The Metropolitan Museum of Art* rolled out the first effort of its new Digital Media Department yesterday; it’s called Connections, and it is planned to be a once-a-week release of a 4-minute online interactive feature. For the kickoff, the Met has posted four of them.

Here’s the description:

Episodes are comprised of audio narration and slide shows of the works of art discussed, as well as links to contextual background. Each Connections episode explores a broad theme through the subjective and personal viewpoint of a Museum staff member. Participants will include curators, conservators, scientists, librarians, educators, photographers, designers, editors, digital media producers, technicians, administrators, executive staff, and many other staff.

Met director Thomas Campbell introduces the feature here.

The subjects of the first four are promising.

• “Small Things,” in which Associate Director Carrie Rebora Barrett (above) seeks out tiny works in the collection.
• “Virtuosity,” which finds paintings conservator Michael Gallagher (below) talking about “the appeal of technical virtuosity.”
• “Maps,” wherein Medieval art curator Melanie Holcomb explains “how maps help her make sense of the world.”
• “Tennessee,” in which video producer Christopher Noey waxes nostalgic about his childhood home via works in the museum.

These topics, all interesting, illustrate a nice range of access points for people not necessarily versed in art and who want to enjoy it anyway, and for people who are knowledgeable about art to see things from a different perspective. For all, they are a way to listen to an expert and see their selections.

The interactive part is minimal: “visitors can link to additional information about the works of art: the time period in which they were made, the geographic origins of the works, and where works on view can be found in the Museum’s galleries.”

Still, for the idea, I give the Met an A. 

The execution, however, is…well, needs improvement. The two I sampled — more about why in a minute — were slide shows of artworks with voiceovers by the narrator. Very static. I had pictured a real video, with the narrator holding or standing near the artwork, in the galleries, and perhaps a walk from one to another (speeded up, for fun). But there was nothing like that. And why are the narrators pictured in black and white?  

Barrett’s entry also suffers from a mismatch between what she’s saying and what is being seen on screen, which is pretty unforgivable. That was fixed in Gallagher’s virtuoso picks. 

Barrett’s has two other flaws: In a riff on “small things,” the feature does not provide dimensions of the works. And, horribly, when you click on “In the Museum,” to find out where to go to find these objects, several are not currently on view. That’s also unforgivable.

What about the other two episodes? I don’t know, because my computer froze during the loading process. I has to shut it down, and reboot — and I decided to finish this post before going back to Connections, to see if I could Connect. This problem could well be my computer, and I do not blame the Met (for now).  

I like this idea, and I expect the Met to improve on its execution. Right now, it’s a bit of a disappointment. 

More details in the press release, including the ideas behind the next five features. 

If you go to the Met’s home page, btw, you’ll notice a change — which I think may have happened on Jan. 1. No more landing page, with the artwork of the day. You go right to the home page, where there’s a rotating banner of temporary exhibitions. 

I get it, some people didn’t have the patience to “Enter.” But I kind of liked seeing the artwork of the day. 

The new website wasn’t announced, and it’s obviously still in the making. Perhaps it will be rolled out one change at a time.

Which brings me to another problem: there’s no link to “Connections” on the website — for now, at least, you have to know the URL (www.metmuseum.org/connections).

UPDATE, 1/5: As a commenter (below) reported, the announcement of Connections is now posted on the home page, with the link to it, under “Now At the Met.” And it’s permanent home looks to be under “Works of Art,” right beneath the Timeline of Art History.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met.

Well, that didn’t take long: It’s only Jan. 3, and another new museum designed to be an “attraction” is about to open. It’s a statement museum in a statement complex.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love architecture, beautiful architecture. It’s just that I think many new museums are pretty inhospitable to art. And most new museums are not the Guggenheim Bilbao, we have all learned to much dismay.

Set to open on Feb. 17, this one, billed as the “world’s first ArtScience Museum” is part of a $5.5-billion multi-use complex (the casino, hotel, shops, etc., complex is above) in Singapore known as Marina Bay Sands. Designed by Moshe Safdie for the Las Vegas Sands company, MBS has nine elements, according to the fact sheet posted on Safdie’s website, and No. 6 is a 161,500 sq ft museum with 64,580 sq ft of gallery space.

It was designed somewhat like a lotus flower, with 10 fingers emanating from a round central base — it’s at left in the picture at left.

Las Vegas Sands chairman Sheldon Adelson called it the “welcoming hand of Singapore,” according to published reports. Reuters added: “The design of each finger reveals different gallery spaces featuring skylights at the “fingertips” that illuminate the dramatically curved interior walls.”

What’s in it?

[Read more…] about A New Year: A New Destination Museum, In Singapore By Safdie

This year, MIT celebrates its 150th anniversary with a wonderful neologism: inventional wisdom. MIT, naturally, put the term in an arithmetic form on its celebration website: MIT + 150 = Inventional Wisdom.

I liked the term as soon as I saw it, and more so when I Googled it, to see how common it was, and Google offered “Did you mean conventional wisdom”?

Decidedly not.

Inventional Wisdom could (should?) be the byword for the arts in 2011 — not a New Year’s resolution, but a goal, a challenge for art-lovers, museum officials, and others who care about the future of the arts in America. In different ways, we’re all thinking about the arts, about trying to broaden interest in the arts, to give other people the same (or similar) joy and enjoyment we feel when we participate in the arts. Somehow, vast numbers of people don’t seem to get it, we sometimes think — or why aren’t they coming?

It’s pretty clear to everyone that museums (or operas, theaters, orchestras, even jazz bands) can’t simply keep doing exactly what they have been doing: arts participation in the U.S. has fallen across the board, according to the National Endowment for the Arts.

