Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Brexit And The Arts

Brexit-GuardianAs a former resident of the UK, admittedly a long time ago, I have been gobsmacked and riven (also riveted) by Brexit. I really felt, at the end of the day (as they say), that Britons would vote to stay. And now many of them, it seems, are having remorse. If you not been following, Google was inundated on Friday with questions originating in Britain asking what the ramifications would be of Brexit, what the EU was, and other questions. Further, Brexit proponent Nigel Farage of the UKIP party reportedly admitted that some arguments used against membership in the European Union were false.

And some Leave voters, interviewed by various TV outlets, said they had no idea their votes would carry the day. They were protesting, but didn’t really mean they wanted to leave.

Thus, a petition began that asks “HM Government to implement a rule that if the remain or leave vote is less than 60% based a turnout less than 75% there should be another referendum.” As of this writing, mid-afternoon on Saturday, the petition has more than 2 millions signatures, which higher than the gap between Leave and Remain ballots.

I doubt it will happen, but this year one never knows. I daydream that the Queen might do something.

If nothing happens, and Britain does leave the European Union, the arts may well suffer. According to an article in The Art Newspaper,

…Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, voiced the concerns of many when he told us this morning that the fund is “deeply concerned at the impact leaving the EU will have on culture in the UK, and particularly on its museums and galleries.” He explained: “At one level there is obviously now great financial uncertainty—the effect on European funding streams for the arts, for example—but quite as important is the potential effect on the spirit that drives a myriad of international partnerships in the arts”.

What is more:

…The European Regional Development Fund and the Creative Europe programme grant millions of pounds a year to UK arts organisations. Tougher controls on visitors and immigration may make it more difficult for foreign artists to visit or work in Britain. A fall in incoming tourism would impact negatively on museums, such as Tate Modern, which has just opened its huge extension.

Another possible repercussion, voiced by German collector Heiner Pietszch, fewer art loans to England:

The leading German art collector Heiner Pietzsch has said he will make new loans to Scotland rather than England in the event of a Brexit vote in the latest signal of the art world’s strong opposition to Britain’s leaving the European Union.

Heiner and Ulla Pietzsch have lent nearly 60 works from their Modern art collection to the Scottish National Gallery of Art for its summer exhibition Surreal Encounters, staged in collaboration with museums in Rotterdam and Hamburg.

Speaking at the opening of the exhibition, which includes major works by Dalí, Picasso, Magritte and Miró, Pietzsch said: “We will give pictures to Scotland because Scotland will stay within the EU.” His translator and curator, Francisca Cruz, clarified that he meant loans to Scotland.

All of this is so exasperating! And so unnecessary. I’m for the do-over.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Guardian

 

Sree Sreenivasan is Out at the Met

SreeAnother big name is leaving the Met. An announcement this morning says:

We wanted to share the news that Sree Sreenivasan will be leaving his position at The Met after three years serving as the Museum’s first Chief Digital Officer. This decision has been made in the context of the recentering of the Museum’s work and our current financial restructuring.

In his time with us, Sree has introduced new audiences to the power and relevance of The Met and helped redefine what digital means to museums. He has overseen a number of important initiatives, including The Met App, #MetKids, The Artist Project and Facebook 360 immersive videos. Our website was refreshed and optimized for mobile; our social media following increased exponentially; the online collection has been expanded; and we developed new connections with technology companies and individuals worldwide. Sree also led our engagement with platforms like Facebook Live and China’s WeChat and Weibo and expanded our MediaLab’s pioneering work…

He leaves very quickly, on June 30, though he negotiated a consulting contract with the Met for six months.

We await news of a slimming of the tech department, which had ballooned to 70-80 people in histenure.

Painters’ Paintings: Who Owned What When

You never know what might spark the idea for an exhibition, and at the National Gallery in London it was a 2011 gift left to the U.K. by Lucian Freud. He bequeathed a work called Italian Woman by Corot, which he had purchased 10 years earlier “no doubt drawn to its solid brushwork and intense physical presence,” says the NG.

Titian-VendraminFamilyAnd so on June 23, just a few years later, the NG will open Painters’ Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyke, a show of more than eighty works that had once been owned by great painters, either by gift, swap or purchase, works that probably inspired them, paintings they lived with. (The spark also explains the backward chronology of the title.) As the press release says:

This is an exceptional opportunity to glimpse inside the private world of these painters and to understand the motivations of artists as collectors of paintings.

In the release, Anne Robbins, the curator of Painters’ Paintings, explained:

Since its acquisition the painting’s notable provenance has attracted considerable attention – in fact the picture is often appraised in the light of Freud’s own achievements, almost eclipsing the intrinsic merits of Corot’s canvas. It made us start considering questions such as which paintings do artists choose to hang on their own walls? How do the works of art they have in their homes and studios influence their personal creative journeys? What can we learn about painters from their collection of paintings?

