It’s always fun to eavesdrop in public places. And people say very funny things when they are looking at art. Just ask Judith Henry, who compiled “Overheard at the Museum” a few years
ago, quoting such goodies as “I really love this painting but it has way too much green in it” and “Marge has one like that – but that’s the real one.”

When I cover art fairs, I try to listen for similarly choice comments. Last night, at the opening of the International Fine Art Fair at the Park Avenue Armory — a benefit for the Frick Collection — I caught a few gems:

• “Paintings look so much better when they’ve had a bit of a scrub.”
• “Look at this: You may not like it, but look at the detail.” “Yes, everything is there.”
• “It’s very…dull.”
• “This painting [street scene by Utrillo] is fetching. It’s an original.”
• “That’s what he did [describing the painter of a Dutch still life]. He opened the table, and he boom, boom, boom.”

I’m not picking on, or snickering at, the art on view or the people that like it, btw. Many booths at the fair were offering quality works.

And visitors to Art Basel Miami Beach last December said things that were just as silly. How about:

• “If you’re not in the mood to go to Maastricht [for its huge fair], you don’t go.”
• “There’s no reason for that painting.” 

 

How much would you pay to commission a portrait by Karen Kilimnik? Last night, the New
Museum found out. At its UnGala at Seven World Trade Center, one party-goer agreed to shell out $260,000. That did a lot to push the New Museum’s total take last night to $1.2 million; 550 people attended, the museum says.

The museum won’t say exactly how that total compares with last year’s, except that it’s “very close” to its 2008 experience. But unless a blast email from the New Museum on Tuesday saying a “limited number of seats are still available” to the gala worked wonders, it wasn’t sold out.  

So it looks like Kilimnik, whose work sells for $80,000 to $500,000, was critical to the evening’s success. Last year, the New Museum auctioned smaller objects, not one big painting, and they fetched less.   

Kilimnik’s offer to paint a “historical portrait inspired by the sitter” is generous for another reason. She rarely does this kind of work. The last commissioned portrait was 11 years ago, according to 303 Gallery, which said famous people are always asking her to paint them. The New Museum says there were many bidders last night.  

So who’s the winner, who was also critical to the event? The museum won’t say. Maybe someday we’ll see the results of the match.

The gala season in New York is in full swing, and I’ve been talking to other arts organizations about fund-raising lately. Most say their donations are down, but perhaps by less than expected, given the state of the economy. They are not anywhere near to making up what’s been lost in their endowments, but they may be able to stave off additional cutbacks.

 

Credits: “my nephews in germany by winterhalter,” 2009 (top); “a Madonna from Italian church on the Lost Island,” 2008, by Karen Kilimnik. Courtesy of New Museum and 303 Gallery.  

Funny how things work: On the heels of my last post, about the media-arts dependency, I just learned that a rumor I heard a while back has legs: The New York Sun may return, albeit only on the web.

While it was alive, the last incarnation of the Sun distinguished itself with, among other things, wonderful and extensive cultural coverage: both news articles and reviews. When it died last September, many people in the arts world mourned. MoMA director Glenn Lowry said “the cultural section…has become one of the most important and informed sources of information about the arts in the City” and many people thought that was an understatement.

Today, Michael Calderone on the Politico website noted that the Sun had been publishing new pieces online. He quoted Seth Lipsky, its editor, as saying that a business plan for the site is in formative stages.

I emailed Seth to ask if the plan included a return of its great arts coverage. He wrote back that “we’re still in the very early stages of seeing what might, or might not, be logical and possible.”

That wasn’t a no. There’s hope — arts-lovers should let him know, with comments here if need be, that they devoutly want it to be possible. 

Here’s the Politico post.  

 

Writer-critic Matthew Gurewitsch went to a concert the other night and came back astonished. And not just about the music, by Sir John Tavener (below), to which he gave a rave.

No, according to his website — BeyondCriticism.com —  my friend Matthew was astonished by this:

Was the music press of New York too busy celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday? Delayed for a year on medical grounds, Sir John Tavener’s “Towards Silence: A Meditation on the Four States of Atma” received its world premiere last night at the Rubin Museum of Art,
home to an ravishing collection of objects from the Himalayas. Though cordially invited, not one critic attended. Nor had any print medium listed the event in advance. How could this be?

As composer of the oratorio The Whale (recorded by the Beatles on the Apple label), the choral Song for Athene (performed at the funeral of Princess Diana), and masterpieces like The Protecting Veil (a cello concerto in all but name), Sir John stands in the top tier of serious contemporary composers and has pop cachet besides.

This is future world, Matthew. With newspapers and magazines shrinking faster than the ozone layer, coverage of events like this concert will disappear except for blogs. And that creates a large problem for arts institutions dependent on the media for free marketing and PR, especially those in the performing arts.  

I was talking about this very subject last week with the PR head of an important music institution. Though he hasn’t lost coverage by mainstream media, he is in a bit of a fix. More and more bloggers are asking for tickets, which are expensive to give away. He can’t do it, and doesn’t unless they have MSM credentials, too. Yet bloggers may be the only ones writing regularly about the arts in the years to come, especially outside of New York.

What to do about this?   

You can read Matthew’s full post here.

I wasn’t at the concert, BTW, but I agree with his praise for the Rubin Museum. If you haven’t been, go.  

As my recent review of the “European Design Since 1985” exhibition at the Indianapolis Art Museum indicated, it is exactly the kind of show serious museums should be doing. It’s ambitious, it’s rooted in scholarship, it’s aesthetically interesting, and it’s displayed well.

So it’s more than a little curious that the Denver Art Museum (below), where the curator R. Craig
 Miller worked until late 2007, and where he had organized two previous, widely traveled design shows, is not taking this one. DAM built its $110 million Hamilton wing in part to allow it to exhibit more traveling shows. In the catalogue’s foreward, DAM director Lewis I. Sharpe and IMA director Maxwell Anderson call the show a collaboration and note that many people at both museums worked hard on it. 

When I was in Indianapolis, I asked Miller what happened. He told me that Denver would only take the show if he cut it to 100 objects, out of the 250 in his version — a move that would, obviously, destroy its intent as a survey show. The Denver museum, he said, did not view his show as a big draw.

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