Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Those Infamous Chinese Bronzes Are Headed Home

Two Chinese bronzes, a rat head and a rabbit head, allegedly looted from Beijing’s Summer Palace in the 19th century, owned for a while by Yves Saint Laurent, “purchased” at the auction of his art in 2009 for $37.7 million by a Chinese national who then refused to pay, are headed home.

ratheadAnd it’s all about business. Late last week, French billionaire François-Henri Pinault — son of Francois Pinault, the art-collecting titan who apparently bought them a while back — has now said that his family will give them back to China, “their rightful home.” They were sold by Christie’s, which Pinault’s firm Artemis owns. He also controls PPR, which is changing its name to Kering. PPR sells luxury goods with brand names like Gucci and Bottega Veneta and does close to 10% of its business in mainland China. Besides, as The Wall Street Journal reported:

The move also follows the Chinese government’s decision to grant a license to Christie’s, making it the first international fine art auction house to operate independently in mainland China, based in Shanghai. Previously, Christie’s was restricted to a licensing deal with a local Chinese auction house. Christie’s said it expects to hold its first sale this autumn.

Quid pro quo? We don’t know. But Sotheby’s has to sell art in China with a local partner.

French president Francois Hollande is in China with a group of business executives, including Pinault, trying to get more business for French companies from China. Pinault made his announcement at a state dinner in Beijing Thursday night.

The New York Times also covered the move by Pinault, adding reaction from the Chinese government: “The Chinese side offers its high praise for this action and considers that it conforms with the spirit of relevant international cultural heritage protection treaties.” It also supplied trade and diplomacy information:

France has a significant trade deficit with China and wants more Chinese investment. But the French president is under some pressure to raise human rights issues with the new Communist Party leadership. Mr. Hollande doled out his criticisms more freely when he was simply the leader of the Socialist Party.

rabbit headMr. Hollande wants to reassure the Chinese that his government will protect the security of Chinese tourists in France and intends to discuss making it easier for Chinese to obtain visas.

The heads are to go home to China by year-end. And what happened to the other heads in the zodiac that these two are part of? According to GB Times, a company based in Finland that covers Chinese news for the rest of the world:

By the end of 2012, the heads of ox, tiger, monkey, pig and horse had been brought back to China and are being kept by The China Poly Group. The dragon head is reportedly in Taiwan, while the heads of snake, sheep, rooster, and dog still remain missing.

To refresh your memory, yes, these are the animal heads — two from a zodiac — that Ai Weiwei made new sculptures of (all 12) and which have been on display in various venues for the last few years.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of GB Times

 

 

 

In Art, A Male-Female Difference

As long as I can remember, I’ve been troubled by what I have here called “the male gap,” the fact that art seems to be much more appreciated by women than men. At least it’s women who go to museums more frequently. I don’t think that’s because of museum hours anymore — though it used to be. Most women now work, and museums have more night hours. But women still outnumber men at art museums — museum directors tell me that, and even government statistics, weak as they are on arts numbers, bear that out.

ManatMoMAI think it’s partly because viewing art isn’t seen as a manly activity. Art-making is, but not art-looking.

A long time ago, I wanted to write a piece called Real Men Do Love Art — a takeoff, for those don’t remember, on the 1982 book Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche. I never did, but part of my argument was going to be about collecting — the competitive aspect of collecting. Men like to compete more than women do.

My idea had been ignored (by me) for a long time, but I thought of it several days ago when I was talking with an editor at The New York Times. I mentioned the big gift by Leonard Lauder to the Met and added that most of the big collectors, both of the past and the present, were men. I told her why I thought it was so. That’s how The Art of the Hunt, which was published in the Sunday Review section today, came about. Of course, I did reporting in between the thought and the writing to back up my thoughts.

There are exceptions, of course. I say that. The question now is how to make more men, who can’t compete in buying art for lack of money, go to museums. Art appreciation shouldn’t be considered a feminine activity. Here’s a thought for corroboration: In French, “art” is a masculine noun.

 

Perez Collection Disappoints Some: Buyers Remorse?

The controversy over the Miami Art Museum, which traded its name for $35 million to Jorge Perez in 2011, had died down. Trustees who quit over the decision and outside opponents (including me) had no choice but to grin and bear it: the $220 million project proceeded despite complaints that the Perez gift was not large enough in the whole context of the building. Nor were questions about the quality of the art he was giving as part of the gift ever answered.

roberto-matta-315pxNow they are coming back. Since March 14, the museum has been showing a selection of the works Perez donated — the first look by the public. Frames of Reference, on view through June 2, includes some 45 works by the likes of “José Bedia, Beatriz González, Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta Echaurren, Diego Rivera, and Joaquín Torres-Garcia, among others,” according to the press release (which, by the way, pegs his gift now at $40 million). It’s the last show in the museum’s current space; it moves to the new Herzog & de Meuron building in December.

The exhibit has sparked two responses. In the Miami Herald, Anne Tschida put the show in context:

…this is not a complete survey of Latin American art, and it should not be viewed as such. These are framed references to the origins of certain genres of modern and contemporary Latin painting, mostly figurative, from lands below our border; they are also specifically references to the world of the man who collected them.

…What jumps out next is that this doesn’t look like a typical Miami show. Our emphasis and strength has been contemporary art — often art made in the decade of this century. Because of the newness of our institutions and even our art scene, we rarely see big, sprawling shows focused on earlier eras.

