I’ve been alerted to a lovely short video about the Museum of Modern Art’s* Modern Women book, which was published last spring as part of the museum’s effort to be more attentive to women artists. It’s posted on a website called Brain Pickings.

The video (here) features MoMA’s museum archivist Michelle Elligott explaining how MoMA came into being after the (in)famous 1921 Impressionist show at the Metropolitan Museum. Nice, though we probably know all that. What’s new is a little story Elligott tells about Sarah Newmeyer, MoMA’s first publicist, aka MoMA’s “red-headed press agent.” (She is pictured at left.)

As Elligott relates, it was Newmeyer who, seeing that MoMA was getting no credit for arranging a nationwide tour of Whistler’s Mother, wrote in for a job, got it, and proceeded to publicize it so that “more than two million people visited their local museums to view the work and the United States Postal Service created a stamp featuring it”

That last quote is drawn from a partial history of Modern Women posted online.

That entry continues: “For the 1935 exhibition Vincent van Gogh, Newmeyer issued advance releases announcing Alfred H. Barr, Jr.’s trip to Europe to select works and giving highly sentimental descriptions of the artist’s life. During the show, police had to be brought to the Museum to control the crowds.” And there’s more, if you follow the link.

In 1947, Newmeyer even merited an article in the Saturday Evening Post.

How times have changed. 

Photo Credit: MoMA Archives, Courtesy Museum of Modern Art

*I consult to a foundation that supports MoMA.

The International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies has just released a report called National Arts Advocacy Campaigns: Overview of Case Studies and Good Practice. It’s based on “desk research” and responses to a survey circulated in August 2009 to IFACCA members, and is described as “exploring a range of campaigns currently being undertaken or planned by national arts funding agencies.”

IFACCA has members in 77 countries, including the U.S., which is represented by the NEA, the NEH and the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

I can’t say there are huge revelations in the report: Are there ever in things like this?

But I was struck by one sentence in the summary, in the section about communications: “Campaigners should be aware that the term ‘the arts’ can be vague and can have less than desirable associations.”

That’s an honest statement that I’ve rarely, if ever, seen stated so baldly — and yet it may well be important in setting the tone about advocating for “the arts.” Arts-lovers often assume that everyone agrees with them about the arts — how could they not? But when you think about it, it’s pretty clear that some “arts” are extremely off-putting to some people. That has to be factored in when efforts are made to widen appreciation for and participation in the arts.  

The whole 74-page report is a good primer, explaining the kinds of campaigns possible (grass roots, grass tops — that’s a new name for me — lobby, etc.), and offering something of a check list for advocacy campaigns and communications strategies. You can see the report here; IFACCA’s website is full of additional information and several useful links.  

I read today about the Seattle Art Museum’s offer to draw people to its Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso show, which opens on Friday: Free admission to the first 100 people who come to the museum, on each of the first four days of the exhibition, wearing blue. Blue for Picasso’s blue period. (Then why not rose?)

It reminded me of a post I wrote in late September, here, about the high-wire act, literally, that several Buffalo institutions used to promote Beyond/In Western New York. It was a stunt to draw attention to the biennial there, and garnered live local television coverage. While I am sorry that something like that was necessary, it wasn’t offensive. It didn’t really take away from the art.

Likewise with SAM’s “blue” offer — although I do have mixed feelings the whether/what/when of stunts and their acceptabilty for museums. SAM’s is kind of connected to the art. It saves people money for a show where an adult, undiscounted ticket costs $23 (versus $15 normally). It creates excitement, and may help even out the flow of people coming to the museum.

This was an expensive show for SAM, a lot is riding on its success — in terms of monetary gain (or breakeven) and prestige. Plus, the blue offer is hardly the only thing SAM is doing to create excitement and promote Picasso. The opening events press release runs to 12 pages. Context matters.

But as SAM says, this is the first full exhibit of Picasso’s long career ever mounted in the Northwest — one would think that the giant of 20th Century art doesn’t need help to be exciting. I guess, when there is so much competition for the public’s time, he might. That’s reality.

