Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Asian Art Museum Gets Brief Reprieve, But Faces Dire Consequences

Late yesterday, the struggling San Francisco Asian Art Museum got a reprieve — but it’s a brief one, and if it’s not enough potential consequences are dire.

asianartmuseum.jpgAccording to The Bond Buyer, the museum’s foundation received “a 30-day extension on some obligations related to the expiration of a letter of credit from JPMorgan Chase & Co. backing $120 million in bonds.”

That gives the museum foundation until Jan. 21 to restructure its revenue bonds; its credit rating was downgraded by Moody’s Investor Services to junk status on Friday as the letter of credit expired. Moody’s also placed the foundation on its watch list, with negative implications for its credit ratings. And, The Bond Buyer said:

If the foundation is required to repay the bank bonds in quarterly payments over five years, its annual payments would hit $29.85 million plus interest, with the first $6 million payment due March 21, according to Moody’s.

If that happens, the museum would probably have to enter bankruptcy proceedings, according to the San Francisco Sentinel:

The museum and its assets could still be seized and sold off at Sotheby’s or Christie’s auction houses in 2011, according to City Hall sources, if a solution is not agreed to by the new drop-dead date of Jan. 21, 2011.

If those City Hall sources are correct, there’s been a turnaround: In November, when The Wall Street Journal chronicled the museum’s woes, Mark McLoughlin, the museum’s chief financial officer, told the writer otherwise. He wrote: “even in a worse-case scenario…the collection and the building itself would be safe from creditors. That is because both are owned by the City and County of San Francisco, so in the event of a bankruptcy filing, creditors could only go after about $70 million of endowment money and minor assets owned by the museum’s foundation.”

Around that time, the museum had to issue a statement that it was “open for business”…”despite financial challenges.” Yesterday, the Sentinel said, it issued another statement that “the various parties continue (discussions) at very high levels, and the Asian Art Museum continues to be optimistic that a suitable agreement will be reached.” (It is not, as of now, posted on its website.)

But SF Mayor Gavin Newsom made an interesting comment that was picked up by the San Francisco Examiner. He praised the collection, but criticized the museum’s location in the city’s Civic Center — people with long memories will recall that the museum took over the old Beaux Arts library, despite criticism that Asian art did not sit well in a grand European-style building.

Newsom said the location meant that the museum had to work “more aggressively” to attract visitors, which was hardly the sentiment when the museum moved there.

But Newsom made one good point: he said the foundation is going to have to “step up a bit more in terms of fundraising.” 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Asian Art Museum

 

 

Oh Those Mona Lisa Eyes: Do They Reveal More Than We Know?

I’m still in Britain, metaphorically speaking: Last week, the Daily Mail published an entertaining story about the Mona Lisa, stating that Leonardo implanted tiny numbers and letters in the eyes of La Gioconda — a real life da Vinci code — that may contain clues about the Holy Grail.

Reminds of the days when we (some of us, anyway) played the Beatles’ recording of Revolution backward to find out if Paul was dead…

MonaLisaEye.jpgThe new story has Silvano Vinceti, president of Italy’s National Committee for Cultural Heritage, describing the symbols, which he said were invisible to the naked eye but clearly there when viewers deploy a magnifying glass.

In the right eye [at left] appear to be the letters LV which could well stand for his name, Leonardo da Vinci, while in the left eye there are also symbols but they are not as defined.

It is very difficult to make them out clearly but they appear to be the letters CE, or it could be the letter B.

In the arch of the bridge in the background the number 72 can be seen or it could be an L and the number 2.

Vinceti insists that the marks are not accidental, but definitely placed there by Leonardo.

Da Vinci put a special emphasis on the Mona Lisa and we know that in the last years of his life he took the painting with him everywhere.

We also know that da Vinci was very esoteric and used symbols in his work to give out messages.

Who knows, they may even ­possibly be a love message to the ­figure in the painting.

(I do wish Vinceti would call the artist “Leonardo,” not da Vinci.)

Vinceti, the Daily Mail says, is also part of a group that wants to exhume Leonardo’s remains, so they can determine if the Mona Lisa is a self-portrait.

I’m definitely against the exhumation, and I’m a skeptic about the letters/numbers.

After all, Paul still isn’t dead…

If any Leonardo experts out there disagree, I would love to hear.

You can read the entire story here. 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Daily Mail

The Dulwich Picture Gallery Turns Its Birthday Into A Real Masterpiece

I don’t know Ian Dejardin, director of the Dulwich Picture Gallery outside of London, but either I’ve been channeling him or he’s been channeling me.

vermeer-music-lesson.jpgFor the Dulwich’s 200th anniversary year, which begins in January, Dejardin is borrowing one masterpiece a month from other museums to put on view, on its own. As he told Reuters:

Dulwich is recognised internationally as a really important museum in the history of museums. So I felt able to go and visit and write to directors of major institutions that we’ve worked with over the years to suggest to them that they might like to lend what I suppose is a glorified birthday card.

 

One loan, one masterpiece every month of the year. It’s like an unfolding calendar, it’s like a year long advent calendar of your dreams.

I’ve been advocating single-picture masterpiece shows for a while now (here, here and here).

