What did you think about seeing the Musee d’Orsay draped with a gigantic banner advertising Chanel No. 5? Or the Doge’s Palace in Venice sporting an ad for Bulgari?

Both pictures were published in The New York Times on Monday, accompanying an article about the shaky status of some European arts institutions — and their efforts to create new revenue streams. (Even nastier, though not shown, was the disclosure that a couple of “shiny new Dany electric cars” were placed in the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome, which is nasty enough already.)

Last week, I listened to a similar story from Gianandrea Noseda, the Music Director of the Teatro Regio Torino, Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, Artistic Director of the Stresa Festival, and the Victor de Sabata Guest Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Noseda was here to conduct La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera, but he also wanted to let those who love Italian culture — and how could one not? — know that the Berlusconi government was about to zero out support for opera and classical music.

Without tax deductions for contributions, Italy has little culture of philanthropy for the arts (excluding traditions in previous eras of patronage). But Noseda would like to cultivate that culture. He’s starting here by talking to wealthy Italian-Americans, particularly those who moved here, or whose ancestors moved here, fairly recently.

“We have to find a mixed system” of state and philanthropic support, he said — a system more like the American system.

Indeed, as much as we complain here about the lack of state support, our system is better — and Europe is moving in our direction, like it or not.

Noseda spoke from the heart about his love for his country and his culture. I have much sympathy for him, and I wish him luck. At least he’s trying. But as I said at the table then, Americans are unlikely to provide the critical support he needs. Perhaps some money from Americans will help him spark the philanthropic culture needed in Italy, but it’s unlikely to be big enough to solve Italy’s problems. 

On another note, Noseda mentioned that 2011 is the 150th anniversary of the unification of modern Italy, and there’ll be many celebrations, including concerts in Torino, the first national capital. Time to plan a trip? Cultural tourism would help.   

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Opera America

 

Last April, I wrote here about the results of the State of the Sector survey by the Nonprofit Finance Fund, which disclosed worrisome figures about the art sector. For example, the vast majority — 65% — of the 417 arts groups that participated in the survey had less than three months’ cash on hand.

This year, the NFF would like to gain a broader, more accurate picture of the non-profit sector, and though I have never made a request of readers like this, I’ve agreed to help with the outreach by posting about it. I’m doing it because, as regular readers know, I frequently advocate for better statistics in the arts world.

So, if you are in a top position responsible for your organization’s finances — or can call this survey to the attention of whoever is – here’s the link to the 2011 survey. The deadling is Feb. 15. To refresh your memory, the NFF is a community development financial institution that makes loans to non-profits.

Actually, there’s a little news on another statistics front. At their just-ended meeting, members of the Association of Art Museum Directors agreed “to develop an improved and expanded data collection and analysis tool for members in recognition of the importance of data for internal and external audiences. The second phase of this project will look at ways for sharing this information with the public.”

I should declare victory, but I’ll await the time when the better information is shared (should I still be writing this blog).

The AAMD agreed to a few other things at their meeting, including new guidelines for the use of digital images (to be published shortly), a commitment to “constructive dialog” with institutions contemplating deaccessioning for purposes outside the scope of currently permitted uses, and some revisions to the professional practices guidelines (also to be published soon). Read more, in a press release, here.

It’s pretty unusual for a living artist to have his or her own museum. But that honor is going to William Eggleston, known as the father of color photography as an art form.

Eggleston, 71, is lucky to be from Memphis, which is home to a museum for Elvis and to Stax, a museum for American soul music. Two years ago, a group of local philanthropists decided that giving Eggleston a museum would be good not only for him but also for the city. Together, members of the group have pledged more than $5 million to start the ball rolling.

Eggleston has promised to transfer his full oeuvre to the museum, which will include offices for the archive’s staff. In return for housing the work, and helping to conserve and digitize them, the museum will “have access and display rights” to all of the “approximately 60,000 imaged and 1,000s of prints, including rights in and to vintage dye transfer prints” in the artist’s collection, according to Mark Crosby, the museum’s planning director. (That’s an untitled work from 1975 at left.)

Planners expect to build in the Midtown area of Memphis, but they have not finalized the site.

They expect to spend about $10 million on the building, and are raising an additional $5 million for an endowment. They expect donors to include foundations as well as individuals, and perhaps state and local governments.

