Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

So What Are The 50 Best “Galleries” In the World?

Thanks to Yale’s Center for British Art, which is trumpeting its position, we all get to see which art museums around the world the Times of London thinks outshine all the others.

British-ArtOn May 4, it published the world’s greatest 50 galleries (by which it means art museums) and on May 11 the world’s 50 best museums (by which it means those not about art exclusively). Both lists are behind the Times’s pay wall. But the Yale Center (at right), which won the No. 15 slot on the first roster — incredulously beating out the Tate Modern, the Vatican Museums, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Pompidou Centre, among others — wants people to know. So it has posted the list here.

These lists are meant to be provocative: Is the Prado really better than the Louvre or the Metropolitan Museum? Is MoMA better than the Met (please!)? But I have little problem with the top  14. They’re the best, if not necessarily in the order I would place them. How YCBA managed to beat out those listed above, and many more high-quality museums, was surely meant to start arguments.

The list is supposed to be global, but it’s quite Euro-centric, and the U.S. gets short shrift. No Art Institute of Chicago, no MFA, no Philadelphia Art Museum. Yet there is — get this — the Museum of Bad Art in Boston, there at No. 50. And the Whitney is there, too — I like the Whitney, but over these others, not.

I use these lists for another purpose. I made sure I get to as many as possible. As of now, I have seen just 35 of the 50. I’d better get a move on.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Yale University

 

Young Audiences: How To Get Them

SFMOMALast week, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art issued a press release stating that it had raised 89% of the goal of its capital campaign three years ahead of schedule and therefore was increasing the goal from $555 million to $610 million. I didn’t pay too much attention until I read the final line of the explanation:

The additional funds will enable SFMOMA to pursue three goals: to become a national leader in digital engagement; to pursue an expanded art commissioning program in the museum’s public spaces; and to increase accessibility to the museum, particularly for school-age children. As part of this new campaign goal, the museum also announced a $5 million challenge grant from an anonymous donor, with the aim of creating a $10 million endowed fund that would enable SFMOMA to offer free admission to all visitors ages 18 and under.

That is one way to get younger audiences, and it made me go look at other museum policies. My quick survey turned up these results:

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney, you have to be less than 18 years old to get in free.

At MoMA in New York, people under 16 are admitted free.

At the Guggenheim, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Seattle Museum of Art, children 12 and under are admitted free.

At at MFA-Houston and the Denver Art Museum, kids 5 and under are admitted free.

And at MFA-Boston, it’s complicated: children 6 and under are always free; childen 7 to 17 are free after 3 p.m. on weekdays, and all day on weekends and public holidays.

I’m not one who believes that art museums should be free in all circumstances — if they are, great; if they can’t afford it, don’t do it. But I do think that museums who now charge for those between 5 and — what? — 17 might rethink their policies. Kudos to the anonymous donor in San Francisco for raising the issue and doing something about it. Maybe other donors out there will draw inspiration from her/his example.

 

Chronological Installations: Will The Tate Turn The Tide?

For some time now, many museums have been reinstalling their permanent collections in new ways, moving away from a chronological progression to more thematic placements. Supposedly, thematic hangings are easier for visitors to understand — at least that’s the usual explanation for them.

Visitors walk through the new galleriesNow we have the Tate reversing course. Beginning today,

…visitors can experience the national collection of British art in a continuous chronological display – a walk through time from the 1500s to the present day. BP Walk through British Art will comprise around 500 artworks over a newly configured sequence of over 20 galleries. The displays include works by major artists such as Francis Bacon, John Constable, William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs, J.M.W. Turner, Gwen John, Stanley Spencer, L.S. Lowry, John Everett Millais, Bridget Riley, Damien Hirst, David Hockney, and Rachel Whiteread.

Brother, do I hate that “BP Walk through…” credit line, but that’s another post. Oh yeah, and another.

The Tate (I know it doesn’t use the article, but I do…) has also devoted new rooms to William Blake and Henry Moore, joining the Clore galleries that display the works of J.M.W. Turner, and now, Constable, too. It has also hung works by England’s first female professional  painter, Mary Beale, including the portrait posted here, in an attempt to show more women artists.

Portrait of a Young Girl circa 1681 by Mary Beale 1633-1699But it’s the rehang that is of interest.  Since 2000, the Tate Britain has mixed artists and periods in its galleries. The upside is this new approach (see this slide show), as the Tate, puts it:

The new chronological approach offers a fresh perspective highlighting surprising juxtapositions of art created within a few years of each other but rarely associated. An early Gainsborough landscape hangs side by side with Hogarth’s satires. The frolicking female nudes of Alma Tadema’s A Favourite Custom 1909, the epitome of Victorian revivalism, are seen next to Walter Sickert’s gritty modernist icon La Hollandaise 1906. Often separated when hung by movement or genre, the chronological presentation allows a more neutral view of the range of art being produced at any one historical moment to emerge.

