itself, the museum wants help. According to the exhibition description, “Visitors will be able to vote on which one they would like the museum to keep, and the curatorial staff will take those votes into consideration.” It then says the the paintings are “of comparable dimensions, styles and significance,” so it’s too hard to decide what to sell “except for a difference in their exhibition histories and the ways in which they entered the collection.”

Huh? In the press release, Lynn Boland,  the museum’s Pierre Daura Curator of European Art, said:

Deaccessioning is never something to take lightly, and we strive to be as careful and transparent as possible. This exhibition gives us a chance to examine and explain the process while soliciting input from the public on the future of their collection.

She then cited a similar “deaccessioning” exhibition at DePaul University in Chicago, called The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, in 2010.

Take a look, then, at the museum’s blog, where Boland continues:

The paintings do not align with the collection goals as defined in the museum’s mission statement and acquisition policy, the paintings have not generated any scholarly interest or interest from the public in more than 50 years, and they have not been exhibited during this time.

Images of all five paintings are posted on that site, and Boland proposes which one she wants to keep. Based on the pictures — which is probably not enough — I would agree with her.

But why ask? Isn’t this just a gimmick? Suppose visitors pick the weakest painting — would Boland listen? Would the director and trustees? Would they really abdicate their curatorial judgment that way?

I hope not. Two is not a trend; let’s not see a third of this exhibition genre.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the GMOA

 

 

At The Freer-Sackler, Crowdfunding For Yoga

Tomorrow, the Freer-Sackler Museum* begins a crowdfunding experiment: it’s asking for money between now and July 1 to help pay for an exhibition called Yoga: The Art of Transformation. The campaign — titled “Together We’re One” — is supposed, in addition to exhibition expenditures, to raise money for exhibition-related web content, printing of the exhibition catalogues, and public programs (including a family festival).

yoga-mainIt’s fairly obvious why Yoga, which opens on Oct. 19 and runs through Jan. 26, 2014, was selected for this trial. Billed as the “world’s first exhibition about the discipline’s visual history,” it will present 130 objects borrowed from 25 museums around the world through the lens of a practice many people not necessarily interested in art are familiar with. The show will explore “yoga’s philosophies and its goals of transforming body and consciousness, its importance within multiple religious and secular arenas, and the varied roles that yogis played in society.”

Yet, through this unique window, viewers will see a broad sampling of Indian art.

“These works  of art allow us to trace, often for the first time, yoga’s meanings across the diverse social landscapes of India,” Deborah Diamond, the curator of South Asian art at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art, said in a press release.  “United for the first time, they not only invite aesthetic wonder, but also unlock the past-opening a portal onto yoga’s surprisingly down-to-earth aspects over 2,000 years.”

Why not try to add to the appeal by giving people a little stake in the show? Here is the explanation of the campaign on a website called Razoo, and here’s the plan on the Freer-Sackler site. The funding goal is $125,000 — pretty steep.

About a year ago, the Hirshhorn museum used Causes.com to raise money to “launch “Ai Weiwei: According to What?” in our nation’s capital.” It set the goal at $35,000 and raise — get ready — a mere $555. Details here.

But two years ago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston raised more than $28,000 from texting and other small donations to buy Dale Chihuly’s Lime Green Icicle Tower. Other museums have also used public appeals, though they’ve not always called them crowdsourcing.

YogaThe Freer-Sackler is playing it smart. Givers are rewarded: I got a sneak peek at the website that will launch tomorrow morning (by the time you read this, it may be up — here), and it promises “Any donation, large or small, makes you a part of yoga history.” Plus:

As a “thank you,” your name will be added to the ever-growing digital plaque, which is displayed in the museum lobby. You’ll also get to preview access to the beautiful digital catalogue of Yoga: The Art of Transformation, the world’s first examination of yoga’s visual history. Once the exhibition opens, you’ll be invited to join us as a VIP at a special event at the museum this fall, along with yoga practitioners, scholars, art enthusiasts, and museum fans. Please look for your catalogue download and event invitation later this summer.

If you’d like to go further, you can become a Yoga Messenger — much like a brand promoter. Messengers will receive special materials they can use to make a video, blog or just encourage people to go. The reward? An invitation to a special event.

These campaigns can be successful, or they can be embarrassing — and the Freer is going a long way toward making its a success. And if it falls short, so what? Knowing where you stand with the public cannot really be a bad thing — it might prompt self-improvement.

We shall see how the Freer-Sackler does in about a month.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Freer-Sackler

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Freer-Sackler

First Impressions: The Met’s New European Paintings Galleries

When the Metropolitan Museum* opened its new Islamic wing in in 2011, more a million visitors flooded into it within 14 and a half months. I am sure that number must be hanging out there as, if not a goal for the new European paintings reinstallation, a possibility. Should they draw that many, fast? You bet they should. They are spectacular. The curators, led by Keith Christiansen, created a logical path through European art history with marvelous moments and juxtapositions. There’s no one path from gallery to gallery, and you’ll have to doubleback from time to time, but that’s the nature of the galleries.

