Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

A Window On Museum News In Japan

It’s not often that we see news from museums in Japan, come to think of it. So I clicked on the link to a headline I saw today in The Japan Times: Japan’s Public Museums Enjoy a Makeover. They, in turns out, are facing some of the same issues as American museums — but in some cases much later.

800px-Tokyo_metropolitan_art_museum01_1920For example, the article says that 2012 saw the “introduction of the new national indemnity system. This means that museums no longer have to pay the full cost of insurance for artworks they borrow from overseas” and adds that the U.S. indemnity system was adopted in 1975. Will it increase the exchange of art between Japanese and foreign museums? I hope so.

The article reports modernization at two important museums. One, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (left) in Ueno, reopened in April after “a massive, two-year renovation.” The work included “an increase in the ceiling height of the main galleries from 3.2 meters to 4.5 meters,” which will allow more contemporary art to be shown. And the museum added “three brand-new restaurants, a doubling in the size of the museum shop and more.” Well, it has to make money somehow.

At the other, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, galleries were rearranged for better showing of the art, and management decided to reemphasize the permanent collection — good.

The article’s author also praised the kinds of exhibitions being presented: “They produced some very good solo shows for Japan’s often-neglected mid-career artists.” Also good.

While by no means comprehensive, The Japan Times’s story provides a window on what’s happening at museums we know too little about.

 

 

 

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fa20121227a1.html

Glad to Leave 2012 Behind: The American Folk Art Museum

800px-The_American_Folk_Art_MuseumThe Wall Street Journal has a short story today suggesting why the American Folk Art Museum (now, at left) should be glad 2012 is over. In addition to having to sell its showcase building (at right, below) — erected at a time of hubris — move back into its smaller space, and take other remedial measures over the last two years, the museum apparently agreed yesterday to forfeit some 210 objects it had been promised by longtime benefactor Ralph Esmerian, “the former jewelry dealer who last year was sentenced to a six-year prison term on wire fraud and other charges.”

The works, not yet in the museum’s legal possession (though some seem to have been on view), would be lost as part of a deal to settle bankruptcy claims. The WSJ says that “the trustee for the case and the museum negotiated a settlement in which the museum would keep 53 of the 263 promised gifts. On Wednesday, the trustee filed a motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to approve the settlement. A call to the trustee was not returned.”

The museum’s website does not yet have the announcement of this deal posted.

1281455643-american_folk_art_museumBut the WSJ says that museum officials chose the 53 items they were able to keep, with the rest likely going up for sale at auction.

“These 53 were the most important to the museum because they would enhance the collection,” said Ms. [Barbara] Livenstein, [the spokeswoman]. “We were eager to arrive at this compromise and get it behind us.”

If the settlement is approved, the museum will be able to keep items like the 1848 painting “Situation of America,” which is currently on view in the museum’s exhibition at the South Street Seaport Museum. High-quality examples of folk art genres such as needlework, fraktur (handwritten manuscripts) and scrimshaw, as well as portraits and sculptures, will also be retained.

Earlier this month, the museum’s new director, Anne-Imelda Radice, posted a Letter from the Director that also focused on the future and highlight’s the museum’s traveling exhibitions and influences on the Venice Biennale and other activities.

Radice seems to have, at least, stablized the museum. But it still has a long way to go before becoming vibrant again. Let’s hope 2013 begins a real turnaround.

 

 

 

 

Iwan Baan’s Path To Stardom, Courtesy of Hurricane Sandy

IWBA-0001-682x1024What’s that old line about making good by doing good? It applies to Iwan Baan, the Dutch photographer who the day after Hurricane Sandy hit New York City took what turned out to be an iconic image from the air. It showed Manhattan half in the dark, half in the light, crystallizing the line already in circulation that New York was a tale of two cities. New York Magazine commissioned the photo for its Nov. 12 cover.

Baan is an established architecture photographer who now, because of that image, called The City and the Storm, has made the leap into the art gallery world. He was picked up recently by Perry Rubenstein, and will have an exhibition at Rubenstein’s  Los Angeles space beginning Feb. 20.

But here’s the doing good part:

Baan has created an artwork based on this powerful image — a large format artwork (70-3/4 x 47-1/4 inches) in an edition of 10. It will be shown at the Rubenstein Gallery’s upcoming exhibition of Baan’s work titled The Way We Live. The edition will be sold for $100,000 each to benefit the Mayor’s Fund To Advance New York City in support of Hurricane Sandy relief efforts (nyc.gov/fund). And the Museum of Modern Art, in cooperation with Iwan Baan and Perry Rubenstein Gallery, has issued a poster of The City and the Storm, that will also support relief efforts. More information at MoMAstore.org.

