I have an article in today’s New York Times (front page in the national edition; A10 in the NYC edition) headlined “Botanical Gardens Look For New Lures” and, alternately, “Botanical Gardens Are Turning Away From Flowers.” The first is more accurate, actually, because gardens are mainly adding attractions, not subtracting their focus on flowers and other plants — as far as I can tell. (Sadly, I wasn’t allowed to travel the country for the story.)

One key quote comes from Mary Pat Matheson, executive director of the Atlanta Botanical Garden: “We’re not just looking for gardeners anymore; We’re looking for people who go to art museums and zoos.”

To that end, gardens are appealing to visitors’ interests in nature, sustainability, cooking, health, family, the arts, and social goals, both noble (teaching farming to urban teens) and less so (building cocktail lounges for mix-and-minglers). Edible gardens, often with cooking classes, are really hot. (See more examples in the article.)

Nowadays, as Sharilyn Ingram, of Brock University in Canada, says in the kicker: “Most gardens would feel that displaying flowers is necessary, but not sufficient.”

Which brings me to museums: I didn’t comment in the article about my feelings toward this redefinition of gardens’ missions — but I don’t mind it, either.

But let’s substitute, and suppose someone said, “Most museums would feel that displaying art is necessary, but not sufficient.” I begin to have troubles.

I love flowers and plants and nature, but art is different. There’s an apt quote or two about art around here (where I work) somewhere, but I doubt I need to dig them out for readers of Real Clear Arts. You know how art makes you feel; good, let alone great, art creates a visceral, inner emotion.

I’m not disparaging here the many things that accompany the display of art at museums — educational programs, lectures, concerts related to what’s on display, etc. I’m talking about mission creep — adding movies, music, sleepovers, yoga classes, etc. that have tenuous, if any, relation to visual art.

Much as I like food, I don’t want cooking classes in the galleries — even if there are Wayne Thiebaud paintings nearby.

An article on the Chronicle of Philanthropy website the other day piqued my interest: Why Fund Raisers Should Pay Attention to a Donor’s Art Collection.

It was worse than I imagined.

The article reported on a session at the conference of the Association of Prospect Researchers for Advancement, which is took place in Anaheim last week. The session, given by a research analyst at the Alumni Relations and Development Department at the University of Chicago named Linlin Chen, was called “The Art of Valuing Art.” Her bio says she also interned in the Contemporary Art Department and the Development Department of the Art Institute of Chicago and, among other credentials, received an M.A. in Arts Administration & Policy from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Chen, according to the Chronicle article, included this anecdote in her talk:

…she noticed a prospective donor lending a piece of his Asian art collection to a small exhibit in a South Carolina museum. The University of Chicago had tried to interest him to be a donor previously but was unsuccessful. But once she informed fund raisers of his interest in ancient Chinese art, the donor was informed of a potential exhibit that would feature his collection. His interest was piqued.

I am shocked, shocked…

One knows such things go on, in private conversation — though many in the museum world deny it. But for a fundraising professional to be baldly holding up such as transaction as an example to be emulated is appalling.

APRA has a code of ethics: it consists of one-page, and while it deals with personal conflicts of interest, there is no mention of such conflicts for the institution.

There should be.  

Chen also schooled fundraisers in how to tell how much someone is worth via their collection. Acknowleding that the market is not transparent, she directed her colleagues to “auction databases, art catalogs, news coverage, anecdotal evidence–even court documents,” the article said. It added: “Sales-price databases such as Sotheby’s online, Christie’s online, ArtNet, ArtPrice, Findartinfo, and ArtValue can help, as well as the Mei Moses Fine Art Index.”

There’s good news from the Vatican via The Art Newspaper’s website:

The Vatican Museums in Rome are set to open a room devoted to the works of Matisse later this year. The move is designed to further boost the profile of its modern and contemporary religious art department. Large-scale preparatory sketches by the French artist, relating to items adorning the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence on the Cote d’Azur, will go on public display for the first time. The works were donated to the Vatican by the artist’s son Pierre in 1980.

Just to refresh your memory, Matisse began work on the Chapel in 1948 and, according to the Vence website, “It was the first time that a painter entirely designed every detail of a monument, from the architecture to the furniture.”

Matisse, it continues, said, “this work required me 4 years of an exclusive and entiring effort and it is the fruit of my whole working life. In spite of all its imperfections I consider it as my masterpiece.”

Matisse, the story goes, created the chapel because of his friendship with Sister Jacques-Marie, who according to her 2005 obit in The New York Times “met Matisse in 1942, when she was a student nurse named Monique Bourgeois and Matisse, in his early 70’s and recovering from intestinal cancer, advertised for a “young and pretty night nurse.” She propped up his pillows, read to him and took walks with him, and her impish wit and straightforward conversation enchanted him.”

She later entered the convent, and when she again found herself back in Vence, to convalesce from tuberculosis, the idea of a chapel arose:

Sister Jacques-Marie sketched an Assumption for Matisse and he urged her to turn it into a stained-glass window. It happened that the rest home, Foyer Lacordaire, was hoping to convert a ramshackle garage used for prayer into a full-fledged chapel, and Matisse wondered if displaying the window could help raise money.

…Matisse roughed out a sketch for a chapel, and Sister Jacques-Marie made the working model. Soon Matisse immersed himself in every aspect of the chapel, from the brushstroke sketches of a Stations of the Cross mural to the vestments and the slender Crucifixion altarpiece. The stained-glass windows, with one pair, “Tree of Life,” suggestive of a flowering cactus, are regarded as particular triumphs; they allow lemon-yellow, bottle-green and blue light to play capriciously against white-tiled walls and the marble floor.

