Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Corcoran Catch-Up: Lesser Of Two Evils Or A Third Choice?

Last week, the group called Save the Corcoran (a museum which as you’ll all remember is suffering from poor leadership, lack of ideas and perhaps lack of convictions) emailed me their endorsement of a man named Wayne Reynolds to become the Corcoran’s new board chair. Now that I’ve had time to see what this would mean, I wonder if they have read the fine print.

The ReynoldsReynolds, the husband of Catherine Reynolds (both are shown at right), who some years back got rich on student lending and attempted to give millions of dollars to the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History. There was a kerfuffle about her wanting to influence the content of the Hall of Famous Americans and whether it could be named, etc. and I think the donation was retracted. That may be immaterial, but it might say something about the Reynolds brand of philanthropy.

Her husband recently stepped down as chair of Ford’s Theater, where he helped raise $54 million in a capital campaign and became a local hero. Now he is making an activist bid to chair the Corcoran board. As Save the Corcoran’s release said:

Wayne Reynolds has a vision for a future Corcoran. His track record at Ford’s Theatre and other endeavors indicates that he can take on a struggling institution and create something thriving,” said Jayme McLellan, former adjunct faculty at theCorcoran and a founding member of Save the Corcoran. “He believes in theCorcoran and has a desperately-needed vision to transform it into an innovative creative center dedicated to art and arts education.”

Yes, but what is the vision?

According to a March 5 article in the Washington Post, Reynolds

proposes what he calls the Corcoran Center for Creativity. He would expand the Corcoran College of Art and Design, adding a stronger focus on technology and new media, along with the traditional arts disciplines. He would de-emphasize the gallery, arguing that it can’t compete with the free, federally funded galleries in town.

Most controversially, he proposes selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art that rarely, if ever, gets displayed and is not central to founder William Corcoran’s original charge in 1869 for the institution to encourage “American genius.” The money would establish a huge endowment for the first time in the Corcoran’s history.

What? Save the Corcoran opposed the current regime for trying to sell the building, but endorses a new guy who wants to sell the collection? That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Reynolds has financial clout, and other people are backing him. The Post even endorsed him in an editorial. It began:

THOUGH UNORTHODOX, the unabashedly public bid by Wayne Reynolds to take over leadership of the troubled Corcoran Gallery of Art cannot and should not be dismissed. The philanthropist has credentials and resources in getting struggling institutions to thrive — as evidenced by his work in turning around Ford’s Theatre. More importantly, he has articulated a much-needed vision for the Corcoran that would bring it into the 21st century while still staying true to the 19th-century charge of its founder.

But the Corcoran’s current board is balking, no doubt put off by his charges that “It’s shameful what’s happened there.” Trustees are on their own track and don’t want interference — or some newcomer coming in with a broom to sweep clean.

Maybe if they would hurry up and decide what they’re going to do, and start raising some money, they can prevent Reynolds from taking over. If not, not.

I’m not sure which is the lesser of two evils. I’d like a third choice.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Washington Post

Way-Out Solution For LA-MOCA: Dump Deitch And Hire…

I’ve been thinking about the Museum of Contemporary Art’s struggles in Los Angeles since news broke in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday that the LA County Museum of Art had essentially made a takeover bid for the troubled museum. In case you missed it:

…The acquisition offer was made in a letter from the leaders of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or LACMA, to the co-chairs of the MOCA board.

LACMA would preserve MOCA’s two downtown locations and operate them under the MOCA name. With money an obvious issue for MOCA’s future, the letter guaranteed that LACMA would raise $100 million for the combined museums as a condition of the deal.

“MOCA has a great brand, a great history and its art collection is known and loved internationally,” Michael Govan, LACMA’s executive director, said. “Combining the two museums would create one of the largest and most significant art museums in the U.S.”

It’s not a bad idea. Govan argues, in a post on LACMA’s website, that

Combining LACMA and MOCA would strengthen both. LACMA’s mission is to share world-class art with the widest array of audiences possible. MOCA’s downtown location, extraordinary collection and devoted constituency, combined with LACMA’s modern art masterpieces, large audiences and broad educational outreach (especially in schools near downtown L.A.) would create a cultural institution that is much more than the sum of its parts. LACMA’s strong leadership, its history of fundraising, and its support from Los Angeles County and other donors will provide MOCA with the stability it deserves.

It’s not the best solution, either. I’d rather have more, rather than fewer, views of contemporary art. I think Govan has plenty on his plate already without adding MOCA.

So how to preserve MOCA’s independence? First, Jeffrey Deitch has to go. Now. The museum cannot afford to lose any more people, and it must return to a respected exhibition program.

KoshalekThen, it needs a new director who, with the board, will be able  to stablize the museum. Someone who knows the lay of the land. Someone with directorial experience. Now, what experienced director would take this job? Only one: former MOCA director Richard Koshalek, now running the Hirshhorn Museum. Soon, Koshalek’s contract will expire, I understand. His dream of erecting an Inflatable Seasonal Structure at the Hirshhorn for programming and creating a culural think-tank, is all but dead. He has no reason to stay, ifhe;s asked, so he’ll be free to leave Washington.

But Koshalek, I’m guessing, is thinking about his legacy. He’s past 70. Although he had a troubled time as president of the Pasadena Art Center College of Design, when he left MOCA in 1999, after 20 years, it had a healthy endowment (about $50 million, I’m told), and was well-respected for its collections and its exhibitions. And his hires, including Paul Schimmel and Ann Goldstein.

