Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

“Art Talks” Tonight, On Google +

So what are you doing tonight at 8 p.m., EST? Want to hang out, talking about art with someone from the Museum of Modern Art?

Google hopes so. Someone there obviously see value in adding features about art, because the Google Hangout venture of the Google Art Project, scheduled to debut this evening, is the start of a series called “Art Talks.” (That’s the official announcement.)  These regularly scheduled online talks are designed to explore masterpieces, according to an account on Mashable, though the first tranche seems a bit broader than that.

Tower of BabelTonight, see MoMA’s Director of Digital Learning, Deborah Howes, who along with artists and students plan to talk about teaching art online. Post your questions for them here and here’s the link to gain access.

According to the Motley Fool,

Each month on Google Art Project’s Google+ page, partner curators, museum directors, historians, and educators will reveal the hidden stories behind famous art works and artists. The guided visits begin this week on Wednesday, March

Next up, after MoMA, is the National Gallery in London 0n Mar. 20. From there, Caroline Campbell, curator of paintings, and Arnika Schmidt, a curatorial assistant, will discuss depictions of the female nude in its collection. Following that, Art Talks move to Washington, where in April curator Peter Parshall, curator of Old Master prints, will lead a discussion of Bruegel’s “Tower of Babel.”

Various reports say that these hangouts will also involve the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angelese, the Museo Nacional de Arte of Mexico City, and Qatar’s Museum of Islamic Art.

Later, Google will post the discussions on the GAP’s YouTube channel.

Go to this page for more information.

 

News From Tacoma: Deaccessioning Lawsuit Withdrawn

The Tacoma Art Museum has resolved its dispute with the Young family. They are the descendants of the couple who had donated a collection of Qing dynasty items to the museum, which — because the museum had changed its mission — no longer fit in the collection. I wrote about the case the other day, and I did not believe the museum had handled it well.

I still don’t; moreover, the press release from Tacoma that was just sent to me about the resolution does not make clear exactly what happened.

It says, in part:

The Young family has agreed to dismiss its lawsuit against Tacoma Art Museum.

“We regret that the conversation between us, the museum, and the community took the direction that it did,” said Al Young. “We appreciate the museum hearing our concerns and we will work together to address them. We believe the museum’s increased emphasis on the work of Chinese American artists of the Northwest will fulfill our parents’ intentions.”

Tacoma Art Museum plans to continue with the second phase of the auction on March 12. It has decided to withdraw a few works that will be donated to an appropriate Northwest institution in the near future. As was always intended and relayed to the Young family, the museum will take some of the funds from the auction to purchase works by Chinese American artists and will give credit to the Youngs for their donation.

 So, probably, the choicest items in the original donation will be kept in public institutions, which is good, and the Youngs will be named as donors on the new art acquired with the money raised from the auction. Both of those are good things, and go some way toward rectifying the orignal mistake.

 

 

Paola Antonelli On The Colbert Report: Best Visual Arts TV?

I am late to this episode of the Colbert Report, but it’s quite good, so I’m sharing it anyway: it’s Paola Antonelli (below), senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, brought on at the start of her show, Applied Design, which started on Mar. 2. The show got a lot of notice because it includes the display of 14 video games, but Stephen Colbert is — as ever — more resourceful than that.

15salon368He doesn’t ask her about video games. He explores more important points of her thesis, such as where we are on the modern, post-modern, future scale. Antonelli has a great answer.

She also says that her title refers to a different dichotomy — theoretical design and applied design. In the future, and even now, design is in that way like physics. Eventually everything will disappear into our retina — not even Google glasses. And of course they go through various items to discuss good design. Throughout, she handles Colbert beautifully — and he her.

Odd, both slightly wonderful and slightly disturbing, that the Colbert Report is turning to be one of the few places to see a discussion of visual art on nationwide TV. (See here, for Neal MacGregor, and here, for Carrie Rebora Barrett.)

Hat-tip to Hyperallergic for this, which has a write-up here.

BigThink has a compendium of her commentaries.

Photo Credit: Seedmagazine

Indianapolis Retrenches — Deep Cuts

VEnableAs predicted here last week, mostly by my commenters, the Indianapolis Museum of Art announced deep personnel cuts today. According to the press release, this “strategic restructuring” involved “an 11% reduction in personnel” at the museum:

…Eight open positions will not be filled, while 19 full-time positions and two part-time positions were eliminated across all departments of the Museum.