Here’s more in the press release.

The Guardian rather approves. So does Richard Dorment in The Telegraph: “The permanent galleries have been rethought and re-modelled in a way that at last allows us to see the richness and variety of a national collection that in recent years has been lost to view….it is gloriously, satisfyingly, reactionary.” And the Times of London, though only subscribers can see past the first paragraph.

Might this signal a trend? I think I hope so.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of The Guardian (top); the Tate (bottom)

 

Getting More Expansive, Dallas Collectors Spread Out

Funny thing about collecting: Most of the time, collections simply grow, rarely shrinking, and they need more space. Case in point: Dallas collectors Cindy and Howard Rachofsky. They and another couple, Amy and Vernon Faulconer, are opening a building to show their collections called The Warehouse. It’s 18,000 sq. ft. and is a joint venture with another couple, Amy and Vernon Faulconer. The first show is titled Parallel Views: Italian and Japanese Art from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The Warehouse will also sometimes borrow works from other private collections and museums, too.  (Hat tip to The Art Newspaper.)

Rachofsky HouseYou’ll recall that the Rachofskys had shown some of their collection in their home, which was designed by Richard Meier (at left). Its website now says that that is closed to the public, and that the couple has:

moved all of our educational programming to The Warehouse. This will include all middle school, high school, university, and museum group visits, as well as more in-depth programs. The Warehouse is a new art space developed by two collecting couples – the Faulconers and the Rachofskys. The building contains about 18,000 square feet of exhibition space, divided into 16 galleries, and will show works from both the Rachofsky and Faulconer collections. We are very excited about the experience with art in this new space.

The Warehouse is accessible by guided visit only, and it’s free.

It’s also open only to groups in pre-arranged visits, though individuals may go to Sunday Open Houses and Friday Public Visits.

The Rachofskys are part of the collectors’ group in Dallas that in 2005 agreed to donate hundreds of millions of dollars to the Dallas Museum of Art. Their bequest, at the time at least, involved “about 400 works by Mr. Richter, Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman, Sigmar Polke, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Tom Friedman, Kiki Smith, Robert Gober, Mona Hatoum, Jim Hodges, Robert Irwin and others. It also includes the house that Mr. Rachofsky, a hedge fund manager, began building in the 1980’s as a residence and came to use as a gallery when it was completed in 1996,” according to The New York Times.

That house was about 10,000 sq. ft. So they are nearly doubling their space with The Warehouse.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Rachofskys

 

Peer Review: The Best Exhibitions and Publications of 2012

Praise from peers is often the most meaningful, as long as it’s not politicized; that’s why I pay attention to the awards for excellence awarded each year by the Association of Art Museum Curators. The other day, that organization gave the blue ribbon to 11 exhibitions, catalogues and articles from 2012.

InventingAbstractionOne exhibition “swept” in that it won two of the 11: Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925: How A Radical Idea Changed Modern Art, which was organized by Leah Dickerman with Masha Chlenova at The Museum of Modern Art, won in the Outstanding Thematic Exhibition and Outstanding Thematic Exhibition Catalogue categories.

The three other exhibition awards went to:

  • Judith Mann and Babette Bohn, curators for the Saint Louis Art Museum, for Federico Barocci: Renaissance Master, in the Outstanding Monographic or Retrospective Exhibition category.
  • Charles W. Haxthausen, curator at Williams College Museum of Art, for his Sol LeWitt: The Well-Tempered Grid show in the Outstanding Exhibition in a University Museum category.
  • ExtravagentInventionsYaëlle Biro, curator for the Metropolitan Museum, the nation’s largest art museum, in the Outstanding Small Exhibition (based on square footage: no more than 2,000 square feet) award for her African Art, New York, and the Avant-Garde. That’s a bit ironic, but it demonstrates that even small fish in big ponds can thrive and win notice.

Another Met curator, Wolfram Koeppe, won the award for best monographic catalogue for his Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens, published by the Met for his exhibition there last year (which was terrific).


Audubon'sAviaryThe other winner, in the Outstanding Permanent Collection catalogue niche, went to Roberta J.M. Olson with contributions by Marjorie Shelley and Alexandra Mazzitelli, at the New-York Historical Society for their Audubon’s Aviary: The Original Watercolors for “The Birds of America”.

Finally, Jon L. Seydl, of the Cleveland Museum of Art won for best catalogue essay, “The Last Days of Pompeii,” in the catalogue of that name by Victoria Gardner Coates, Kenneth Lapatin, Jon L. Seydl, et al.

The curators association also awarded three honorable mentions, which are listed here, along with the winners.