Another artist stamp from the U.S. Postal Service — that has to be good news. I’m for anything that spreads the word and the image of great visual art work.

This time, the USPS is honoring Romare Bearden, who was born 100 years ago last month.

He gets four “forever” stamps, which means they carry no specific price but are good for first-class postage forever. They come in a set of four; the press release, however, does not say how many sets it’s issuing.

The stamps were “dedicated” at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library last Wednesday. Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, was one of the people on hand to carry the art world’s flag.

Here’s a look at the four collages chosen for the honor:

They are, left to right, Conjunction (1971), Odysseus: Poseidon, The Sea God–Enemy of Odysseus (1977), Prevalence of Ritual: Conjur Woman (1964) and Falling Star (1979). 

Not that many artists are honored on U.S. stamps. I’ve written about those honoring Abstract Expressionists, American industrial designers, and, when the USPS chose Hopper for its annual American Treasures series, the general phenomenon of artists on stamps and money.

For more on Bearden’s stamps, here’s an article on the Harlem World blog.

 

What would you think if the Metropolitan Museum* joined with Caspari, the maker of fine holiday cards and wrapping paper, in a contest — anyone could enter by designing a new card/product that Caspari might then make (or purchase)? Met curators and Caspari executives would choose the winner, who would get a special Met membership, a cash prize from Caspari, and an invitation to a party celebrating the contest?

What would you think if the Museum of Modern Art* did something similar, aligning perhaps with Gamblin, say, to hold a contest for artists who used Gamblin paints in making a new piece of art? Again, MoMA curators and Gamblin execs would judge the contest, and the prizes would be similar.

You’d think it was tacky, and probably unethical, right? There’d be coverage by newspapers and art magazines.

Amazingly, something similar is being done by the New Museum, which has in my opinion overstepped the boundaries of ethical museum practices several times now. Is it so often that no one notices anymore? Have expections for the New Museum dropped so far? 

This time, the New Museum Store — maybe that’s how the museum excuses itself — is collaborating with MakerBot Industries (which makes a 3D printer called Thing-O-Matic) as follows, taken from the New Museum Store’s website:

Showcasing the endless possibilities of the Thing-O-Matic, the New Museum MakerBot Challenge is open to the entire creative community. Embodying the New Museum’s mission of “New Art, New Ideas,” this interactive and experiential Challenge aims to push the concept of the “derivative,” by improving on or personalizing established design conventions. From the banal toothbrush to complex bicycle gears, how can 3D printing help to develop the world around us?

The winning design will be printed on a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic on display in the New Museum’s window. The winning designer will receive a New Museum Deluxe membership ($400 value), a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic® Kit ($1299 value), and a special invitation to the New Museum MakerBot Challenge launch party.

…A team from both MakerBot and the New Museum will select the final designs. 

Seems to me the New Museum — ok, the New Museum Store, a distinction without a difference — is shilling for MakerBot, a new company that could use the publicity.

Traditionally, art museums have kept an arm’s length from corporations, avoiding relationships like this, which use the prestige of a non-profit art museum to enhance the corporation.

Just why the New Museum feels compelled to shill is beyond me.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of MakerBot

*I consult to a foundation that supports these institutions

Tuesday’s New York Times contained a very interesting article headlined “History That’s Written in Beads as Well as Words” about “deep history.” 

You may very well be asking, so what, what’s that got to do with art and museums?

I cite it because it describes what some people have told me is a parallel problem, if you will, in art history. The Times article says that too many historians are focusing on the reccent past, with “Three out of four historians…specializ[ing] in the post-industrial era or the 20th century, the American Historical Association reports.” It quotes Daniel Lord Smail, a medieval historian at Harvard, saying that the prevalence of such “microhistory…has stunted the ambition to think big.”

Likewise, in art history the focus is on contemporary art, which by some estimates is drawing as many as 80% of art history students. (Here’s one post where I’ve mentioned this before).

The article was buoying, though, because it described a “rearguard” action to reverse course and “stage an intellectual coup.” Smail and his collaborators are publishing a manifesto, a book called Deep History: The Architecture of Past and Present (University of California Press), urging historians to take the long view and develop grand theses (for testing). 

Admittedly, art history is a bit different. But maybe it’s time for a parallel group to form with the intent of reversing the scholarly bias toward contemporary art (partly a product of that being where the jobs are) and narrow studies. 

And just for fun, let me end this with another excerpt from the Times article:

Some historians and other humanists treat the modern era as if it suddenly popped out of a chicken, “like an unfertilized egg,” Mr. Smail said. “Historians need to develop the habit of looking backward,” he said, ” to see how their own period is in a dialogue with what came before.”

