Paris wasn’t the only scene of a major art heist this week: In Greece, two farmers were apprehended and arrested just as they were loading onto a truck a rare pair of twin, newly-discovered 2,500-year-old marble statues they allegedly planned to sell abroad. The two Kouros, found in the Peloponnese region in southern Greece, are reportedly in excellent condition, though parts of the lower legs are missing, and they were apparently gashed at some point by a plow or digging machinery of some sort. 

The farmers, according to the Associated Press, had plans to sell the pair for 10 million euros.

Here’s the description:

They stand 1.82 meters (5 feet 9 inches) and 1.78 meters (5 feet 8 inches) high, and were probably carved by the same sculptor out of thick-grained island marble between 550-520 B.C, at the height of the archaic period of sculpture.

“They are exactly the same, with a slight variation in hairstyle and a small difference in height,” said Nikos Kaltsas, director of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens where the finds were temporarily housed for conservation and study. “The artist may have wanted to produce two similar figures that would form part of a group.”

According to published reports, the two statues were dug up about eight months ago, and were recovered by police in a sting operation near Corinth, close to the area where they were discovered.

The Kouros are now on view at the Archaeological Museum, the two farmers are in jail, and one — possibly the mastermind — is wanted.

Photo Credit: Courtesy AP

 

An article in today’s Wall Street Journal reminded me to check in on the fate of the Fresno Art Museum, which — like the Fresno Metropolitan Museum — was having financial difficulties earlier this year. The Fresno Met, of course, had to close, leaving a metropolitan area of 1 million art poor for anything but contemporary art, which is FAM’s territory.

The WSJ story, which was about museums’ forging partnerships with universities, brought us up-to-date on the Fresno Art Museum’s discussions with Cal State, Fresno, on a possible link-up. I expressed worry about that, given California’s budgetary problems, and it seems that the museum’s board has come to the same conclusion. “We were concerned with turning over our art collection to the sate system with no guarantee that the art would stay in our community,” Tom Speck, chairman of the museum’s board told the paper.

And there’s actually better news than that. The Sacramento Bee recently reported that the museum had hired a new executive director, Linda Cano, an art historian from Cal State-Fresno who has been serving on the museum’s board.

A more recent Bee story reported that the museum has broadened its mission beyond contemporary art, including earlier periods to make up for the loss of the Fresno Met. And the Journal reports that the Fresno Art Museum has increased its board from 12 to 26 members; I hope it has a robust “give or get” standard for trusteeship.

The museum also made peace with the director it dismissed earlier this year, memberships and donations are said to be up, and — maybe — the city’s arts scene has at least stabilized.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Fresno Art Museum

Michael Conforti, the outgoing president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, has kidded me that I am always finding fault with what he does in the job. And now, beginning next month, I guess I won’t have him to kick around anymore.

But seriously, it’s not his fault that AAMD rarely lives up to (my) expectations — it has always seemed to me that the group could, with the right governance, exert much more influence on the arts in America. Time and again, when I say this, museum directors roll their eyes at me, alas.

Nonetheless, I was pleased to learn that Kaywin Feldman, director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is the new president. On a recent visit to New York, she met me for a nice long cup of coffee, and I learned much about her museum-management philosophy, which is very level-headed.

Her arts instinct is also on target. Last October, I blogged here about the MIA exhibition she, as director, curated called “In Pursuit of A Masterpiece.” It was about connoisseurship.

In her short (so far) tenure at MIA, Feldman has hired a half-dozen new curators and encouraged them to think bigger. I can not remember the exact numbers we discussed, but I do recall that MIA has organized far too few important, traveling shows for a museum of its calibre. It has produced too little scholarship. She is changing that.

Feldman also talked about revamping MIA’s acquisition strategy — perhaps actually having an acquisition strategy — to focus on quality, not numbers. What good are thousands of new, but not significant, objects? An example of the new regime: MIA recently purchased at auction an eighteenth-century Vincennes, celestial blue Ewer, known as the “Pot de Monsieur de la Bouexière,” 1755-56. It will be placed in MIA’s Grand Salon, a period room built for Jean Gaillard de la Bouexière (1676-1759)–the same patron who commissioned the rare ewer–for the Hôtel del la Bouexière.