1111Also, there is a guide, but since I was there for the opening, I did not pick it up.

Among the things I noticed on that first visit:

  • Bruegel’s Harvesters looks fresh and beautiful on a wall of its own.
  • Vermeer gets a room of his own, almost, with five of his paintings in one gallery that illuminate his range — from an early picture to one of his latest, from a religious allegory to two interiors with a figure, and a tronie. Christiansen says “That means that, in the Metropolitan’s collection, “you can encounter Vermeer from beginning to end, undertaking virtually all the kinds of pictures that he did,” something no other museum can claim, he adds. Fair enough, but maybe a slight exaggeration because the Met has nothing like View of Delft.
  • The Italian section — two suites leading off the first gallery — has never looked better, and rightly occupy the center of the galleries.
  • Depth in works by such artists as Giovanni di Paolo, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Goya, Rembrandt, Rubens, and other has never been more obvious, though a few holes are also inescapable: Raphael being a big one, as the Met has only an altarpiece donated by J.P. Morgan and a small panel that was once part of its base. We need a Madonna (badly).
  • Paintings, genres, artists you thought you knew — you will see with fresh eyes.
  • You’ll look at a painting, and wonder why you never noticed it before: to wit, I never recall seeing A Panoramic Landscape with a Country Estate by Philip Koninck (at right) before — though the Met has owned it since 1911. That’s just one examples of many.
  • The room with Flemish portraits has marvelous juxtapositions — one wall features several work with people whose hands are all posed in the same way until — near the end — the woman in a matched pair (by Memling as I recall, but I wasn’t taking notes) has hands placed in the opposite direction.
  • The atmospherics do well by the art: the galleries are all painted a rich grey, a unifying tactic, but one that does not deaden the paintings (as I think that beige does in the American paintings galleries).
  • A few fabulous acquisitions — notably a double-side painting by Hans Schäufelein, the Dormition of the Virgin and Christ Carrying the Cross.
  • Strategic loans — notably, in the first gallery, Orazio Gentileschi’s spectacular Danaë, lent by dealer Richard Feigen — number about two dozen, not so many as it sounds considering that more than 700 paintings are on view in this go-round.
  • Technology is used sparingly in the galleries, thankfully — for example, to explicate an altarpiece on one small screen.
  • Although there was talk of blending sculpture and decorative arts into these galleries, it is very spare — they are paintings galleries, with few departures, and they are good ones. Especially a 17th-century Amsterdam cabinet in a side room once used as a reading room.

2222Those are all first impressions, subject to change when I go back for more.

In the meantime, go, and if you can’t get there right away take a look at what the Met has put online:

Photo credit: Courtesy of the Met (top)

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met.

 

 

 

Aftermath Of Rick Mather’s Death: Delay For the Peabody Essex — UPDATED

When architect Rick Mather died earlier this month from mesothelioma, a disease caused by exposure to asbestos, Dan Monroe, director of the Peabody Essex Museum — which had chosen him as architect of its expansion – issued a statement mourning his passing and saying that it would continue its expansion without his firm, Rick Mather Architects. He was the firm, the museum said, and the board concluded, “we have determined the best way forward to complete our expansion project is to engage the services of another firm for the next phase of design.”

EastIndiaHall-PEMPEM had planned a radical reshaping that would add 175,000-square-foot to its footprint, with an estimated cost of $200 million. The plan would have given PEM another 75,000 square feet of new galleries, plus a new restaurant and roof garden, new public program and education spaces, and essential improvements to collections storage, exhibition processing and conservation functions — e.g., a loading dock. The grand total — 550,000 sq. ft. — would make PEM one of the largest art museums in the country.

Now Monroe has told Geoff Edgers of the Boston Globe (in an article behind the pay wall) that, although the museum will select  a new architect this summer, the project will be delayed by three years. The scheduled opening will be 2019, not 2016, as originally conceived.

UPDATE: Dan Monroe writes me that there will be “an 18-24 month delay as a result of Rick Mather’s
passing” and that the museum had “not been working with a 2016 completion estimate
for more than a year.” The end result, though, is the same, he wrote: “We do plan to complete the expansion in 2019.”

Mather was chosen in 2011, not that long ago — so the museum will probably return to the other architects on its shortlist from that time. I have searched for the names, but have been unable to find it — so the competitors, perhaps, were not disclosed.

PEMstaircaseThe museum planned to gut a large part of the current museum, including some spaces that I have thought were were not only beautiful but unique. They contributed character, and history, to PEM. Monroe and other museum officials have said those galleries were simply not viable today. East India Hall, at left, will remain, of course, but the lovely stair case at right, was to go, as was a lovely two-level gallery

Maybe the new architect will figure out a way to keep some of them. I hope, but can’t quite imagine, that the cost of the delay will not be too high. PEM, as I wrote earlier this year in the Wall Street Journal, was on good financial footing.

A 2011 article in the Salem News provides more history and context about the expansion.