Of course, these Matisse works are fragile, but the Vatican says they will go on display in a room with no windows. More details about the Vatican plans for this, and a recap of its contemporary art efforts are in The Art Newspaper article, and here’s the link.

Two trips down to Manhattan’s West 36th St. this week showed once again how the arts somehow manage to go on, maybe even thrive, on a shoestring: That’s where, for the most part, the Midtown International Theatre Festival is taking place in its 11th incarnation, offering plays and readings on several small stages. 

If you’re looking to take in new works, you could do far worse than making the trip yourself — the festival of staged plays, readings, musical and short-subjects started July 12 and runs through Aug. 1. (Both theaters I went to were air-conditioned, so you can even escape the heat.)

Both plays I saw — out of more than two dozen on offer — showed real promise; they were not perfect, but what is? Most of the acting was polished, too.  

The festival was started and is run by John Chatterton, who in the program says that last year it “posted solid financial numbers due to strong shows.” That amazes me — this is a fringe festival, and it doesn’t seem to get much press. The Daily News previewed it; Timeout gives it a small listing; New York has in the past, but not this year. It is covered in some theater publications, and it has a Facebook page and Twitter account, which were mentioned last night before the play — The King of Bohemia, about Franz Kafka’s literary trajectory and estate and Max Brod — began. 

As for sponsors, it lists four on its website as “friends” and the program adds a couple of diners in ads.

In 2001, when the festival was very young, Chatterton, who also founded the off-off broadway review, gave an interview explaining the economics this way:

Now I’m renting the theaters and instead of working on a percentage, I’m taking the first 200 tickets worth of revenue and repaying my cost. I’m splitting the remainder 50/50 with the groups that are putting on a full program.

Whether that’s still operative, I do not know. I asked Chatterton, who via an email said:

Since the MITF is a privately held enterprise, I don’t have to go into detail of our finances, but I can tell you that we are for-profit and that I shoulder the burden of the finances myself. We are financed entirely by participation fees and ticket sales (and some ads in the Festabill). 

Then he added:

I am planning to start a non-profit whose purpose will be to bring in shows from other countries.

As I and so many others have written, it’s harder and harder for arts groups to get attention for their work, and it’s hard for them to thrive without it. So Chatterton & Co. must be doing something right. I suspect he would say it’s quality.

UPDATED, 7/27: Chatterton steers people who’d like to know more about the festival’s finances and other workings, to the website, click on “About” and at the top you’ll see items like “Festival Manual.”

UPDATED, 9/11: The Festival’s winners were announced yesterday, and they are also posted on the Festival’s website. 

Photo Credit: Courtesy MITF 

Attention Video Artists: YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum Want You.

They want you to make a creative video, and upload in into their contest, called “YouTube Play, a Biennial of Creative Video” A jury will choose the 20 best ones, and next fall they’ll be displayed at the various Guggenheims. Submissions are due by July 31.

High-profile art contests are all the rage these days, and with museums everywhere trying to figure out how to use the web to engage worldwide audiences, this one seems noteworthy, for several reasons.

For example, when I last checked the website tonight, it had more than 14,000 subscribers and more than 2.6 million “channel views.”

Here’s the program’s description from that site:

YouTube Play is a collaboration between YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum, presented by HP and Intel, to unearth and showcase the very best creative video from around the world. To have your work considered, simply post it on YouTube, and then submit it at youtube.com/play. A jury of experts will decide which works presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York on October 21, 2010 with simultaneous presentations at the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice. The videos will be on view to the public from October 22 through 24 in New York and on the YouTube Play channel.

More details are here.

The devil is in the details, though — and a few of them are troubling. Corporations play a big role in this contest, starting with YouTube, which is owned by Google. To name the actual contest for a company is over-the-top, isn’t it?

Just as suspect is the way the contest is promoted on the Guggenheim website, where it says “YouTube Play…Presented by HP and Intel.” The press release calls it a collaboration with HP. Intel seems to have joined later, as it’s not mentioned.

Equally troubling, the press release includes quotes from marketing executives at both YouTube and HP. That’s the first time I recall something like that. Press packets do recognize sponsors and some include sponsor statements. But they are usually a separate document; no quotes from them are embedded in the museum’s announcement.

I also wanted to know who’ll be on the jury. Nancy Spector, the Guggenheim’s chief curator, and a team of other curators, will narrow the submissions to the top 200. Then, a panel of “artists and celebrity art judges” will choose the top 20, according to a publicist. The Guggenheim site categorizes them as “artists, filmmakers, graphic designers, and musicians.”  

The names were supposed to have been announced by now, according to what the publicist said when she first contacted me. It hasn’t happened.   

I decided to post this because if I wait for names, many artists who want to compete will have much less time to dream up and deliver an entry.

UPDATE, 7/23: A press release arrived at 5:02 this morning announcing the judges, impressively as: Laurie Anderson; musical group Animal Collective; visual artists Douglas Gordon, Ryan McGinley, Marilyn Minter and Takashi Murakami; artists and filmmakers
Shirin Neshat Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Darren Aronofsky; and graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister.

It also said that more than 6,600 entries had been received from 69 countries.

— 

But the whole thing seems a little off-key, which is about the same conclusion I reached last fall, when the Guggenheim present the “First Annual Art Awards” in what seemed designed to increase the Guggenheim’s celebrity quotient, not art-world credibility.  

This is a missed opportunity: Instead of leading in this area, free and clean, the Guggenheim — already known for its tendency to play fast and loose with museum customs — has muddied its reputation again.

Too bad for the top 20 winning artists, whose work will go on view on Fifth Ave., in the Tower Gallery 2, also known as the Annex Gallery, as well as in the other museum branches and online.