Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

A Trouble With Museum Boards

When I started writing that headline, above, I wrote “the” trouble with… But I quickly corrected myself because, as financial and other troubles have plagued many art museums of late (not least the Metropolitan Museum of Art*), it’s very clear that many museum boards have more than one fault.

But a press release today from the J. Paul Getty Trust irked me; it announced: Bruce W. Dunlevie joins J. Paul Getty Board of Trustees. I kept reading, looking for the word “art.” As in, perhaps, art collector. The word was nowhere to be seen. Nor did a Google search of his name + art produce anything in the top couple of pages. Previous board service does not appear to include any at arts institutions.

I know–the Getty is more than an art museum. Yet its mission statement uses this description: “a cultural and philanthropic institution dedicated to the presentation, conservation, and interpretation of the world’s artistic legacy.” But I could find no trace of Dunlevie’s interest in art online. I hope he has one.

I did find that he has plenty of money. As the press release says:

…Dunlevie has worked in the early stage technology venture capital industry for 30 years and is a founder and General Partner of Benchmark Capital, based in Silicon Valley. Benchmark is responsible for the early stage funding of numerous successful startups including ebay, Twitter, Uber, Snapchat, WeWork and Instagram.

Prior to co-founding Benchmark Capital, Mr. Dunlevie worked in investment banking at Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Mr. Dunlevie is currently the Chairman of the Board of the Stanford Management Company, the entity which oversees The Stanford University Endowment. He is a former trustee of Stanford University (serving from 2006 to 2016) and of his alma mater, Rice University. He is also a Fellow Benefactor of Trinity College, University of Cambridge.

A quick search did not turn up his net worth, but he was on Forbes’s 2014 Midas List, which annually ranks “the best dealmakers in high-tech and life science venture capital.”

I am sure that Dunlevie has many attributes, aside from financial wherewithal. And perhaps because Getty Trust President James Cuno has an interest in how digital technology can advance the arts and art history, Dunlevie can help out there.

But I would like to see a stronger connection between museum trustees and art; too many nowadays are not looking for collectors or people with other artistic connections. Non-profits and for-profits share some organizational characteristics, of course. But they have different missions with different expectations, different circumstances and different dynamics.

Photo Credit: 2006 photo courtesy of Stanford University

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met.

 

The Prado Goes To Santa Fe

In recent years, the Prado has gotten more and more ambitious, and good for it–especially with international activities, some of which (like loans and a partnership with the Meadows Museum [see here and here]) I have written about on this blog.

Now it is doing something with a populist twist, and I love that too–from May 1 through October, it will give people in Santa Fe a taste of its magnificent collection by presenting 92 full-scale representations of its masterpieces in the city’s Cathedral Park.

I have many times written about similar initiatives, starting way back in 2009, when the Detroit Institute of Arts shared reproductions of works in its collection with its surrounding communities, continuing though how the Delaware Art Museum did likewise in 2012, and mentioning several other efforts in Akron, Philadelphia and Miami, among others, in 2015.

The Prado, however, is a little different, since the Santa Fe is getting a look at a foreign museum’s collection. The idea was spearheaded by Jim Long, an American and one of the Prado’s international trustees. More details are here, including examples of the paintings that are included (I’ve chosen to post two of the less-famous ones here, top by El Greco and bottom by Goya. A little background:

This outdoor public art display is the first of its kind in the USA and has previously exhibited in major Central American cities including, San Salvador, El Salvador, Guatemala City, Guatemala, Lima, Perú and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

No reproduction can substitute for real art–that goes without saying. But many people will never travel to Madrid, so why not this?

Meanwhile, on Tuesday of this week, the Prado will open an exhibition of some 200 works on loan from the Hispanic Society Museum and Library–a true and authentic exchange while the Hispanic Society is renovated. Details here.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Prado

 

The Mesmerizing Art of Ran Hwang

New York City is home to thousands of working artists, including many good ones who rarely receive the publicity they deserve–even then they have galleries and have had museum exhibitions. So I was pleased to be able to write even a short profile about Ran Hwang, a South Korean artist based in New York and Seoul. Her work is beautiful and meaningful. It is owned by the Brooklyn Museum, among others, and has been exhibited at Mass MoCA, to name just two examples. Her collectors include Roger Federer. But she’s far from an art-world name.

It’s true that her work’s visual appeal is what attracted me at first. But then came the meaning–as I relate in the April issue of Traditional Home–it’s about hopefulness, freedom, the limitations of freedom, the transient nature of life and the cycle that sometimes results. At least that is what I and a few curators think it’s about. Have a look and you decide.

I’ve pasted two photos of her work here; you can see more in my piece, headlined Artfully Buttoned Up. and at the Leila Heller Gallery, on the website or in Chelsea.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Traditional Home and Ran Hwang Studio.