Sure times have changed since  he left LA,  but his return to MOCA for the next couple of years might be just the way to stop the civil war at the museum, get it back on its feet, raise a substantial amount of money, take its time developing succession plans, etc.

Would Koshalek take it? I’m betting yes.

 

 

Worcester Art Museum — A Real Merger

While everyone is thinking about the possible merger between the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, a real merger of museums was announced on Friday: the Worcester Art Museum and the Higgins Armory Museum.

St.GeorgeYou may know little about the Higgins, but it claims to be the only U.S. museum devoted solely to armor, with “4000 pieces in all, includ[ing] major examples of arms and armor from medieval and Renaissance Europe, Ancient Greece and Rome, Africa, the Middle East, India, and Japan.” It was founded by John Woodman Higgins, “a prominent Worcester industrialist during the early 1900s, [who] spent a lifetime building his collection. In 1929 he began construction of a five-story building to house it, and in 1931 the John Woodman Higgins Armory opened its doors to the public.”

Unfortunately, it was not earning its keep and the Higgins has been running a deficit. It chose at first to draw down money from its endowment, but that did not solve the problem. Trustees looked around and decided to talk to the Worcester Art Museum about transferring the collection to it. Discussions have been taking place for more than a year, the vote took place last fall. As a result, after the Higgins closes in December, most of its collections will move to the Worcester Art Museum. More details can be found here, on the Higgins’s website.

Higgins1580This makes perfect sense for Worcester, where director Matthias Waschek has been laboring hard to revive the museum, with some successes. Last year, he succcessfully raised money to reopen its historic entrance and provide free admission during the summer months. He recently hired a director of audience engagement (?) and won money from the Mellon Foundation to hire a curator of American art. However, a recent restructing of staff led to a layoff of six people — hard to tell from the outside whether those positions were needed, or not, but for the people involved, it was unhappy.

Waschek sees the Higgins collection as an opportunity to attract more families to the museum. The Higgins, according to the Boston Globe, actually attracted more visitors last year than Worcester — 60,000 versus 46,000 — largely because of the family interest.

I applaud the trustees of the Higgins for finding a viable solution that keeps its collection in the public domain, and transferring, too, the remaining endowment, which the Globe put at nearly $3 million. Let’s see what Waschek does with it — starting next year.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Higgins Armory Museum

Why Isn’t The Met’s Chinese Exhibition On Its Website?

It was months ago when I first learned that the Metropolitan Museum of Art* was organizing an exhibition from its permanent collection to send to China. It came to pass in February, when Earth, Sea and Sky: Nature in Western Art — Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in Beijing, at the National Museum of China.

VanGogh-MetBilled as exploring “the grand theme of nature as it has been depicted by painters, sculptors, and decorative artists in Europe, America, and the Near East, from antiquity to the present day,” the show was something I wanted to see. But the Met organized it with foreign audiences in mind, and has no plans to put these 130 works on view — in this form. Of course, they’ve probably all been on view at various times in their respective departments and probably temporary exhibits, too. Still, I wanted to see the sweep, just as Chinese visitors and before that Japanese visitors are seeing the show. The works sent by the Met

are masterful representations of landscape, flora, and fauna rendered in a wide range of media including painting, ceramics, tapestry, silver, stone, and bronze. Highlights include works by such major artists as Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet, Tiffany, Hopper, and Atget, as well as anonymous masters from the ancient and medieval worlds.

They include the van Gogh Cypresses and the Tiffany vase shown here.

So the other evening, at the ADAA Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory, when I ran into a Met official and heard a little about installation differences between New York and China (nothing serious, but one difficulty was resolved by placing plinths under big paintings), I asked the normal question for these days:

Can I see any pictures up on the Met’s website?

I was disappointed to hear “no.” Then I was pleasantly pleased to hear that  my co-conversationalist thought my idea was a good one and said, “we should do that.”

TiffanyVase-MetS/he promised to get pictures from Beijing and get them up there so everyone can see part of this landmark installation.

This was the Met’s first large cultural exchange with China, but there will surely be more. And director Tom Campbell, I understand, will soon be leaving for India, to poke around there at museums and to see what cultural exchanges might be arranged there.

All this is a good thing; I just want to see some of it too — even if only in a manifestation on the web.

So: sometimes the simplest things make great website material. Don’t overlook them.

The New York Times covered the exchange on Jan. 31.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum 

*I consult to a foundation that support the Met

What Happened At Google’s Art Hangout?

Well, I didn’t see it myself, yet, but the commenters on the Google + site for its new Art Talks series, which I wrote about here, seemed mostly satisfied.

One man, from Italy wrote: “…this is a very interesting project. We would like to air the next episodes of the Google Art Project live on national TV in Italy, especially the Art Talk with the London National Gallery with Caroline Campbell, Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500. Do you think this could be possible? If so, can I ask you to help me get the proper authorization?”

That’s in line with Italy’s usual interest in visual arts TV, though I don’t think that’s what Google had in mind.

There was apparently some confusion about getting onto the right site, and whether Google provided enough capacity — which is strange because the Google hangouts I’ve seen seem to have endless capacity.

For what it’s worth, the YouTube stream is here: http://youtu.be/UfGk8VNtOmk and the recorded #ArtTalk is available on the Art Project and MoMA YouTube channels.