Trouble is, stunts can be like a drug — no stunt, no attention, no attendance, and a search for ever bigger, more far-fetched stunts. There’s a fine line between appropriate and inappropriate promotion.  

A hat tip to the Everett Herald, where I first saw the news about SAM. And more about the exhibit here.

The reaction to my Cultural Conversation with Richard Kohalek, published two weeks ago in The Wall Street Journal, proved fascinating, not unexpectedly. While few people wrote comments for publication — only two at the WSJ site and none at my post here — several contacted me privately.

The article outlined Koshalek’s plans to erect a seasonal bubble at the Hirshhorn Museum, which would serve as an event space, where the museum would convene forums on topics of interest to the arts and of relevance to national and world affairs.

Among those approving, one man wrote:

Your piece on Richard Koshalek captures a man of imagination, experience, and excitement. Let us hope it is encouragement for others in the space and indeed for all of us.

But there were far more negative comments. One man wrote from Menlo Park:

My guess is that the people that Koshalek is roping into this kindergarten prank don’t know anything about art and maybe he doesn’t either. Art saving the world? If it hasn’t done it yet then it never will and it wasn’t meant to. It is meant to give our personal lives meaning. This guy needs to be ridiculed not reported on.

When I asked if he would post his comment on either the WSJ site or here, I never heard back from him.

Likewise, another man wrote:

What a bs artist. “Look at me, look at me” is his message. I thought he was running a museum. Where is the adult supervision?

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is a leading voice for contemporary art and culture and provides a national platform for the art and artists of our time.  We seek to share the transformative power of modern and contemporary art with audiences at all levels of awareness and understanding by creating meaningful, personal experiences in which art, artists, audiences and ideas converge. We enhance public understanding and appreciation of contemporary art through acquisition, exhibitions, education and public programs, conservation, and research.

In Philadelphia, October is Mural Arts Month — a program whose genesis goes back to 1984, when then-Mayor Wilson Goode led an effort to rid the city of graffiti. As the story goes, Goode’s initiative, the Anti-Graffiti Network, hired Jane Golden, a muralist, to “reach out to graffiti writers and to redirect their energies from destructive graffiti writing to constructive mural painting.”

She — “impressed by their raw artistic talent and their self-taught knowledge of art history” — decided to give them the opportunity to use their talents on mural-making. The Anti-Graffiti Network evolved into the Mural Arts Program, under Golden, and thus it has been ever since.

The MAP states outright that it’s a social program: “Mural painting also provided a support structure for these young men and women to refine their artistic skills, empowering them to take an active role in beautifying their own neighborhoods,” the history page of the website says. The Mission page goes even further, noting the “Art Ignites Change” and “It Ain’t About the Paint.” Rather, “What drives us is the opportunity to help life triumph over the forces of despair. We just happen to be good at painting murals.”

Since its start, the website says, the Mural Arts Program “has produced over 3,000 murals which have become a cherished part of the civic landscape and a great source of inspiration to the millions of residents and visitors who encounter them each year.” Philadelphia now calls itself “The City of Murals” and “The World’s Largest Outdoor Art Gallery” and “The Mural Capital of the World.” 

During Mural Arts Month, MAP has scheduled about 25 events, including the dedication of new murals (The Evolving Face of Nursing by Meg Saligman is shown, top left, and Light Drift, an interactive mural is shown above, right), special tours, “paint days,” scavenger hunts, etc. (schedule is here).  

The Mural Arts Program also calls itself

a national leader in arts in criminal and restorative justice, currently offering educational programs in local prisons and rehabilitation centers using the restorative power of art to break the cycle of crime and violence in communities. Mural Arts offers mural-making programs for adult men and women where inmates receive a stipend to create murals for schools and community centers throughout Philadelphia. Mural Arts also offers opportunities for individuals recently released from prison through its re-entry program.

Those achievements, or goals, are all laudatory. We should celebrate them. 

Where I have a couple of qualms is with the program’s self-proclaimed mantra: “Art Saves Lives.” It might, but…to my knowledge, there is no credible research to support that claim, and anecdotes don’t count. If the arts community wants to make claims for art other than art for its own sake, for its intrinsic value, it needs to provide the backup. 

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Mural Arts Program