Eggleston’s “story” was recapped in a press release from the group:

The myth of Eggleston often begins with his arrival in New York in the 1970s carrying a shoebox of his own photographs. As the story goes, he showed them to John Szarkowski, the head of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, who looked at them and said they were “perfect.” Szarkowski hosted Eggleston’s one-man 1976 show, “William Eggleston’s Guide.” When the show opened, critics panned it. The New York Times critic wrote, “Perfect? Perfectly banal, perhaps. Perfectly boring, certainly.”

Now more than thirty years later, Eggleston is widely admired in the art world, and his work seems to win him affection as well as admiration. He is widely known as a colorful character as well as a groundbreaking artist. A retrospective exhibition opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2008 and has toured Europe and the US, finishing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art this past fall. His fans routinely line up around the corner to ask the artist to sign books. The New York Times wrote in 2008 that Eggleston is “one of our finest living photographers.”

There’s a bit more information and background in an article in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, published last week.

If there’s a moral to this story — aside from pursuing your vision no matter what critics say, it may be “be lucky where you hail from.” Eggleston is still a presence in Memphis. 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Eggleston museum organizers

The American section of the International Association of Art Critics, of which I am a member, is just out with its annual exhibition awards, and here are some of the winners. (Entire list, covering exhibitions from June ’09 through June ’10) is here, including the runners-up in each category.) 

Best Project in a Public Space:

“Cai Guo-Qiang: Fallen Blossoms” (left)  — Organized by the Fabric Workshop and Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Curated by Marion Boulton Stroud, Carlos Basualdo, and Adelina Vlas

Best Show in a Non–profit Gallery or Space:

“Leon Golub: Live & Die like a Lion?” — Organized by The Drawing Center, New York, NY; Curated by Brett Littman

Best Show in a University Gallery:

“Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield” — Organized by the Hammer Museum of Art, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA; Curated by Robert Gober

Best Monographic Museum Show, Nationally:

“Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917” — Organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Curated by Stephanie D’Alessandro and John Elderfield

Best Thematic Show, Nationally:

“Seductive Subversion: Women Pop Artists, 1958-1968” (Chryssa’s Ampersand IV at right) — Organized by Rosenwald-Wolf, Hamilton Hall & Borowsky Galleries, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Curated by Sid Sachs

Best Historical Museum Show, Nationally:

“Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers” — Organized by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Curated by Kerry Brougher and Philippe Vergne

Other categories include museum and gallery shows in New York, best shows in architecture/design, best shows in media/film, and so on.

(I voted in some categories, but not in those in which I had seen too few of the entries.)

The awards ceremony take place at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art on March 14 2011 at 6 p.m. — it’s open to the public.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the University of the Arts (bottom)

 

Art works on the auction block that sail past their pre-sale estimates, fetching multiples of the high end always fascinate me. Does someone know something the rest of us don’t? Have the experts made a mistake?

The auction houses themselves usually play down the intrigue by saying,”it only takes two bidders.” That’s right – but two very determined ones.

So it was last week, when an 18th Century American mahogany bureau table sold at Christie’s for $5.7 million — against a presale estimate of $700,000 to $900,000.

As Christie’s described the action:

the table was pursued by multiple bidders, who rapidly drove the price to the $3 million dollar threshold. From there on two dedicated bidders in the saleroom battled back and forth for the handsomely carved table before a hushed audience of clients and onlookers, until auctioneer John Hays dropped the gavel at $5 million. With premium, the final price realized was $5,682,500.

The table was called the Catherine Goddard Chippendale Block-and-Shell Carved and Figured Mahogany Bureau Table, and the piece is “attributed” to the renowned Newport, R.I. carver John Goddard, 1724-1785, whose work was sought out by wealthy colonials. Goddard’s work here exemplifies the Newport style called “block-and-shell” carving.

Maybe this is what made it special:

A handwritten label in the top drawer of the table indicates that Goddard made the knee-hole bureau circa 1765 expressly for his daughter, Catherine Goddard, and may have given it to her as a wedding present. The table remained within his daughter’s family through several generations of descendants until it was sold by the cabinetmaker’s great-great granddaughter Mary Briggs (Weaver) Case in the early 1900s. The table last sold at auction in January 2005 for $940,000.

After the sale, Hays brought up other points: “This desk bears all the unique characteristics and quality of construction that make Newport furniture of this era so highly prized among collectors. The quality of the mahogany in particular is stunning in this piece and shows that Goddard had his pick of the wood coming into the port during that era.”

Whatever the reason, the piece set a world record for the knee-hole desk form.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Christie’s