It’s also clear, to me at least, that some “solutions” to the problem aren’t solutions at all — they’re distractions at best and, at worst, changes that negatively alter the very essence of art museums (and operas…etc.). Worse, some such ideas are becoming conventional wisdom, with museums (etc.) simply joining and following the herd.

Arts institutions must innovate, but with Inventional Wisdom. That’s often learned from experience, of course. And from analysis. Experiments are wonderful, even failed ones, as long as they’re not repeated.

Inventional Wisdom — which to me means true innovation — is hard, and not even MIT is always inventionally at the head of the pack. To celebrate its 150th, for example, the university is mounting an exhibition of its “unique qualities” and it says it has done so in a “unique way.”

Not quite. That “unique way” turned out to be a crowdsourced exhibition, the MIT 150 Exhibition, which as I recently noted the Brooklyn Museum and the Walker Art Center have also tried. Crowdsourced exhibits are fine, but I doubt that they are the answer to museums’ attendance troubles. 

Nonetheless, MIT’s exhibit will be interesting as a view of the university’s history and the contributions its people have made to the culture: It will include:

…large scale artifacts – a racecar, a wheelchair, and an outer space control system simulator, as well as simpler objects like the wooden model of the city of Boston used in the wind tunnel experiments that solved the not so simple problem of window panes falling from the John Hancock Tower when it was built in 1976….also…the old and the rare – like the 19th century notes of Ellen Swallow Richards, MIT’s first female graduate student who was instrumental in creating the first water quality standards in America, along with the new – a virus built battery recently shown to President Obama….[a]nd the controversial; faculty who provoked politicians on both sides of the aisle with their science and their opinions, and those who irritated their own institution, by proving, with data, that women were always given smaller labs than men….

And, oh yes, the Polaroid 95A camera, above left.

In the visual arena, the MIT museum is soon offering its 3rd annual Luminous Windows winter exhibition of holography, the most advanced method of imaging yet invented. And it might just inspire some artist out there to do something wonderful.

It might even be something worthy of being called Inventional Wisdom, which is what I wish for the arts in 2011. When I find examples, I’ll be delighted to highlight them.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of MIT 

Regular readers of Real Clear Arts know that I like to shine a light on small museums from time to time. In that vein, today I was struck by an article in the Erie Times-News. Here’s how it began:

Twenty-ten will certainly be best remembered as the year Erie got the art museum building it deserves [at left]….The Erie Art Museum has been the aesthetic equivalent to a lighthouse on the lake for more than a century, a provider of guidance and illumination for the entire region. But for most of that history the museum made do with facilities that were historic and elegant in their own right [below], but not always adequate for the acquisition, presentation and preservation of our local artistic heritage….

 

In October, the museum unveiled its $9 million expansion and renovation project, one…which has added more than 10,000 square feet of exhibition, administrative and storage space to the existing facility. If you haven’t yet been, you must go, not only to wonder at the very cosmopolitan and dynamic design of the building itself, but also at the variety of exhibits the museum now has the capacity to present.

Even from the website, I think I get it — starting with that reference to folk art. It was’t just the folk art exhibit, which surveyed the work of 30 Pennsylvania artists, that is interesting. The EAM is also “a regional folk art support center,” whose web page links to regional folk artists and has a program called Old Songs, New Opportunities, which takes visual culture and music into day care centers. 

There is no holding down the foes of moving the Barnes Collection to downtown Philadelphia; they are a persistent bunch.

This weekend, they have organized a Barnes Day: on Sunday, the anniversary of Albert C. Barnes’s birthday, there will be a rally at 301 North Latches Lane, in Merion, across the street from the collection. It starts at noon. 

The Friends of the Barnes Foundation have enlisted two speakers, one from officialdom: Sam Stretton, Esq., a leading authority on Pennsylvania legal ethics, will speak about the “disturbing” ethical questions in the Barnes case, according to their press release, and Daylin Leach, Pennsylvania State Senator for the 17th District (which includes the Barnes Foundation in Merion) will also speak at the event.

After the rally, there’s a reception at which Friends of the Barnes will record their feelings about the collection, and presumably why it shouldn’t move, on video. Though they didn’t say, the Friends will probably post them on their website or at SavetheBarnes.org.

I continue to think their cause is futile, but I also continue to agree that the Barnes should not be moved. Aside from all the ethical issues regarding donor’s intent, the bad behavior on the part of some protagonists in this drama, and the poor way the legal cases have been handled, it’s a total waste of taxpayer’s money to build the downtown venue. The Barnes could have been kept where it is, with more access, in fine condition, with a fourth of the money that will be expended.

Further thoughts here, here, here, and here.

UPDATED, 1/2/11: Attorney Stretton surprised today’s crowd, and the media, by saying he’s taking the Barnes case back to court. Speaking at the rally, Stretton said that within a week, “he will ask that the original case be reopened, arguing that then-State Attorney General and now-Federal Judge Michael Fisher was too supportive of the coalition of individuals and groups that pressed for the Barnes to be moved to Philadelphia.”

Inquirer reporter Christopher Hepp was at at the rally, and published an article saying:

As Attorney General, it was Fisher’s job to represent the interests of the state’s citizens, not one side or the other in the dispute, Stretton said.

Stretton said he questioned Fisher’s actions after seeing him interviewed in the 2009 documentary, The Art of the Steal, which offered a critical view of the machinations that ultimately led to the planned move of the Barnes.

The article said that $160 million of the needed $200 million has been raised, and that the Barnes plans to close the galleried in Merion in June, though it will be more than a year until the new museum, downtown, is ready to receive the public.   

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Friend of the Barnes