Christine Anagnos is the new executive director of the  Association of Art Museum Directors, promoted from the deputy slot to the head.

Kaywin Feldman, AAMD’s president and director of the Minneapolis Institite of Arts, made the announcement in her April President’s Message.

Here’s what she said:

Hired in 1995, Christine has worked in various capacities for the Association of Art Museum Directors, which is the primary professional organization for 200 of North America’s leading art museum directors. Since 2002, she has served as the Deputy Director and chief administrator, responsible for overseeing and implementing the organization’s budget, finances, operations, and programs, including its annual surveys of museum salaries and statistics which serve as the industry’s standard for benchmarking data. Prior to working for AAMD, Christine ran an adventure travel company specializing in travel to Ecuador, Peru, and the Galapagos Islands. Christine majored in Psychology at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. She lives in New York with her husband and 6-year-old son.

This means, I believe, that whichever director occupies the president’s job will be the spokesperson for the group — not the executive director.

You’ll recall that Janet Landay left this job in February, though it that escaped notice until early March. She hadn’t been there long, just two years, and I understand that there was both disappointment about her handling of the job and some personality differences with Feldman.

Landay had worked in museums, and presumably expected to speak for the group sometimes — as Mimi Gaudieri, her predecessor had. But there was some “who’s on first” aspect to the AAMD in the last few years. In recent years, AAMD became less open to outsiders like the press, and less of the go-to place for comment on general museum issues — partly because what was said was either party-line predictable or too little, too late.

Agnagnos, I am hoping, will be more open to sharing information with the press, for one thing.

One director I spoke with, however, says the AAMD board is following the strategic plan it adopted a while ago, and there’ll be no noticeable deviations from that.  

 

Uh oh. A couple of weeks ago, when I wrote about the ham-handed opening of Carlos Slim’s Soumaya Museum in Mexico City, I noted that we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth — and said that, with regard to the museum and collection itself, I awaited reviews from people who had seen it in person.

Now those comments are starting to come in. And they are bad. I recently spoke with two people who made the trek to Mexico City, and both were negative about both the building and the collection.

Then, earlier this week, Benjamin Genocchio, editor of Art + Auction, published his review on ArtInfo. It began, tragically:

There is something tragic about the Museo Soumaya, the spectacular-looking private museum in Mexico City that opened to the public on March 28. It is owned and operated by the Carlos Slim Foundation and contains the collection of the world’s richest man, Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim. With so much money at his disposal I was expecting to see something extraordinary. But unfortunately it falls short.

And on many levels, as Genocchio goes on to detail. Though many of the galleries are only partly installed, he said those he saw were largely populated with second-rate works by Impressionists and Modern masters. His bottom line: “a vanity museum gone right in some areas, but in too many other aspects gone wrong.”

I would be surprised if there’s divergence of opinion on this in the art world. Then again, the public may love Soumaya…

UPDATED, on 4/18/2011: opinion from Art in America doesn’t disagree.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Getty Images

 

For a long time now, when people think of museum architects, the first names that come to mind are Frank Gehry and Renzo Piano. In the past, also Richard Meier. Of course, there’ve been others (some whose buildings haven’t been built), but still…

I am not along in thinking that some of their buildings are overrated.

That’s why I was pleased to see that the 2011 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award has gone to the Neues Museum in Berlin, whose 19th century building was restored and recreated by David Chipperfield of the U.K.

This prize is given every other year and comes with a 60,000 Euro award. From afar, the Neues Museum looks to be a good choice.

I’m no architecture expert, but given the deficiencies of some recent museum construction projects perhaps Chipperfield should have a higher place on the go-to list of museum architects here. Some smart art-world people I know think that so; they’d like to see more of his work on these shores.  

Chipperfield has done some projects in the U.S.: the master site plan for the Menil Collection in Houston, the Saint Louis Art Museum expansion, the Figge Art Museum, the Anchorage Museum expansion, among them. But most of his work is abroad. His Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate, England, opens on Saturday.

Announcing the EU Mies winner, Androulla Vassiliou, the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, said “The Neues Museum brings the past and present together in an stunning mix of contemporary architecture, restoration and art.”

And Mohsen Mostafavi, the chair of the jury, said: “…Rarely have an architect and client succeeded in undertaking a work of such historic importance and complexity; especially one that involves both preservation and new building. The project raises and addresses many aesthetic, ethical, and technical issues. It is an exemplary demonstration of what collaboration can achieve in the context of contemporary European architectural practice.”

Says the release:

The original Neues Museum, designed by Friedrich August Stüler, was built in the mid-19th century. The building was severely damaged in the Second World War and reconstruction began in 2003, with the aim of restoring the site to its former glory. David Chipperfield, who worked on the project in collaboration with fellow British architect Julian Harrap, adopted a dynamicapproach in his restoration. Rather than attempting to conceal the difference between the old and new elements, the past and present are beautifully combined to create an unforgettable building with multiple layers.