Feldman and I also talked about programs, education and — here’s one that is difficult to tackle — what to do when membership programs cost more than they are worth. She did the right thing, and is disbanding some or changing the pricing.

AAMD’s limitations won’t go away, but Feldman does have a track record of making necessary changes and, based on what I’ve heard, doing it diplomatically.

Photo Credit: Courtesy Minneapolis Institute of Arts

  

Awards season continues… 

It’s especially gratifying to win recognition from peers, and this week the Association of Art Museum Curators announced their awards for excellence in 2009. There ought to have been celebrations at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston, Williams College Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art — especially MoMA, which took home two honors. 

I’m going to list only the top awards; you can read about the runners-up and the honorable mentions here.

First the catalogues:

Outstanding Catalogue Based on a Permanent Collecton: Michael R. Taylor, et. al., at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for Marcel Duchamp: Etant donnes

Outstanding Exhibition Catalogue: Barry Bergdoll and Leah Dickerman, of the Museum of Modern Art, for Bauhaus, 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity

Outstanding Article, Essay or Extended Catalogue Entry: Nancy Mowll Mathews, of Williams College Museum of Art, for “Prendergast in Italy” in Prendergast in Italy

And the exhibitions:

Outstanding Exhibition, Eastern Time Zone: A tie! Bauhaus, 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity, at MoMA, curated by Barry Bergdoll and Leah Dickerman, and Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, curated by Frederick Ilchman

Outstanding Exhibition, Central Time Zone: Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety, and Myth, Art Institute of Chicago, curated by Jay A. Clarke

Outstanding Exhibition, Pacific Time Zone: Art of Two Germanies/Cold War Cultures, LACMA, curated by Stephanie Barron and co-curator Eckhart Gillen

Hmmm. What happened to Mountain time?

What the awards need now is a catchy name,  something like the Webbys or the Tonys. Any thoughts?

 

Remember “Future Teachers of America,” “Future Farmers of America,” and “Future Scientists and Engineers of America”?

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery has a program that should evolve into “Future Curators of America.”

Now in its fourth year, the after-school program engages 11th and 12th graders from area schools, selected from a pool of applicants. They meet once a week from January through May, “under the mentoring eye of coordinator Anna Jablonski of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s Education Department.” They learn how to call for works, select them, write texts, install the exhibition and publicize the show.

This year’s exhibition — Spectrum: Daydreams of Reality — opens Friday. It will show works by area teenagers drawn from more than 400 submissions. The chosen works — some shown here — include paintings, works on paper, photography, and sculpture. “They all express a unifying feeling of whimsicality that one would find in daydreams,” Future Curator Joseph Polino said in the press release. 

Many museums have teen programs, but neither I nor the Albright-Knox have heard of any like this. Initially, the AK asked teachers to recommend students for the program; this year, it opened it up to all area 11th and 12th graders — receiving 30 applications, of which 14 were selected. One dropped out, leaving seven girls and six boys to finish. See their picture here.

This is a great idea to engage teenagers; I hope it spreads. And there’s a bit more:

The students have also organized an evening of programming that will mark the exhibition opening on May 21.  The evening will include an open mic event from 6 to 10 pm that will feature a spectrum of performances in the Gallery’s Sculpture Garden.  Also that evening, the Gallery’s Education Department will offer a related art activity for all ages, “Scratching into Reality,” from 5 to 7 pm. A special tour of the exhibition, entitled Mother May I?, will take place at 6 pm. At 7 pm, there will be a screening of the director’s cut of the cult film Donnie Darko (2001), directed by Richard Kelly and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Drew Barrymore.  

In music, studies have shown that children who play a musical instrument are more likely to become consumers of classical music concerts when they grow up. Future Curators may be something of an equivalent in visual arts.

Photo Credits, top to bottom: Tea Time, by Viktoria Filaretova; untitled, by Rachel Fein-Smolinski; Life Support 2, by Layna Mattson; courtesy Albright-Knox