As it happened, the NG owns a Titian once owned by Van Dyck (he had 19 Titians at this death, one pictured here), a Rembrandt once in the possession of Reynolds, and a Degas owned by Matisse, among others. Borrow more from private collectors, and voila, what should be a very intriguing exhibition. Many of the works have not been seen publicly for decades.

Works once owned by Degas, a famed collector; Lord Leighton; George Frederic Watts, and Sir Thomas Lawrence will also be on view.

In the catalogue, which extends the scholarship of the show, Robbins related how each work was acquired, sometimes at great cost, and how the artists “used these pictures, extracting their technical secrets and repeatedly appropriating motifs, poses and subject matter.”

I love this idea. This is what art exhibitions should do. More details here.

 

Let’s Change to The Positive At the Met–Something “Divine”

Rama-FootFlash back to 1984, and to this excerpt from an article–no, a brief, really, which in itself says something–in The New York Times:

Also of interest this week: ”The Flame and the Lotus: Indian and Southeast Asian Art From the Kronos Collections” (Metropolitan Museum, Fifth Avenue and 82d Street): Reflecting a rise in collector interest throughout the country, the more ”exotic” art outside the pale of Western civilization is beginning to get its due in American museums. And at the Met, Indian and Southeast Asian art, once neglected, is coming along nicely, thanks partly to its cultivation by Martin Lerner, curator. This, the museum’s first loan exhibition in the field, was borrowed from a collector, Stephen M. Kossak, who with his family has already given the Met significant objects.

The 86 works of painting and sculpture – from India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia – form a rambling miscellany, ranging from 1500 B.C. to the late 18th century. If there’s an overall rationale, it’s that the objects were chosen for their esthetic, rather than historical, interest, with an emphasis on spirituality and refinement of craftsmanship. And while not everything here is of equal quality, it is obvious that Mr. Kossak, aided by Mr. Lerner, has a very discriminating eye.

The first loan exhibition in the field! We have come a long way. Today the Met is again the beneficiary of that eye. On June 14, it will open Divine Pleasures: Painting from India’s Rajput Courts—the Kronos Collections, another exhibition made possible by Kossak. These works, nearly 100 of them, are a promised gift to the Met from Kossak and his family.

I tell the story of Kossak and his collecting ways in an article for The Wall Street Journal that was published in the May 31 edition, headlined A Personal Collection Goes Public: Rajput Paintings at the Met.

The Devi, in the Form of Bhadrakali, Adored by the Gods’I have seen many of the works at Kossak’s home and I am eager to see them in an exhibition setting. These works are, as I wrote, “…playful paintings, which were made in the small kingdoms of northern India from the 16th to 19th centuries. Inspired by Hindu myths and poetry, the imaginative, detailed scenes of love and life among the gods are painted on paper in opaque watercolors and ink.” They are not Mughal paintings, which the Met owns many of. These works have more of an indigenous feel, higher coloration–they complement the Met’s holdings of Mughal works.

Regarding the Rajput works, I wrote:

Their vibrant hues—reds, yellows, blues, golds, whites raised to simulate pearls and greens made with beetle-wing casings to sparkle like emeralds—are matched by their colorful titles. They include “Krishna and the Gopas [Cowherds] Huddle in the Rain,” “Krishna Swallows the Forest Fire” and “Rama and Sita in the Forest: A Thorn is Removed From Rama’s Foot” (above right).

Each one, [Kossak] said, was bought because it evoked a visceral emotional response. “It’s lightning-bolt recognition across the board,” he said.

As the former head of the Asia Society Vishakha Desai told me, “The quality is at a very high level and there are only one or two Indian paintings collections like this that have been formed in the last 20 years, formed with the idea of getting absolutely the best.”

I think it will be a treat!

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the WSJ and the Met

I consult to a Foundation that supports the Met.

Another Shoe Drops At the Met

concepts_sellersAs predicted here on Monday, Susan Sellers, Head of Design at the Metropolitan Museum,* is departing and returning to private practice. The memo from the top came this morning and said, in part:

We are grateful for her work on the brand strategy and identity, The Met Breuer opening, and the introduction of new design initiatives throughout the Museum.  She will remain a trusted resource and dear friend to The Met, where her design legacy will long be felt.

These memos are always strange, sometimes praising troublesome “accomplishments”–e.g., in this case, the rebranding campaign,–and yet ignoring some actual accomplishments.

Sellers was hired in 2013.

I don’t plan to chronicle every departure from the Met. But there will be more and when it hits critical curatorial staff, I hope to let you know.

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met.