So what works are coming to the Dulwich party? And who’s lending?

It all begins on Jan. 9, and here’s the line-up:

  • January: Portrait of Sir John Soane by Sir Thomas Lawrence, from Sir John Soane Museum
  • February: The Bafoon – Don Sebastián de Morra by Velazquez, from the Prado
  • March: A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman/The Music Lesson by Vermeer, from the Royal Collection (above)
  • April: The Vision of Saint John by El Greco, from the Metropolitan Museum
  • May: Venus and Mercury Present Eros and Anteros to Jupiter by Veronese, from the Uffizi
  • June: Titus As A Monk by Rembrandt, from the Rijksmuseum  
  • July: Comtesse d’Haussonville by Ingres, from the Frick Collection
  • August: Self-Portrait With Felt Hat, by van Gogh, from the van Gogh Museum
  • September: Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan by Gainsborough, from the National Gallery of Art 
  • October: The Leaping Horse by Constable, from the Royal Academy
  • November: Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney, from the Tate
  • December: The Adoration of the Shepherds by Domenichino, from the National Galleries of Scotland

Each month, the painting on view will be the subject of a bicentenary lecture, with the dates and speakers all set and ready to see at that link.

What a lineup of pictures, of artists, of lending institutions and of lecturers. All I can do is congratulate the Dulwich, and hope that its masterpiece a month “birthday card” program will inspire similar ideas at other museums.

Here’s a link to the Reuters article, which also contains a short history of the Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Royal Collection  

The Morgan Reveals Listri’s Libraries, And What A Show They Are

ListriTrinityLibrary.jpgWhen I visited the Morgan Library and Museum* the other day, I popped into its exhibit called Great European Libraries: Photographs by Massimo Listri and, boy, was I surprised.

All book-lovers, library-lovers and photography-lovers who can should find a way to stop in for this exhibit, which runs only until Jan. 9.

I was unfamiliar with Listri’s work, though I am a big fan of Candida Hofer’s photographs of libraries. I entered the gallery expecting my preconceptions to be reinforced — that Listri probably couldn’t top Hofer. Her work sells in art galleries; he — I later learned — sells his work at the Maison d’Art’s MdA Today gallery in Monte Carlo, but is probably best know for his books: Magnificent Italian Villas and Palaces, Casa Mediterranea: Spectacular Houses and Glorious Gardens By the Sea; New Asian Interiors, and similar fare.

Hofer-Trinity-library.jpgWell, it turns out that he doesn’t “top” Hofer, or the other photographers of her ilk. Listri’s works are equally good — they are just different. While both Hofer and Listri photograph empty spaces in public places, hers are somehow artsier and maybe a little richer; his are perhaps a bit slicker, maybe more architectural.

His Trinity College Library, Dublin, is at top, right. Hers is at left.

But it’s his show that’s on: large format (about 5 ft by 4 ft) photographs of about 20 iconic European libraries, all decked out in fine wood, marble, and other precious materials to create an opulent setting for books.

The exhibit is beautifully installed (take note of the three pictures arrayed along the diagonal, from the southwest corner of the gallery to the northeast corner) and well worth of a visit. Below, I’ve posted four of his works; from top to bottom, they are the Strahov Monastery Library in Prague, the Public Library in Naples, the St. Gall Monastery Library in Switzerland, and the Vatican Library. But you really have to see them in the flesh. 

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What Happened With Now WHAT?

In late November, I noted here that the Norton Museum of Art had gone exhibition-hunting during the week Miami Beach turns into an art fair. Curators Cheryl Brutvan and Charlie Stainback set out to visit booths at all of the fairs surround Art Basel Miami Beach and come home with an exhibition — curated in five days and hung in about ten days.

now-what-logo-large.jpgThe exhibit was opened on Wednesday, with the intention of providing a “snapshot” of “contemporary artistic practice without the pretext of a biennial survey” and showcasing “some of the most engaging work being made today.”

Today’s Art Daily brings us up to date on what seemed a bit like Mission Impossible:

Within just a few hours, an exhibition theme emerged. The show will turn on the concept of information exchange and how we communicate with one another – especially relevant within the current news cycle which is focused on the dramatic actions of the website WikiLeaks….

The artists represented include well-known names such as Roxy Paine and Liza Lou, as well as emerging artists Luke Butler and Allyson Strafella.

…To illustrate the theme, The Norton selected artwork that plays on the subject of information exchange, such as Julian Montague’s faux series of books made from digital prints and old books entitled Volumes from an Imagined Intellectual History of Animals, Architecture and Man. Artist Kim Rugg obscures information in the highly detailed, reconfigured paper piece entitled The Story is One Sign, where she carefully papers over a specific front page of The New York Times creating 30 examples of the same page, yet each one reveals only a single letter, or punctuation.

The revelation of information can be seen in its extreme with David Shapiro’s 24-foot long September 2010,Receipts, created by his skillful, trompe l’oeil renderings of his personal expenses – for each month. Without a political statement, but focusing on a world in turmoil, Liza Lou’s remarkable Offensive/Defensive, 2008, is made of thousands of glass beads in brilliant colors evoking the composition of a prayer rug….

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Norton Museum of Art