Love the egg line. 

Over the last few years, it has become a required museum activity: they have to make and post videos, in the galleries and on their websites. Media experts say people — especially young people — want it (not just from museums, but also from newspapers, magazines, and so on). 

So the other day, when the Philadelphia Museum of Art emailed me with news that it had posted on its home page a time-lapse video showing the installation of its Zaha Hadid: Form in Motion exhibition — “a unique look at a gallery’s transformation from empty space to all-encompassing work of art” — I decided to watch. I found it amusing and even charming. Didactic, no — but what’s wrong with wasting a few minutes?

The Metropolitan Museum,* for its part, has loaded its new website with videos — 142 of them, some long lectures — plus 80 podcasts, and various other elements of “media,” interactive and not. And the Met, along with 31 other museums or arts institutions, is a member of ArtBabble, founded by the Indianapolis Museum of Art (which has posted 252 videos there).

I’m not sure all these videos, if made especially for the web, are worth the effort, but that’s one of the good things about video: It is easy for museums to see, over time, what’s in demand because the web keeps track of the number of times videos are viewed.

But posting videos made for exhibitions in the exhibitions — well, that’s another matter, I think, requiring more thought about what they’ll add or subtract from the items on view.

The other day, though, while at a exhibit that did have videos in the galleries, I was hoping I would find them later on line, and I didn’t.

I was at the Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts to see the Hats: An Anthology By Stephen Jones exhibition (sample, by Schiaparelli, at left). Roberta Smith in the New York Times gave it pretty much of a rave, but I found myself wanting more context. (There is a catalogue, but I didn’t buy it.)

Several galleries offered small, mostly black-and-white, historical videos. But the galleries were full, the screens were tiny (smaller than my computer monitor), the sound was very low, and a handful of people crowded around each one.

I went home to watch. But while the situation cried out for the videos to be online, they weren’t. So either Bard missed the boat here — it’s a gallery for an educational institution, after all, not strictly a museum — or there’s another problem, possibly the inability to obtains the right to put historical footage online.

Professionals are always searching for “best practices.” Here’s one: I’d ask museums that have videos in their galleries to share them online, for people at home. They could create a virtuous circle, adding to the knowledge of people who’ve seen and exhibit and drawing more people from their computers to go see it.

Photo Credit: © V&A Images, Courtesy of the BCG 

Ever since Peter C. Marzio, director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, died last December, I’ve been wondering what the museum would do to honor its longtime director. When Philippe de Montebello retired from the top job at the Metropolitan Museum in 2009, he was honored by an exhibition of works acquired during his tenure. When Anne d’Harnoncourt, director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, died suddenly in 2008, works acquired during her tenure were given a special label as a tribute, among other things.

Marzio, having taken his post at MFAH in 1982, was the dean of museum directors when he died. He built that museum. As it is contemplating a new building, I actually thought for a while that trustees might be thinking about naming the building after him — assuming they can build it without a naming gift. But there is no news on that front.

But some individuals have paid their respects. The other day, MFAH announced that Frank Stella had donated a portion of his Palmito Ranch painting (1961) (at right), from his “Benjamin Moore” series that helped advance Minimalism in American art, in honor of Marzio (the museum purchased the rest with money from the Caroline Wiess Law Accession Endowment). Stella offered: “Peter Marzio was everything you would want from the director of a great museum. I got to know Peter when the MFAH invited me to create murals for the 1982 Stella by Starlight gala; from then on I counted him a friend.”

Which prompted me to again ask the MFAH about other gifts in Marzio’s memory. There have been, I learned, 37 works given, or purchased with funds given, in tribute to Marzio, according to Mary Haus, the director of marketing and communications. “With collection subcommittee meetings just starting back up, it’s anticipated that further works will be designated in his name by year’s end,” she added. Haus also said that the museum has received “more than $1 million in monetary contributions, designated for both programming and future acquisitions” in Marzio’s honor.

Among them:

• Annette Lemieux’s Sky Pile, from Karin and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
• Helen Torr’s Corrugated Building, from the Brown Foundation and Isabel B. Wilson
• Jules Olitsky’s Patutsky Embraced: Yellow, from Bradley and Lauren Olitsky Posner and Kristina Olitsky
• A Minoan octopus ornament, from Maria Doiranlis and Jasper Gaunt
• Carlos Cruz-Diez’s Transchromies Environment, from the artist  

 Here’s the full list: Peter C Marzio Memorial Gifts.pdf.

The search for Marzio’s successor, btw, continues. Haus declined to comment, but the gossip mill says the search committee is still in the interviewing stage.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of MFAH