Previously, Baan’s work had been shown in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, and in the Carnegie Museum of Art’s, White Cube, Green Maze: New Art Landscapes, according to a press release from Rubenstein.

His generosity toward the city was noted by noneother than Mayor Bloomberg, who is quoted in the  release saying: “Iwan Baan’s powerful and now iconic image brought to life one of the many devastating effects our City experienced in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Baan’s first exhibition at the Perry Rubenstein Gallery will not only share his images but help support our City’s efforts to recover from this devastating storm through their generous contribution to the Mayor’s Fund.”

Baan doesn’t even live in New York.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Perry Rubenstein Gallery

 

 

Merry, Merry…

Dear Reader, I am taking the next few days off to celebrate Christmas. Back shortly thereafter. Meantime, here’s a beautiful nativity scene — new to me and maybe to you. The Holy Family was painted by Francesco Zaganelli da Cotignola.

Zaganelli

 

This painting was called to my attention by my colleague Paul Jeromack, who writes about Old Masters far more frequently than I do. He reports that it sold at Christies in Dec. 2011 — fetching $1,584,414, against a $156,200 – $234,300 presale estimate. London dealer Danny Katz bought it for his own collection. The lot notes said:

Francesco di Bosio Zaganelli was perhaps the most individual painter of his generation in the Romagna. Born at Cotignola, he may have been trained by Marco Palmezzano and in the first decade of the fifteenth century shared a bottega in his native town with his brother, Bernardino, whose only certain independent work is the signed Saint Bernardino of 1506 in the National Gallery, London.

By 1513 Francesco was based at Ravenna, but receiving commissions for towns in the area including Faenza, where he supplied the Baptism of 1514, now also in the National Gallery, for the Laderchi chapel at San Domenico. Zaganelli developed a highly individual style that assimilated influences from Ferrara, from the Bologna of Costa and Aspertini, and, less directly, from the Umbrians of the previous generation. As this Madonna demonstrates, he was an artist of considerable emotional range and equal expressive power: given the demand for pictures of the subject it is notable how varied Zaganelli’s interpretations of this are.

In this example, the Infant looks towards the spectator, while the Virgin and Saint Joseph, like the angel, the angle of whose head echoes the latter’s, bend down, their eyes almost closed, in silent devotion. This panel was dated to the mid-1520s by Roli (loc. cit), while Zama suggests a less specific chronology, 1518-30. The pose of the Child is related to the altarpiece of 1518 in the church of San Martino at Viadana, near Mantua, although it is arguably more successful in the deployment of the arms. A certain roundness in the types of both the Virgin and Saint Joseph also recalls the earlier works of Correggio which Zaganelli would no doubt have seen in 1519, when his altarpiece for the church of the Annunziata at Parma was completed and no doubt delivered.

Sold by what Christie’s descriped as an “important” European collector, it had an interesting provenance beforehand as well:

A seal with the Habsburg arms establishes that the picture was exported from Northern Italy, under Austrian control between 1815 and 1866.

Wilhelm von Bode, from whom acquired by Murray Marks, Florence, 1884.

Vieweg collection, Brunswick.

Sale, Lepke, Berlin, 18 March 1930, lot 24.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Christie’s, with a little photoshoping to smooth the cracks by Paul

Bid Rejected: Leonardo Is Not Going To Dallas

Dallas has been a bit deflated. The Dallas Museum of Art’s bid to buy the newly discovered Leonardo, Salvator Mundi, has been rejected. The amount offered — which I have not been able to determine — was not high enough.

July11_leonardo200x289Since July (see my previous post), the painting has been in Dallas, and museum director Max Anderson has raised “tens of millions” of dollars to buy it. Anderson believed it would be a “destination painting,” driving attendance to the museum to see one of two Leonardo paintings in American public collections. One source said “Max worked tirelessly” to enlist museum donors and people who had not been donors in the past. Many were enthusiastic, but it’s unclear how many came through.

But the owners, still a mystery, were seeking some $200 million for it. And while the work is now almost universally accepted as being by the master, at least for the most part, some people did not see it as worth that much. Who knows? A painting is worth what someone will pay.

I have heard, too, that the owners did not hold out — that they wanted the picture to go to the Dallas museum, if possible. “Many accommodations were made,” a source says. In the end, there was a gap — how big, no one is telling me.

The museum has issued a statement saying, in part:

While the museum’s leadership was hopeful that the painting would be acquired for the benefit and enjoyment of the public, they are incredibly inspired by and grateful for the outpouring of community support for the campaign to acquire this work.

Anderson, according to the Dallas Morning News, said it “was a privilege to be responsible for the safekeeping of this masterwork as we assembled commitments towards its purchase. The fortunate few who saw it in person will not soon forget its beauty, power and majesty.”

The picture has left Dallas and is now back in New York, I’m told.