Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

The Once-A-Decade World’s Fair Of Flowers

Time for spring break, and with yesterday being Easter, it’s the perfect moment to think about flowers. I do every spring, but this year is special because I wrote about a once-a-decade event, the Floriade, which takes place in the Netherlands. It began in 1960, then took place in 1972, and has happened every ten years since. It’s gigantic exhibition of flowers, and as I wrote in an article that’s printed in today’s Newsweek International (and posted on the Newsweek-Daily Beast website in the U.S.):

..it’s not just about tulips, the country’s symbol. “It’s everything,” says Debbie Van Bourgondien, who calls herself “the Bulb Lady” (that’s trademarked) and who with her family owns Dutchbulbs.com in Virginia Beach, Va. She has gone to the last three Floriades. “If you are looking for the latest trends in gardening, the latest varieties, you’ll find it there,” she says. This year, there are 1.8 million bulb plants, 190,000 perennials, 18,000 shrubs, 15,000 hedges, 5,000 roses, and 3,000 newly planted trees of 250 species, plus fruits and vegetables. At the last Floriade, held in 2002 about 10 miles from Amsterdam at Haarlemmermeer, Van Bourgondien recalls being charmed by all the new miniatures on display. “I now have pots of miniature hostas around my patio,” she says.

I won’t go on, because most RCA readers come to my blog to read about the arts, not flowers. But public gardens — and the Floriade — are grappling with many of the same problems that dog museums: aging audiences and the need to widen their appeal. The Floriade did that this year, but not exactly in ways I’d recommend to most art museums.

 Photo Credits: Courtesy of CBS News (top) and The Telegraph (bottom)

 

Taking Stock: The National Museum of Women In the Arts At 25

On April 7, 1987, after five years of being a private museum in the home of Wilhelmina Holladay, the National Museum of Women in the Arts opened its doors in Washington, D.C. The museum was met by applause from some, and by derision, too.  

I was in between: I detest the idea that women need a museum of their own even while I know that women have in many cases been left out of art history. Yet at the same time, I believe that a museum like this tends both to ghettoize women artists and to let other museums feel as if they are off the hook.

That said, the NMWA –while never producing, to my knowledge, a blockbuster — has a credible track record of exhibitions and scholarship. I’ve viewed the catalogue for its current show, Royalists to Romantics: Women Artists from the Louvre, Versaille, and Other French National Collections, and found many paintings to admire.  Many of these works have never before been exhibited in the United States, and in fact many were in storage in France. 

Since the museum’s 25th anniversary was yesterday, I thought it would be interesting to take stock, and I asked some questions of the NMWA’s PR representatives. Here are some fact, some answers:

  • Collection: about 4,000 works by nearly 1,000 women, spanning the 16th century to the present
  • Collection in 1987: 300 works
  • Visitorship, over 25 years:  2,500,000
  • Individuals participating in education or public programs in 25 years:  332,500
  • Number of members:  18,000
  • Distribution of members: all 50 U.S. states and 28 countries, with 81% located outside the DC metro area.
  • Exhibitions presented in 25 years:  250
  • Exhibitions originated by NMWA in 25 years:  188
  • Number of women artists shown at NMWA in 25 years:  2,000+
  • Number of publications about women artists produced by NMWA in 25 years:  170
  • Scholarship facilities: 18,500-volume library and research center that houses the Archives of Women Artists
  • Number of artists in that archive/database of women artists:  18,000

The French exhibition isn’t the only one that scoured other countries for “lost” women artists. In 2002, an NMWA team visited the Hermitage to organize An Imperial Collection: Women Artists from the State Hermitage Collection. According to the museum, the curator there took them to an attic storage area – where they found works by Anna Tierbusch-Lisiewska and Christina Robertson, among others.  Curators from both museums studied some of those works, and NMWA provided money to clean and restore more than 50 paintings by women artists in the Hermitage collection.  Many of them, the NMWA says, are now on a permanent display at the Hermitage.

All of this is not to say that the NMWA has rediscovered masterpieces. But some of these artists clearly had talent, and in some cases one has to wonder what might have been had these women not been cut off from full-fledged participation in art circles of their day. 

Photo Credit: Eulalie Morin’s Portrait of Madame Recamier, Courtesy of NMWA/Versailles

Along Comes Wikipaintings: A New Image Bank

Given the news — and excitement — about the expansion of the Google Art Project this week, I thought I’d mention another, related venture. It’s different but shares some of the same goals. It’s Wikipaintings.  

It’s a non-profit, like Wikipedia, and it’s trying to become the “most complete and well-structured online repository of fine art. We hope to make classical art a little more accessible and comprehensible, and also want to provide a new form of interaction between contemporary artists and their audience. In the future we plan to cover the entire history of art — from cave artworks to the new talents of today.”