Among those losing their jobs, I understand, are a registrar, an art handler with a 30-year tenure, the chief photographer who’s been there 20 years, one curatorial assistant, and — soon — members of the conservation staff. Savings, once severance is digested, an estimated $1.7 million a year.

The museum also said that it will henceforth place “a greater emphasis on donated and earned revenue” and less on the endowment. In recent years, the museum has depended on it endowment to fund more than 70% of its operating budget.

I agree, 70% from endowment is too much. The museum’s director, Charles Venable says it should not top 50%. That’s not a bad goal. (For more discussion of what’s optimal, see this post on the Peabody Essex Museum.)

The question is always how the museum increases earned income. Mounting “popular” exhibitions purely to draw big crowds rarely works. It cannot be sustained, the museum tends to lose some core visitors, and costs mount to do the big shows.

That’s my early thinking on this.

UPDATE: I’ve reread the press release carefully, and in it, Venable announces a shift in focus to more audience-centered thinking about programming and including two minor moves: the relocation of “the welcome desk to the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion and a shift in training for the Gallery Guards to become Gallery Guides are meant to create a more welcoming atmosphere.”  Basically, he is saying “stay tuned.” The museum is using audience research to tell it what to do. I predict rough days ahead. Audiences are fickle. It’s best to pay some attention, perhaps, but to do what you (the expert) know is right.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Indianapolis Star 

Tacoma Goofed. What’s The Deaccessioning Lesson?

We all make mistakes. The Tacoma Art Museum, I believe, just made a big one — and since it’s about deaccessioning, it’s worth some examination.

iLbG3.St.5As chronicled in the Tacoma News-Tribune, the art sales in question began because a few years back the Tacoma museum decided to refocus on Northwest art. In its collection was a cache of Qing dynasty robes, scroll paintings and silk purses, and 41 pieces of jade jewelry.  The collection, described as “richly embroidered…silk jackets, robes and skirts” and “jade items varied from shades of green to white and yellow, many exquisitely carved” had been exhibited at the museum a couple of times and the jade had once been on permanent display. The items had been donated by a Chinese-American couple, named Young, in 1976, and they were supposedly valued recently at about $70,000. 

But when a third of the trove was sold recently at Bonham’s, bringing $230,000, museum officials were ecstatic, but eyebrows went up elsewhere.

The descendants of the Youngs had been notified before the sale, and they apparently agreed to it (the museum had sold some of the jade  in the 1990s without consulting the family). The money from this sale was to be used to buy works by Northwest Chinese -American artists.

But the family had been told the items were in poor condition plus, they learned after the sale, the museum’s website had once labeled them as not-of-museum-quality. If so, why the high prices? Other discrepancies, such as an incomplete inventory and exaggerated talk of trying to place the items with other museum, contributed to the mess. They led to charges by the Youngs of cultural disrespect and lack of appreciation for the Chinese presence in the northwest since the 1800s. A group is now trying to halt the sale of the rest of the Young collection, which is set for March 12.

121RMZ.St.5That’s an incomplete summary of a long article that you can read here.

What should the Tacoma museum have done? For one, it’s unclear to me whether or not the Young collection fits the new mission, which neither defines Northwest art nor limits it to a certain period. Here’s what it says:

Tacoma Art Museum serves the diverse communities of the Northwest through its collection, exhibitions, and learning programs, emphasizing art and artists from the Northwest. Our vision is to be a national model for regional museums by creating a dynamic museum that engages, inspires, and builds community through art.

True, the art involved was not made in the Northwest, but “emphasizing”  does not exclude art made elsewhere, especially if it “serves the diverse communities.”
 
Second, it does sound — if the Youngs are to be believed, and they are not contradicted by the museum on several points — as if the descendents were not given full information before they acquiesed to the sale. That’s always a bad policy — the coverup is usually worse than the crime.
 
Third, when a museum changes its mission — and one hopes that is not too often — I do believe it is incumbent upon the museum to place the collections that no longer fit at other public institutions — even if the only possible arrangement is a long-term loan. That was not done in this case.
 
The museum says it will lose money if it stops the sale; it should have thought about that before consigning.
 
Photo Credits: Courtesy of Bonham’s, via the Tacoma News-Tribune
 
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