Some 343 buildings were nominated for this award and the Emerging Architect award, which went to Ramon Bosch and Bet Capdeferro for the Collage House in Girona, Spain.

Photo credit: Courtesy of the Neues Museum/European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award  

Would you buy the painting at right if you discovered it and knew nothing about the artist? Ah, but what if it’s by Picasso, which it is?

The early artistic output of renowned artists always fascinates me. This work, Les enfants et les jouets, will be up for sale at Christie’s in New York on May 3, with an estimate of $5.5- to $7.5 million.

It’s the second early Picasso to come on the market this year. In January, Christie’s sold Sur l’impériale traversant la Seine (below), deaccessioned by the Art Institute of Chicago, for $7.8 million (including commission). Both works were painted in 1901, when Picasso was 19.

Picasso painted both in preparation for his first major exhibition, at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in Paris, according to the press release. Says Conor Jordan, head of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s, Americas:

This scene of two small children amidst their toy horses and dolls is a work of irrepressible painterly élan. Picasso’s innate skill as a draftsman and his newfound excitement at the coloristic innovations of the Parisian avant-garde are evident in this work. Even at this early stage of his career, his searching eye found obvious enjoyment in the interaction of two infants, a theme he was to revisit throughout his legendary career.

Vollard seemed to think so. The Christie’s press release continues:

The painting may well have been among the more than 60 works selected for Vollard’s gallery show, which opened in June of 1901 to great critical acclaim. From a commercial standpoint, the exhibition was a rousing success for both the artist and for Vollard, with well over half of the paintings sold and enough income generated for the young Picasso to establish himself in Paris.

Really? Just for fun, to see how Vollard recorded this, I went to my copy of his Recollections of a Picture Dealer, and found this passage:

Towards 1901 I received a visit from a young Spaniard, dressed with the most studied elegance. He was brought to me by one of his countrymen…a manufacturer from Barcelona, Manache… Picasso, who, though only eighteen, had finished about 100 paintings, which he was bringing me with a view to an exhibition. This exhibition was not a success, and for a long time after Picasso got no better reception from the public.

Well, I guess it depends on what your definition of success is. Or how good Vollard’s memory was when he wrote his memoir (my edition is a reprinting of the 1936 English translation).

Since Gertrude and Leo Stein played such a large role in Picasso’s career, maybe more will be revealed when we see the upcoming show, The Steins Collect. Meantime, I’m going with the book.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Christie’s

 

What museum wouldn’t love an exhibit that attracts 5,000 people a day? Using the recent worldwide tally of attendance by The Art Newspaper for context, an exhibition of that popularity on a daily basis would have ranked 28th on the most popular list in 2010 — right behind Bauhaus at the Museum of Modern Art and right ahead of Gabriel Orozco, also at MoMA.

So the Park Avenue Armory has something to brag about, and it did (in a press release). Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts, a show of 651 such examples that was “presented” by the American Folk Art Museum, attracted nearly 5,000 people a day in its recent six-day run. Just quilts! And more quilts of two hues than anyone probably imagined, really.

But in the Armory’s eight-story drill hall, hung mainly on circular rods that spiraled as much as 45 feet into the air, the quilts (owned by Joanna S. Rose, whose family paid for the exhibition) really were a spectacle. I enjoyed seeing them.

Now, it’s true that no one knows what would have happened if A) the exhibit lasted longer and B) it wasn’t free. Still, plenty of museums in The Art Newspaper’s annual list are free. For the quilts, people came from as far away as New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and Australia, according to the Armory.

Here’s another comparison: Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Vision By Peter Greenaway, which ran at the Armory from Dec. 3, 2010, through Jan. 6, 2011, received nearly as many visitors — about 24,000, the Armory says — in the course of about a month. Of course, general admission tickets for Greenaway cost $15 ($12 for senior, students, etc.).

I don’t want to stretch the point too far, but the quilt show has legs and should travel, BUT:

First, it needs a catalogue (now in preparation). At the Armory, there was almost no context; there wasn’t even a checklist with origin or dates, etc. A proper museum exhibition requires some scholarship. This was more spectacle than exhibit.

And, of course, the Rose family could pay for it, as they did at the Armory: that’s renting out a museum aka pay to play (I addressed single-collector shows here).

Infinite Variety raises another question: the financial woes of the American Folk Art Museum are well known, and popular exhibits won’t solve its money problem. But AFM’s attendance hovers around 160,000 a year, according to recent reports. Could it be higher? More important, how can it use this success to attract more support, both from visitors and funders? 

Photo Credit: Gavin Ashworth, Courtesy of the Park Avenue Armory