As the art world must know, Alice Walton has become a punching bag for people who are really bashing Wal-Mart, largely for the wages it pays its employees and the benefits it does or does not provide. Another strain of criticism pokes at her for spending money on an art museum. Jeff Goldberg, writing for Bloomberg, recently called the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art “a moral tragedy” and “a compelling symbol of the chasm between the richest Americans and everyone else.”

As if art were of no use or inspiration to anyone but “the rich.”

I initially tried to ignore this — except in the first paragraph of my review of Crystal Bridges, in which I said the wages link was “a confusion of apples and oranges if ever there was one.” (In my review, I savor the Robert Henri portrait, of Jessica Penn, at left, and I thought I’d show it to RCA readers.)

But Goldberg has now taken as second gun to Walton and Cystal Bridges. (Read Goldberg, if you must, here and here.)

This strikes me as a case of nothing succeeding like success and excess. Goldberg received a lot of attention for the first column, after all.

Fortunately, Ira Stoll, the former managing editor of the New York Sun — which you will recall had some pretty wonderful cultural stories — has fired back. Stoll has a website called Future of Capitalism, and yesterday he began a post saying “Remind me if I ever get rich not to start an art museum. It seems to be just an invitation for attacks from the press.”

Stoll then lists eight points in Walton’s defense, the most pertinent of which are these:

Why focus solely on her at the expense of many other rich people who fund charities in which they are interested while making money in low-wage, low health-insurance businesses? Joan Kroc, whose fortune comes from McDonald’s, gave $200 million to National Public Radio. McDonald’s treats its workers about the same as Walmart, but I haven’t seen Jeff Goldberg agitating about the moral blight of Morning Edition. Jeff Goldberg also complains about the aesthetics of Walmart stores, but they look pretty much the same as a Home Depot, a Staples, a Lowe’s, or any other big-box store. Why single out Walmart?

And:

If Alice Walton decided voluntarily to pay Walmart workers higher wages and health benefits out of her share of the Walmart profits, it would probably be difficult to structure that without also adversely affecting the returns of the other shareholders. (I suppose one could establish a separate class of stock, but it’s hard to see the rationale for giving the family that founded and built the company a class of stock that carried a lower rate of return than that available to the general public or new shareholders.) Giving all the shareholders a newly lowered rate of return would increase Walmart’s cost of capital, making it harder for the company to compete with new competitors. Stores might have to close, and instead of low-wage, low-insurance jobs, there might be no jobs at all. And the existing shareholders, who bought their shares expecting the company would pay a market wage rather than the newly generous Goldberg above-market wage, would see the value of their shares drop. Since lots of those existing shares are held by middle-class or lower-middle class Americans through mutual funds or union or government pension funds, you’d wind up hurting some of the same people you are trying to help.

I suppose some “art-lovers” are still (inanely) angry with Walton for trying to buy good picture, “taking them way” from East coast cities.

But Goldberg is really attacking the foundation on which almost all American art museums are built, and it’s about time people start recognizing that — and speaking up in her defense.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Crystal Bridges

 

 

Tomorrow is a big day for the Metropolitan Museum:* The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini opens. I saw it last night at the opening, and it’s a knockout. Prepare for rave reviews.

The exhibit, curated by Keith Christiansen, chairman of European paintings at the Met, starts with a premise: that early Renaissance Italy produced “the first great age of portraiture in Europe,” a time when artists created fabulous portraits that start with the simple recording of features but go way beyond that. As an aside, I asked a Met official about the origins of the show, and she said — I won’t mention her name, because I wasn’t thinking of reporting it when we spoke — that “Keith has been talking about this show for ages.”

It shows in the 160 works that are on view, including paintings, drawings and sculpture.

That’s the second thing this exhibit has going for it — the sculpture, which is truly wonderful, with details that practically invite viewers to touch (Don’t!). These pieces are far less familiar to regular museum-goers than the paintings, which is partly because many of the paintings are in the Met’s permanent collection.

But don’t think that this show comes mainly from the Met collection; there many, many loans from many European collections, including a lot from Germany — the exhibit was co-organized and shown previously at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (very few come from private collections). One of my favorite paintings in the show was chosen as the cover of the catalogue, Ghirlandaio’s Portrait of an Old Man and a Boy (top), borrowed from the Louvre.

A third attribute is the mix of media and the way they are displayed. The sculpture sits right there with the paintings, and there’s plenty of room to walk around each of the pieces. Drawings, while not present in every gallery, are also displayed with paintings and sculpture, often related, instead of being relegated to a dark room of their own.

The fourth thing I love is that, despite the title of the show, this exhibition contains works by many many artists who are not household names. Some of them should be. If I had to pick one, it would be Pisanello. He dominates one large gallery, in my opinion, beautifully — with drawings, paintings and medallions.

That’s his Filippo Maria Visconti drawing in charcoal (also from the Louvre) and what Christiansen says is a rare painting by him, Leonello d’Este, from the Accademia Carrara, Commune of Bergamo, at right (sorry he faces the margin).    

There are so many other wonderful images in this exhibition that I’ve uploaded a few more below, without commenting on them.

But there’s one I want to call to the attention of writers, who frequently use the phrase “thrown into high relief,” to mean sharp delineation or contrast. I can’t show you an image of it — but you’ll know it when you see it in the exhibition. It’s a marble of Cosimo by the workshop of Antonio Rossellino, a side view of his face that includes both eyes — the relief must extend four or five inches (I had no opportunity to get close enough to try to measure it). High relief, indeed.