Tschida likes some of the works, particularly Matta’s Crucificción (above), but notes that others, specifically the early works by Lam and Rivera, are not top-rate. But she’s willing to wait to see the remaining 65 paintings in the gift before making a judgement.
Over at the Miami New Times, however, art critic Carlos Suarez De Jesus is not happy. He calls the show a “thorough sampling” of the 110, and says “it also raises worrying questions about whether the Pérez Art Museum Miami’s permanent collection will match its world-class facility…the collection lacks the cutting-edge punch the museum will need to equal the excitement surrounding the new building on Biscayne Bay designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron.”
He too singles out the Lam and Rivera as second-rate, says the exhibit “doesn’t inspire great hope for MAM’s new permanent collection” and adds “Inside MAM’s old home on Flagler, viewers are left with the impression of a collection checked off a wish list by someone with a picky taste for the traditional rather than the adventurous.”
I would think that the museum would have put out the best from the 110-painting gift in this exhibit, considering the questions the public had. For now, that gives the edge to the view of Suarez De Jesus.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Miami Art Museum 

People In The News Lately

Pepper HenryLet’s catch up on a few personnel changes announced in recent days:

The first, and should be biggest, news: Jim Leach resigned yesterday from his job as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The fact that this did not make news says something about his tenure there. I watch for the NEH’s grant announcements — which go to more museums than many people realize — and I think it supports some excellent projects. But Leach, imho, was not very effective as the chief. partly because he chose to embark on a civility tour of the country — making speeches about the need to be civil. I’m all for that, but I don’t think that was his job.

It’s true that Leach also launched a “Bridging Cultures” program, which was “designed to promote understanding and mutual respect for diverse groups within the United States and abroad.” Sotto voce, people always said this was about trying to help people understand Islam and Muslims in America — and getting all minorities to learn American history and values, too. I have not seen results. Leach leaves the first week in May, and Deputy Chairman Carole Watson will be the acting head.

The Heard Museum in Phoenix has a new director: James Pepper Henry (at right), who most recently was director of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center in Alaska. “There,” according to the press release, “he oversaw the completion of the museum’s $110 million, 80,000-square-foot expansion, including the debut of the new Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center exhibition hall and the new Imaginarium Discovery Center.” Pepper Henry is a sculptor and member of the Kaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Muscogee Creek Nation. He’s put in time in various positions at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the Kanza Museum inKaw City, Okla.; the Portland Art Museum; the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center in Portland, Ore.; and the Institute of Alaska Native Arts in Fairbanks. He starts at the Heard on Aug. 5.

Darby EnglishA very plum job at the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts went today to Darby English, an associate professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago. He will take over from Michael Ann Holly as the next Starr Director of the Clark’s Research and Academic Program. That means English will oversee the Clark’s residential scholars’ program — which past participants tell me is a fabulous gig — as well as its international programs and partnerships.

English, the press release says, “graduated from Williams College in 1996 with a degree in art history and philosophy and earned a doctorate in visual and cultural studies from the University of Rochester in 2002. He has served on the University of Chicago’s faculty since 2003, teaching modern and contemporary art and cultural studies. He served as the assistant director of the Research and Academic Program from 1999 through 2003.” He has also written How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness (MIT Press, 2007).

Finally, not a personnel change, but an award: Rem Koolhaas has won the Johannes Vermeer Award, given each year by the Dutch state, and intended “for artists working in the Netherlands and across all disciplines, ranging from dance to design, from fashion to music, from writing to painting.” He gets €100,000, which he is supposed to us to complete a project. Last year, Marlene Dumas won the prize.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Heard (top) and Clark (bottom)

 

 

MoMA Faces More Opposition To Folk Art Museum Plans

The Museum of Modern Art has been getting a lot of pushback on its decision to demolish the American Folk Art Museum — it’s increasing, rather than diminishing, and more big names are joining in. For example, the Architectural League of New York has just sent an open letter to MoMA against the plan, signed not only by Annabelle Selldorf, the League’s President, but by Thom Mayne, Hugh Hardy, Richard Meier, Wendy Evans Joseph, Frances Halsband, Robert A.m. Stern, Michael Bierut, and others (many members of the board of directors). It says, in AmFolkArtMuseumfull:

The Architectural League calls on the Museum of Modern Art to reconsider its decision to demolish the American Folk Art Museum. The Museum of Modern Art—the first museum with a permanent curatorial department of architecture and design—should provide more information about why it considers it necessary to tear down this significant work of contemporary architecture. The public has a substantial and legitimate interest in this decision, and the Museum of Modern Art has not yet offered a compelling justification for the cultural and environmental waste of destroying this much-admired, highly distinctive twelve-year-old building.

The Folk Art Museum, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, was sold to MoMA in 2011, and — truth be told — joining it to MoMA would not be easy. The floors don’t line up and, worse, the galleries, imho, are not ideal for showing art. They are small, irregular and dark. Unfortunately, many museum buildings are not great for showing art. So MoMA announced its plan to demolish the building by year-end and start afresh.

Several anti-MoMA petitions are circulating. One, started by Robert Bundy of New Haven, Ct. on Change.org, has 2,777 signatures as of this writing. It asks MoMA to save the building. Another on Change.org, started by Christopher Brandt of Rochester, seeks the same and has 2,984 signatures now. The Petition Site has one with 185 signatures, and SignOn.org has one with just three signers at the moment.

All this shows that today’s social media are making life a lot more complicated for everyone.

What else should be learned from this? Museum boards and directors should be far more careful about they get from architects to begin with. They’re the client; the architect is not the boss. The Williams-Tsien building may have been a little better suited to the folk art collection than it is for MoMA’s — but not much. It’s sad that a building may come down after just 12 years in existence, but I’m still wondering why it was approved in the first place.