The people behind Wikipaintings don’t identify themselves, but I think the project is based — or was started — in Russia, based on the most-viewed artists and the selections. Then again, that changes — when I looked just now, there didn’t seem to be a Russian bias. Whoever the founders are, they created a Facebook page on April 8, 2011, so I’d guess it started about that time. Here’s what they say in “About.”

I’ve explored a little — searching artists by name, movement, century, etc. Visitors can also search by art work — style, genre, technique, etc. But I haven’t spend enough time to know how useful Wikipaintings will be or how it stacks up against all the other art image banks. 

So I will refer you to someone who has: Wikipaintings was briefly reviewed, favorably, by a blog on The Teaching Palette last November, by one Theresa McGee, who compared it to the Google Art Project:

I still love Google Art Project for the amazing depth and detail, but Wikipaintings is much better for understanding and visualizing the growth of an artist through his or her lifetime.  I look forward to seeing how Wikipaintings grows once it is open to contributors; maybe it will even expand beyond 2-D work into sculpture and installation art.

And it’s still in beta.

Photo Credit: Magritte’s Listening Room, drawn from the Wikipaintings site

 

Detroit Institute’s Facebook Experiment: The Results Are In

How good a marketing tool is Facebook? That question was posed in my Feb. 29 post here about the Detroit Institute of Arts, which offered Facebook fans free admission during March.

Now we know, and the answer is pretty good. The DIA says that 3,335 visitors took advantage of the free offer — an average of almost 160 people for each of the 21 days (the institute is closed Mondays and Tuesdays) of that month.

Visitorship overall during the month was also higher, year-on-year, despite the fact that there was no blockbuster exhibition. To get a fair comparison, the DIA subtracted school groups, which were also higher this year, and came up with this apples-to-apples comparison.

In 2012, March had 13,421 visitors versus 9,626 visitors in the same month last year, for a net increase of 3,795.

“Essentially, this indicates that the Facebook free admission promotion resulted in no decrease in general admission revenue over last year,” wrote Christine Kloostra, the director of marketing, in an internal email shared with me.

When, on Feb. 24, the DIA announced the free admission to those who “like” it on Facebook, the museum had just over 97,000 such fans and was seeking to top 100,000. When I checked just now, it had 115,738.

The response to the museum by new visitors was good, judging by comments posted on the DIA’s wall, too:

“Today was a fantastic day at the DIA, thank you! It was my first time attending and there were so many wonderful pieces to see. My family and I will certainly be back soon!” ~Anna Calhoun, Mar. 12

“Just went yesterday and it blew me away. Definitely returning.” ~Mollie Nasser, Mar. 10

“THANKS!! Will be visiting for the first time next week!” ~Candice Perdan, Mar. 9

“Don’t you just love The DIA for doing this!!!” ~Edie Lovejoy, Mar. 9.

“This is the most awesomest things the DIA has done in a long time. When I go, I’m gonna spend extra $$$ at the cafe and gift shop!!” ~Rob Kaplovitz, Mar. 1

Indeed, don’t you love it — especially the last sentiment? You can read more comments here.

And whoever at DIA thought of this should be given a treat, perhaps a drink at a place like John Sloan’s McSorley’s Bar, above, which is in the DIA’s collection.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the DIA

Google Expands Art Project, But Gets a Little Evil

Google announced today in Paris and Chicago that it’s expanding beyond the museums and art works that were part of its first launch in February, 2011 — way beyond the 17 museums chosen originally.

It now has 151 partners in 40 countries; in the U.S., the initial four museums has grown to 29 institutions, including the White House and university art galleries.

Here’s the full press release, which says in part:

From now on, with a few simple clicks of their fingers, art lovers will be able to discover not just paintings, but also sculpture, street art, and photographs. Creations from a wide variety of cultures and civilizations are represented, including Brazilian street graffiti, Islamic decorative arts and ancient African rock art.

The project has expanded dramatically. More than 30,000 objects are available to view in high resolution, up from 1,000 in the first version. Street View images now cover 46 museums, with more on the way.

Also check that link above for the ways the project has been improved technologically.

So why is Google evil? Because when I clicked on the link in the press release to the 151 partners, I received this message:

You’re missing out…

Sorry, the Google Art Project uses technology that your browser doesn’t understand.

Install Chrome Frame for Internet Explorer to improve your experience of using the web. It’s simple and only needs to be done once.

It’s true that I was able to use another link on the Art Project press site’s homepage to discover the U.S. museums now involved,  but it makes me wonder if this is the first step toward restricting the full functionality of the Art Project to Chrome users.

The photo above, a painting by Fernando Amorsolo, is drawn from the collection of the Ayala Museum in the Philippines, which takes some real effort to get to, except via the Google Art Project.