Max Hollein, Monet And Baseball

When baseball fans go to a game, they usually come prepared: they know the players, their records and their statistics. They know all about batting order strategy. The same for, say, horse-racing–even more so, because good bettors study the odds.

But when people go to art museums, they often know nothing in advance–at least nothing very specific about the art and artists they are going to see.

That, at least, is the position of Max Hollein, the director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, whom I visited recently when I was in the city.

So for a current exhibition, Monet: The Early Years, Hollein set out to create an online guide that visitors could read before going to the exhibition–and enjoy it more because they were better informed. I tend to agree.

The guide, called a Digital Story, is accessible on the Legion’s homepage and on the exhibition’s page, and is introduced with the words “Prepare for a visit with this interactive look into the exhibition.”

It’s very good and I encourage you to look at it. Among its chapters are “Contending with Convention,” “Monet and the Sea,” “Political Unrest,” “Training Your Eye: Color,” and so on. In certain sections, one can listen to more from the curators, Esther Bell and George Shackelford. In other places, one is invited click for further information or to “Look closer.”

In the final chapter, the guides brings it home to the local audience, saying, “Throughout this period one thing remained a constant—Monet’s avid preference for working directly from nature. Taking advantage of the stunning trails that meander through Lands End, the area surrounding the Legion of Honor, provides an immediate opportunity to gain insights into the artist’s experience and process.” Then it provides a link to a map of trails in the area.

I was in San Francisco in early March, and at the time–about two weeks since the show’s opening–some 60% of the visitors had clicked on the Digital Story–a very good result. The museum helped in one way: people who buy tickets are sent a link to the Digital Story–they can access the material for onsite preparation. About 50% of users are accessing it through a mobile phone or tablet.

The museum also printed–for those who do not want to spend $50 on the catalog or $30 for the softcover version–a 40-page booklet about the exhibition, pictured above. Also a great idea.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of FAMSF

“The quality and standing of all American museums would diminish overnight.”

That quote is from Max Hollein, the director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, as recorded today in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. On Page One–and good for the Chronicle for doing that.

We’ve known, and Met Director Tom Campbell reminded us last month, in an op-ed piece in The New York Times, that eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, as proposed by the Trump Administration, would put at risk the Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Program–through which the federal government, at minimal cost to taxpayers, indemnifies the borrowing of art works for special exhibitions.

But Charles Desmarais, a friend, has drawn out that abstract thought in an article headlined Trump budget cuts could shut great art out of museums. A few quotes from the piece:

What we got for that amount of money was an estimated savings to museums “in excess of $420 million” in insurance premiums — money that was then used for education programs and other enhancements to the visitor experience.

…

Jay Xu, the Asian’s director, said, “Indemnity plays an important role in fostering cultural empathy. Here’s how: It’s expensive to bring the best-of-the-best artworks from Asia, like we did last summer with loans from the National Palace Museum, Taipei (objects from that museum haven’t traveled to the U.S. in 20 years). The indemnity program made that exhibition financially feasible, allowing us to introduce elements of Chinese culture to a whole new generation.”

…

Neal Benezra, the director of SFMOMA, said the potential elimination of the indemnity program “places in jeopardy current shows such as ‘Matisse/Diebenkorn,’” He continued, “This indemnification program is at no cost to the federal budget and it would be tragic if it was lost.” An SFMOMA spokeswoman said upcoming shows like Edvard Munch and past ones like “The Steins Collect” have seen insurance savings “in the millions.”

…

“Private insurance is simply not available for national treasures valued in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars,” [Lial Jones, director of Sacramento’s Crocker Art Museum] said. “If the indemnity program goes away one of the casualties will be the major exhibitions we all clamor to see.”

The program has posted a list of the exhibitions it has insured–not all that current. but listing shows in 2014, 2015 and through May 8, 2016. UPDATE, 3/22: The NEA has now updated the list; it now lists only 2016, 2017, including future exhibitions, plus one for 2018. I’m glad they updated, but wish they had included a link to past exhibitions that were indemnified by the program.

Anyway, here’s the link to that.

Among them, you’ll see, are such great displays as Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age; Kandinsky: A Retrospective; Egon Schiele: Portraits; Goya: Order and Disorder; Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea; The Habsburgs: Rarely Seen Masterpieces from Europe’s Greatest Dynasty; International Pop; Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting; Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566-1638); Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World’; Reflecting Class: Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer; and Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh: Impressions of Landscape. 

That’s just a sampling. Think how much poorer we would be if they had not been shown in the U.S.

Some pundits have said that Trump’s first budget is dead-on-arrival anyway, so pay no attention to it. I don’t think the museum world, and the public that visits museums, should take that chance. We just have to tell our representatives exactly what is at stake.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts; the Philadelphia Museum of Art (top to bottom)