The article in today’s New York Times, headlined “Wounded In Crossfire Of a Capital Culture War”, about the Hide/Seek controversy at the National Portrait Gallery and the troubles it has brought Smithsonian secretary G. Wayne Clough (below) only left me with more questions and several confirmed impressions.

Here are a few: 

• Why would G. Wayne Clough, the Smithsonian secretary who made the decision to pull “A Fire in My Belly” from Hide/Seek even schedule a public forum on the issue if he has no intention of taking questions? Who gave him that advice? The same guy(s) who suggested that he save the exhibition by deleting the David Wojnarowicz film/video?
• Jonanthan D. Katz, the professor/co-curator of the exhibit (rightly labeled as “something of a gadfly”) has been saying that many museums had rejected his pitches for this, or a similar, exhibit. Yesterday, the number was 40, but I’ve seen smaller totals in previous published accounts. But who are these scaredy-cat museums? Wouldn’t we like to know? How about a list from Katz? That would shake up the art world.

I know this — I’ve inquired of a few museum directors about this: none said they had heard of the idea and all said they’d have been interested. Only Arnold Lehman, of the Brooklyn Museum, was on the record when I asked, so you have to trust me — there were others.

• Former Senator Chris Dodd is quoted saying “You’re not going to get Congress to support a museum.” Really? What about the National Gallery of Art? For FY 2012, the Obama administration is seeking $118.8 million for its operations (plus more to be left available for repairs), which would be a slight increase from FY 2011 at the current rate of spending (2011 budget bills have yet to be passed, as I recall).
• Julian Raby, director of the Freer-Sackler Galleries, has been doing a pretty job over there. Now he has been designated the “in-house arts troubleshooter.” Excuse me, but isn’t that what Undersecretary (for history, art and culture) Richard Kurin is supposed to be doing? Doesn’t this show that Clough was wrong to cut the position of Undersecretary for Art once held by Ned Rifkin? If Clough wants to give that job to Raby, fine; he should then appoint a new director for the Freer-Sackler. If not, let Raby do his real job.

All of this only reinforces a view I’ve had almost since Clough took over. Then I wrote that Clough, an engineer, had little feel for the museums side of his job. I thought they might suffer from benign neglect. It’s worse than that: neglect coupled with interference at the wrong time. 

Which brings me to another feeling I’ve had. It’s time to reconsider the entire structure of the Smithsonian. Breaking it in two, into the scientific side and the cultural side, is an idea whose time has come.  

The good news is that Iranian art is alive and well. The bad news is that so much of the work cannot be shown publicly, or can be exhibited only for a few hours during an opening before being whisked into storage.

That’s the key paragraph in an article, brought to my attention by a friend, that was published last week in the International Herald Tribune. Written by Benjamin Genocchio, a former critic for The New York Times who is now editor of Art + Auction, it’s a good summary of what he calls “the paradoxes of Iran,” made visible through the art world.

Genocchio reports that he had a constant guide, just as one did in the old Soviet Union, and it too was a metaphor:

The Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance keeps a tight rein on what can and cannot be displayed, and every gallery owner I met had a story about being called in to the ministry and asked to explain and subsequently remove the artworks on their walls. Pieces deemed offensive or blasphemous expose dealer and creator to prosecution.

But artists are coping; many, the article says, are making daring work. (The above sample — though not particularly daring — is by Mohammed Eskandari.) They are also responding to the clapdown with quiet protests. This month,

several Tehran galleries hope to stage an impromptu joint exhibition of about 70 artists’ works devoted to flower imagery, an act of solidarity with Mehraneh Atashi, a photographer who was detained in January 2010 for documenting Tehran’s street protests. She was released on the condition that she start taking pictures of something more suitable, like the beauty of local horticulture.

Genocchio also reports that Shadi Ghadirian has established an online registry of Iranian artists called fanoosphoto.com, which also hosts exhibitions.

