Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Loving Van Gogh Up Close: See What You Like

I traveled down to Philadelphia this weekend to see Van Gogh Up Close at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and — first things first — I loved it. The exhibit gives us many unfamiliar pictures, borrowed from far-flung collections, public and private, in Europe. Better yet, it does really illustrate an aspect of van Gogh’s work that has gone little remarked. I looked at van Gogh’s work with different eyes.

When I came back I read the reviews again. While generally complimentary, at least two (here and here)  complain that the curators padded the show — adding Japanese prints, photographs and earlier art that inspired van Gogh. I found this surprising — in part, because all three sections were off the main galleries, two in alcoves and one at the end, almost in a hallway. They didn’t detract from the main event. I skipped the Japanese section almost completely, having familiarity with that influence on van Gogh, and breezed the other two quickly.

Yet I watched as many visitors — and there were many visitors — slowly looked at each piece. Yes, many were following the people in front of them as if they were in a parade. But judging by how intensely they looked, I guessed that these visitors were not so familiar with the Japanese or “other artists” influenced, and found the photographs interesting no matter the slight connection.

I’m all for sharper art criticism, but those above aren’t what I had in mind. Like movie critics writing for each other, sometimes art critics forget who they should be writing for, too.

They both remind me of a time, not so long ago, when I was working at The New York Times and the paper was fat with sections and fat with ads. People would complain to me that it was too much, they couldn’t read it all. I wasn’t the only one hearing those complaints. I have a black NYT coffee mug, which I took down from a top cupboard shelf and began using the other day. It says, “The New York Times — READ WHAT YOU LIKE.” 

Photo Credit: The Garden in Auvers

Do Good Exhibitions Come In Threes?

Do good things come in threes — including exhibitions? Maybe these museums are aiming to create a festival atmosphere, or maybe it’s just coincidence… whichever, having three shows on one theme can be a good way to appeal to audiences. Let me highlight three examples, from places that don’t get enough national attention:

1) Since January 28, the El Paso Museum of Art has been showing three exhibitions under the title Magnificent Mexico:  20th Century Modern Masterworks. With 91 works borrowed from collections in Mexico City, these shows include Diego Rivera (his El Arquiteco is shown at right), Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo and 47 other artists. In a large museum, that may be one show. But the El Paso museum was founded only in 1959, has just over 5,000 works of art in its permanent collection and attracts about 100,000 visitors a year. I know much bigger museums that get less, although — in fairness — it can draw on a 2.6 million-plus metropolitan population, is the only accredited museum in a 250-mile radius, and is just blocks from the U.S.-Mexican border.

The threes shows –  Magnitud Mexicana: Visions of Art; Dibujos Divinos: 20th Century Drawings from the National Museum of Art – MUNAL, México, and Diego Rivera and the Cubist Vision from the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, México – amount to the largest-ever showing of Mexican art in El Paso. Read a local report here.

BTW, last June, the El Paso Museum won an award for Cross-border cooperation and innovation that had nothing to do with this exhibit. Clearly, the museum is doing something right.

2) The Nevada Museum of Art opened three exhibitions on February 11 that showcase the design legacy of the Tiffany Family, including something new to me: a rare collection of Tiffany & Co.s’ decorative firearms. Yup, you heard that right.

Apparently, Tiffany & Co. did a lot gun designing, and — shame on me for not knowing — there’s a display of them owned in the Robert M. Lee Gallery of American arms at the Metropolitan Museum.* The Robert M. Lee Collection has now lent three revolvers, four pistols, one rifle, and one presentation sword to the Nevada Museum. Nearby, the museum is showing In the Company of Angels: Seven Rediscovered Tiffany Windows,  made by Tiffany Studios at the beginning of the 20th century and named for the angels in the Book of Revelation from the Bible. Originally installed in a Cincinnati church that was demolished in 1964, the windows had been crated, stored and forgotten until their rediscovery in 2001. Finally, there’s Out of the Forest: Art Nouveau Lamps by Tiffany. 

3) Also on Feb. 11, the Mint Museum in Charlotte opened three exhibitions on surrealism in what it calls “largest and most significant examination of Surrealism and Surrealist-inspired art ever presented in the Southeast.” These three go deep, rather than broad, examining the work of four artists extensively: Double Solitaire: The Surreal Worlds of Kay Sage and Yves Tanguy; Seeing the World Within: Charles Seliger in the 1940s; and Gordon Onslow Ford: Voyager and Visionary.

With the exception of Tanguy, these artists are underexposed and it’s great to see that remedied. The first two shows are also traveling.

As I always say when I haven’t see exhibitions personally, I reserve final judgment until and if I do. But from afar, I’m happy to spread the word about these shows.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the respective museums

*I consult to a Foundation that supports the Met

Greek Antiquities Stolen in Museum Theft — Blame Greece’s Economic Woes?

It’s Friday, but this should not go uncovered until after the weekend, or even tomorrow morning. The Associated Press is reporting that about 60 priceless antiquities have been stolen from a small museum near the ancient site of the Olympics:

Two masked gunmen stormed into a small museum at the birthplace of the ancient Olympics in southern Greece on Friday, smashing display cases with hammers and making off with dozens of antiquities up to 3,200 years old, authorities said….

…Police said about 60 artifacts were stolen by the robbers, who tied up the only site guard, a 48-year-old woman.

Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanos submitted his resignation after the morning robbery, but it was unclear whether it had been accepted by Prime Minister Lucas Papademos. Geroulanos traveled on Friday to ancient Olympia, some 210 miles (340 kilometers) southwest of Athens….

…A culture ministry official said the stolen antiquities dated from the 9th to the 4th centuries B.C., apart from the seal-ring which dates to Late Bronze Age Mycenaean times and was found in another part of southern Greece.

“They took small objects made of bronze and pottery — figurines, vases and lamps — and the ring,” the official said. “The artifacts were behind reinforced glass panels which fracture like a car windscreen, and the thieves grabbed whatever small objects they could reach through the holes they opened.”

Greek officials blamed cutbacks required by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund for the scant security — a handy excuse. Nonetheless, the AP said it was the second major museum breakin in as many months.

Read more here from AP and here from the BBC. We’ll need to learn more before we can truly judge what’s happening in Greece, I think.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of AP

 

The MacArthur Foundation, The Moth And The Arts

Last fall, when the National Endowment for the Arts announced the creation of an Interagengy Task Force on the Arts and Human Development, I didn’t pay too much attention. I should have. And what prompted me to reconsider was today’s announcement that, of all the creative activities being offered by all the creative arts institutions and organizations in the world, the MacArthur Foundation chose to give the one arts-related award among its 2012 grants for Creative and Effective Institutions, of 15 awards, to The Moth. $750,000 because it’s “dedicated to the art of storytelling to document our common humanity.”

I have nothing against The Moth; I’ve been to a few of its programs and I was entertained, maybe moved (one was clear and only comedy, though…at least I didn’t get meaningful message). But I find it hard to believe that it’s the most or best creative or effective arts institution… At least in terms of impact on people. Go here to see a couple of the events that impressed the MacArthur jurors, but the group’s own website provides a more well-rounded look that leaves me underwhelmed.

A look at past winners shows no other arts-related groups.

The MacArthur awards are chosen from nominations — organizations do not apply — and the nominators are secret (many years ago, I was one, for the “genius awards,” but my two candidates did not win). But I can’t help but believe that art museums (and other arts groups) are having more impact on people’s lives, especially the lives of children and youth, than story-telling evenings and podcasts. Clearly, the word is not getting out. I myself have only occasionally learned of and written about creative efforts at education — at MassMOCA, at the de Cordova Museum and at The Center for Childhood Creativity, for example. They may not be the best, but they are the ones I’d heard of at the time.

Which brings me back to the NEA task force, a group of 14 federal agencies and departments that aims “to encourage more and better research on how the arts help people reach their full potential at all stages of life.”  It was created because of research contained in a report called “The Arts and Human Development,” which stated that “In study after study, arts participation and arts education have been associated with improved cognitive, social, and behavioral outcomes in individuals across the lifespan: in early childhood, in adolescence and young adulthood, and in later years.”

It then says we have to share, coordinate and do better research. I agree. And, clearly, we have to get the word out about all the creative things arts institutions are doing that MacArthur nominators ought to know about. So the press release that landed in my email box this morning came at the right moment. In it, the NEA announces that the task force’s next webinar will be Wednesday, Feb. 29, from 2 to 3 p.m. EST. There’s more information here.

Talk begets other talk. Of course, participants can just listen too, but then they may find something to talk up and hope that nominators are in hearing distance.

 

 

 

Tax Policy: Changes To Lose Sleep Over?

Should the arts community worry, again, about U.S. tax policy? Seems that way. In his 2013 budget proposal, released this week, President Obama again took a swack at the tax deduction for charitable contributions — and that will hurt the arts.

The issue is all bundled in with whether or not the rich pay enough in taxes. The President’s plan would limit the total of all itemized deductions for charity, medical expenses and mortgage interest to 28% of  income for couples earning more than $250,000 a year  and singles who earn more than $200,000 a year.

This is the fifth time this administration has offered this proposal, and it has failed to get far each time. But charities and other non-profits have had to wage opposition campaigns. And they may have to do it again, given the pressure to lower the deficit in an election year. According to Philanthropy News Digest, “the cap would reduce the deficit by $584 billion over ten years.”  PND also says:

Charitable giving by wealthy donors could also be affected by another proposal in the administration’s budget: households with more than $1 million in earnings annually would be required to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes — the so-called “Buffett rule,” named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has argued that it makes no sense for him to be subject to a lower marginal tax rate than his secretary. The provision would replace the alternative minimum tax, which originally was designed to prevent wealthy Americans from escaping taxation by taking advantage of loopholes in the tax code but today affects a growing number of middle-class Americans.

Why Obama continues to press this point seems to be a matter of politics. PND noted, “the president pledged to push reforms that would not ‘disadvantage individuals who make large charitable contributions.’ ” How he would do that is very unclear.

Last year, The Chronicle of Philanthropy weighed in on the subject (several times). Citing two different studies, it pegged the amount of giving that would be lost under the proposed rule at between $1.7 billion to $3.2 billion a year in one study by the Tax Policy Center and alternately at $2.9 billion to $5.6 billion a year, according to a study by Joseph Cordes, an economics professor at George Washington University.

I have not yet seen a study accessing which kind of charitable deduction would suffer most, but I have heard some talk that as the wealthiest households tend to donate most to the arts, earning social capital in return, the arts might suffer most.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of MainStreet.com