Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Cleveland Museum Expands Quietly To City’s West Side

Transformer Station, a private museum that opened to the public on February 1, has hatched a very exciting plan that will eventually give the Cleveland Museum of Art a branch on the city’s west side.

TransformerStationAn Ohio couple named Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell bought the station, which was built in 1924 and served as one of sixteen substations of the Cleveland Railway Company until 1949, and in the last couple of years have spent nearly $3 million turning the brick structure, which has 22-foot ceilings in the main hall, into a mini-museum. The station encompasses 7,944 square foot with about 3,500 square feet of gallery space, plus a catering kitchen to support events, concerts and lectures, offices and a library for the Bidwell Foundation. 

The Bidwells have been collecting photography by artists in the beginning or middle of their careers (listed here), the website says, and along with the commissions, they’ll be shown at Transformer Station in two shows a year, lasting about six months in total. The first showing of their art is called Light of Day, and the first special exhibition is called Bridging Cleveland by Vaughn Wascovich, which displays large-scale panoramic images of landmark Cleveland bridges that were commissioned by Bidwell Projects. One more is already planned.

 The Cleveland Museum has committed to program the station during the rest of the year.

What I had not focused on until today, when I read the News section of the Station’s website, is that the Bidwells have pledged to give the station to the Cleveland Museum at some date 15 or 20 years in the future – along with half of their collection, with the rest going to the Akron Art Museum.

Back in January, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer published an article that included this passage:

David Franklin, director of the Cleveland museum, said he’s elated that his institution is breaking out of University Circle for the first time in its 97-year history and that it has its first toehold on the West Side. “It’s terribly exciting,” he said. “I regard it not simply as a satellite, but as a different type of exhibition space that will create a new kind of Cleveland Museum of Art curating.” 

Now that’s exciting.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Transformer Station

 

El Anatsui: A Joy To See

ElAWdLast night, I went to a reception at the Brooklyn Museum for El Anatsui, whose work is shown in a massive exhibition called Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui. I knew it was going to be good, because I’d seen about a quarter of it as it was being installed about a month ago; besides, I’d viewed the other traveling exhibition of Anatsui’s work at the Denver Art Museum, El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa , in early January, and liked that.

ElADvrWoodThe Denver show was billed as a retrospective, “61 works cover all phases of the artist’s career, from his early work in Ghana utilizing traditional symbols to found driftwood works made in Denmark to sculptures made using the chainsaw as a carving tool. ” And it did provide a good overview of his career.

The Brooklyn exhibit is something else indeed — do not for a minute think that because you’ve seen one you need not see the other. The Brooklyn show has just 30 works, but most are truly monumental. They take up space, and they look great in Brooklyn. Anatsui is not making small things any more (that’s what I was told by dealers and curators: many collectors have asked for small, home-sized versions of his hangings, but he has turned down those requests), though this show does include some small wood sculptures/wall hangings.

ElA-hangingsOne takeaway from seeing both shows centers on Anatsui’s career — he is best known for the multi-colored hangings made from bottle caps, can tabs, and other detritus. But many of the wood works are just as fascinating. Take a look at the one posted at right, from the Brooklyn show. And Denver had several figurative wood sculptures, above left.

I am sure you have seen the multicolored hangings that glitter gold — Brooklyn has a large gallery full of them, some suspended from the ceiling, some hung on the walls. It’s wonderful to see through them, as in my photo at right.

I also took a closeup,  and here’s a detail from it, below:

ElA-Hang

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later in Brooklyn’s exhibit, there’s a stunning wall — an undulating black piece side-by-side with a bright red one. Here they are:

Bl-Red

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the side view (profile?) for that: ElA-undulate

 

 

No disrespect to Brooklyn for the getting this exhibition, but I have to point out that it was the Akron Art Museum that organized it: Ellen Rudolph, the senior curator there (as she pointed out, Akron has just two curators), did the job and she was there last night. After Brooklyn, she said, the exhibit is traveling to the Des Moines Art Center and the Bass Art Musesum in Miami – and maybe one more, as-yet-undisclosed venue. So congratulations to her — I love that this show is circulating to several small-ish museums; their publics deserve great art too.

They’ll see what I’ve seen: people walk through the galleries with wonder on their faces.

Photo Credits:  © Judith H. Dobrzynski

 

Save Cork Street?

_63473384_corkstreetFor some time now, London art dealers have been trying to save their Cork Street galleries from developers. It all started last summer, when a parcel of land was sold to a developer who wants to construct luxury apartments there. Then, another landowner decided to follow suit. Many galleries would be forced to move. I learned about it when someone started a petition to the Westminster Council on Change.org. As I write this, about 13,250 people have signed it, and there’s a website called Save Cork Street, and protesters held a rally last fall.