Another point, also a bit sad:

Officially, Iran reports that it receives around 10,000 tourists annually, a staggeringly low number considering its cultural attractions; Persepolis, capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, is one of the great archaeological sites in the region. Dubai, with little to offer beyond shopping and an annual art fair, gets about a million visitors a year.

Personally, I’d rather go to Tehran/Iran.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Azad Gallery, Tehran

The distance between Prague and La Jolla, Ca. is 6,000 miles, but if you’ve ever wondered how fast hot art can travel, a story coming out of the Art Loss Register suggests that kind of distance is nothing. Only four days elapsed between the time a photograph was stolen from Prague’s Museum of Decorative Arts this month and when a suspicious California dealer contacted the Art Loss Register about the photo.

The story also shows that the thief, or thieves, started looking for a buyer before they took the photograph.

The photograph in question is The Wave, by Frantisek Drtikol, made in 1925 (right). On Mar. 13, shortly after the Prague museum opened, someone cut it from its frame and walked away with it. Fortunately, its loss was noted and reported, and Harvinder Kaur, an art historian working for the ALR dutifully (and quickly) recorded the theft: The Wave became an item on ALR’s 350,000-strong database of lost, stolen and missing artwork.

On Mar. 17, the La Jolla dealer, Joseph Bellows, contacted the ALR. He had become increasingly suspicious of the manner in which he was approached by the seller, surprised that such an important work was available for sale, and he had read press reports of the theft. ALR immediately identified the photograph as the work stolen just days earlier in Prague.
 
In the course of the case, ALR learned that from correspondence between Bellows and the suspected thief or handler, that Bellows had been contacted about a potential purchase of the piece in late January of this year.

But because everyone, including police and diplomats, acted quickly and responsibly, the photo went back to the museum on Tuesday.

It was one of ALR’s fastest recoveries.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of ALR

Another new museum opened its doors late last week: The Baroness Thyssen Museum in central Malaga, Spain. It contains about 230 paintings owned by the Baroness (below), from her “private collection.” That’s as opposed to what her late husband amassed over his lifetime, much of which is on display in Madrid at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. It’s full of wonders by Old Masters, Impressionists and post-Impressionists, American Masters, and on and on.

Located in the 16th Century Villalon Palace, which was restored over the past two years at a cost of more than $18 million (plus more to extend the galleries into adjacent buildings), the new museum — aka the Carmen Thyssen Museum — displays works by Picasso, Miro, Sorolla, Fortuny, Zuloaga and other mostly Andalucian artists, according to several news reports. The museum has about 77,000 sq. ft. of space. Malaga’s mayor said he expects it to attract 200,000 to 250,000 visitors a year, according to Typically Spanish. It will also mount temporary exhibitions.

The collection has been lent, not given, and just until 2025. She has received some criticism for that, since the time period is quite short.

But this story includes a tidbit that’s more revealing than loan vs. gift — it’s about how the art world has changed and how inflated values have become. News reports have placed the value of the collection on loan to the Malaga museum at $950 million. But in 1993, the Baron’s collection of 700 works were sold to Spain for $338 million. In today’s dollars, that’s less than $520 million. So I guess Spain got a bargain…then.

Now, will the loan to the museum enhance the value of her paintings? Will she sell them to Malaga in 2025?

And yes, the Baroness does like her museums. She was responsible for convincing her late husband to sell his collection to Spain in 1993, she once had another building in Madrid for her own collection of European paintings, now there’s Malaga, and according to AFP,

Baroness Thyssen, a former Miss Spain and the baron’s fifth wife, said she also hopes to lend another part of his vast collection to another museum to be established in a monastery in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

These works are at present in the modern wing of the Thyssen Museum in Madrid.

I have not yet seen any review of the museum, just “press.”

UPDATE, 3/14: There’s trouble at the museum. According to The Independent, the museum’s director and a trustee have resigned because of “meddling” by the baroness and the mayor.

 
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Solarpix / PR Photos