 

[Read more…] about Prepare For A Rave: Renaissance Portraits At The Met

I always feel like Scrooge when I report on situations like that of the Fayetteville Museum of Art, in North Carolina, but in the long run it’s better to publicize troubles, in hopes that other cities may avoid the same ones.

The 40-year-old museum, which ran into expansion problems, is about to be dissolved, according to the Fayetteville Observer. The board is expected to vote on that as early as this week.

The museum sold what it could of its permanent collection in September and used those proceeds to pay off some of its debts. The land and building, put on the market for $1.25 million in 2008, fetched just $250,000. It was purchased by a wedding photographer who plans to turn it into a wedding and events space.

This is a tale of over-enthusiasm, which is where Scrooge comes in.

I wish there were a Ghost of Museums Yet to Come to turn this tale around, but there just isn’t. Even the museum’s website is gone. But hope springs eternal. According to the Observer, “proceeds from the sale of remaining artwork will go to an endowment at the Cumberland Community Foundation for use by a future art museum entity. A task force is forming to help lay groundwork for such an organization, [Mac] Healy [the board president] said.” 

 

Walking to work this morning, I saw a shocking thing that is no longer shocking: On Fifth Avenue, during crowded Christmas week, with traffic piling up into almost a jam and pedestrians everywhere, many jay-walking, the traffic cop on the beat at the intersection of Fifth and 53rd was tapping away on her smart phone, paying no attention whatsover to the mounting troubles around her.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, I guess — not in an age when, according to an article in published in The New York Times on Dec. 15, 

…doctors and nurses can be focused on the screen and not the patient, even during moments of critical care. And they are not always doing work; examples include a neurosurgeon making personal calls during an operation, a nurse checking airfares during surgery and a poll showing that half of technicians running bypass machines had admitted texting during a procedure.

…[it’s] a problem perhaps best described as “distracted doctoring.”

Today’s Wall Street Journal had an article about a new effort in theater:

…Last week, the Public Theater announced–via Twitter, naturally–that it would make 25 seats available for live tweeting during the first performance of “Gob Squad’s Kitchen” in January. And at the Circle in the Square Theatre, the lead producer of “Godspell” is considering a secluded section of “tweet seats.” …And it comes at a time when other self-indulgent audience habits have become standard. Grown men and women hide their in-show texting like 14-year-olds. Ring tones are ubiquitous–just ask Patti LuPone. As for food, Broadway theaters have allowed snacks and drinks for years, and people crunch and munch through Lincoln Center performances all the time.

It was just about two years ago, I recall, that I joked that performing arts centers should set aside areas for people who wanted to use their Blackberries and iPhones and even computers during performances. Who knew it would shortly become a reality?

Not for nothing has the Blackberry long been known as the “crackberry.” Experts everywhere say that we’re becoming addicted to our devices.

Cell phones used to be forbidden in museums, too. Now they serve as audioguides — and that’s a good thing, as long as they are not used for conversations that everyone can hear. Now we have everyone tweeting everywhere, as they walk around observing. If they’re quiet, that too is ok. But I lament the trend toward participatory art museums IF it means we are going to lose the atmosphere of inquiry and contemplation that museums offer.

I’m not — I stress — calling for museums to be as quiet as a tomb. But, without forbidding the use of devices, I’d like to see museums offer refuge from our devices. Device ettiquette should  be enforced. 

And, yes, exhibitions have to be that compelling. 

 

Why do people collect art? For many reasons, obviously, but some weigh heavier than others.

ArtTactic and Deloitte Luxembourg recently conducted a survey of collectors and art advisors called Art & Finance Report 2011 — its first — and it produced some interesting results.

For example, while the exact same percentage of advisors and collectors said that “Investment returns” were important or very important — 48.8 percent — art advisors overestimated by a mile the “social value” and art’s function as an “inflation hedge,” and they underestimated the “emotional value” and the “tax” and “portability” values of art. Are art collectors planning to flee something? 23.1% said portability was important or very important in buying art.

Here’s the whole table on the question, “which of the following are the most important motivations in buying art?” (The percentages record those who said the motivation was important or very important):

Motivation                                  % Art advisors            % Collectors

Emotional Value                               79.4                            97.5

Social Value                                     73.7                            22.5

Investment Returns                           48.8                           48.8

Inflation Hedge                                 27.5                           35.0

Portfolio Diversification                     41.8                           29.3

Rarity                                                58.7                           64.1

Luxury Good                                      56.3                           40.0

Safe Haven                                        25.2                           20.0

Tax                                                   12.4                           20.5

Portability                                          13.3                           23.1

 

Despite those misreadings/misconceptions — or perhaps collectors weren’t being totally honest in a few cases — art advisors said elsewhere in the survey that almost half of their clients were driven by the potential for a return on their investment, with smaller but still large percentages recognizing other wealth management aspects of art.

As the report also notes, the growth of the art market over the last several years also means that “we now can start talking about the early stages of an Art and Finance industry.” Clearly they are in favor of this development, which appeals to the world’s high net worth individuals.

For museums and other collectors whose net worth is not all that high, this could be worrisome. The more people treat art as an investment, the more trading there will be, and as these art-finance services are sold to more people, prices for art, overall, are likely to rise. Museums then become even more dependent on gifts of art from collectors.

However, we’ve seen some of this before, with the rise of art investment firms that eventually closed. Whether this time is different remains to be seen. 

The entire study is here.