CorkStreetGalleryIf you go to the website, you’ll get the basics, some of which I excerpt here:

For almost 90 years, Cork Street in Mayfair has been one of the most famous streets for art galleries in London…The history and atmosphere of Cork Street, as well as its close proximity to the Royal Academy of Arts, make this a unique place to visit for collectors, art enthusiasts, students and tourists alike.

The careers of many prominent British artists – Barbara Hepworth, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, and Lynn Chadwick, to name a few – have been closely related to Cork Street.
…20 independent art dealers operate out of Cork Street and the recent proposed property developments, by The Pollen Estate and Native Land, threaten to force out over half of these historic local art businesses.
In August 2012 seven galleries on Cork Street (Adam Gallery, Alpha Gallery, Beaux Arts, Mayor Gallery, Stoppenbach & Delestre, Waterhouse & Dodd and Gallery 27), were given notice to leave their premises in June 2013.  Their landlord, the British insurance firm Standard Life Investments, has finalised a £90m deal with property developer Native Land.  This could result in the demolition of 22 to 27 Cork Street – part of a 7,700sq m (83,000sq ft) redevelopment of a site that stretches right through to Old Burlington Street.
The Pollen Estate has submitted an application to redevelop numbers 5-9, on the opposite side of Cork Street, home to another four of Cork Street’s long standing art galleries, which if approved would start in 2015.

What prompted me to write this now is an article in the Style section of Time about the situation — it adds some comments from the dealers — a bit inflammatory, imho — and concludes that culture will probably lose out to commerce at least “for the short term.”

Maybe. But once as many as the ten or so galleries involved move, there may not be a critical mass in Cork Street. On the other hand, there are other gallery district in London, and I’d guess that few galleries that left Soho for Chelsea years ago are looking back in anger.

Still, I don’t want to see ugly modern buildings in Mayfair — and that’s what we’re likely to get. You might want to sign that petition.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Save Cork Street

It Pays To Nag: SMU Creates An Arts Research/Data Center

Someone’s listening. I’ve not been the only one who’s called repeatedly for more and better information — real data — on the cultural world, but I’ve been in that camp for a long time. (For example, see here and here.)

Tonight, Southern Methodist University in Dallas is announcing an answer to those pleas: the creation of a National Center for Arts Research there. It will, according to the announcement, “aggregate and analyze the largest database of arts research ever assembled in order to create the most complete picture of the health of the arts sector in the U.S.” and draw on SMU faculty in “arts management, marketing, and statistics” to work on them. The research will be made available to the public in a “Dashboard” that is continually updated.

I was with them completely until the mention of the Dashboard. While those I’ve seen are interesting — as at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art — they don’t go deep enough, with longitudinal information to provide context. We’ll see what SMU does to use that format for more meaningful information.

BowenJoseSMU says it has “an unprecedented number of partners to contribute data, provide analysis, and create tools to make the information accessible” – “including the Cultural Data Project (formerly part of the Pew Charitable Trusts), Theatre Communications Group, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Census Bureau, the National Center for Charitable Statistics, Boston Consulting Group, TRG Arts, the Nonprofit Finance Fund and IBM.” Well, that’s good. Of course, the research coming out of this SMU Center is only as good as the data going in — and much of it is lacking.

Still, NCAR is a start in the right direction. As José Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, rightly says, “In today’s competitive environment, arts and cultural organizations, from museums to orchestras, need to do more than create great works of art. Arts organizations must have a more research-driven understanding of their markets and industry trends in order to more deeply engage existing audiences and reach new ones.”

Back in 1999, the Pew Charitable Trusts started something to collect data about arts organization (now given to SMU) as part of its plan to forge a national cultural policy, which I wrote about here in The New York Times. Unfortunately, that $50 million policy effort, all told, was later abandoned, or perhaps slimmed down radically, to be more precise.

This isn’t as easy as it looks. So I wish SMU more than luck. If you’d like to learn more, here’s the NCAR release.

 Photo Credit: Courtesy of SMU

 

Shakeup At Crystal Bridges

Having spent the entire morning on the phone with Apple support, related to iPhone and iCloud problems (do not download the later), I don’t have time to parse this announcement from Crystal Bridges, but here it is:

BigelowExecutive Director Don Bacigalupi has been “promoted” to the newly created position of president and appointed to the museum’s Board of Directors. Deputy Director for Operations and Administration Rod Bigelow (at right) has been promoted to executive director. “Both promotions are immediately effective,” says the press release.

This is a surprise, and probably not a good thing. Two people can’t both be boss — it doesn’t work. Witness the problem at the Getty all these years. One has to suspect that there is more to it.

That’s it for now.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Crystal Bridges