Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Common Sense From Gary Vikan

Maybe retirement, if that’s what Gary Vikan–former head of the Walters Art Museum–had entered, loosens inhibitions. Vikan’s editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal may not have been written if he still had the job. It’s headlined The Case for Buying Antiquities to Save Them.  It’s about the unrelenting damage being perpetrated by ISIS, of course.

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It challenges the “prevailing view among archaeologists, reflected in bills in Congress, [that we should] ….exclude from the U.S. all antiquities thought to originate in those countries.”

Vikan instead says:

This is a mistake. After decades of museum experience with cultural property of uncertain provenance, I believe that we should accept looted antiquities from these troubled areas, even when such action might be considered “encouraging looting.” The expenses that museums might incur—including the costs of returning the pieces to the countries of their origin—are worth paying to keep them out of reach of ISIS sledgehammers.

No one, anywhere, should buy art from ISIS….[But] In times of extraordinary risk, we should be open to dealing with bad guys to create a safe harbor for works of art. This is an act of rescue and stewardship—and should be done with the explicit understanding that eventually, when the time is right, the objects will be repatriated to the country of their origin.

He is right. In Britain, Neil MacGregor recently said that the British Museum, which he directs, is holding–“guarding”–an object looted from Syria.

In June, the House of Representatives passed HR 1493–provisions here–which among other things allows for such “safe harbor” importation to the U.S. of Syrian antiquities if the President grants a waiver and if no money goes to terrorists. Pretty difficult to determine, but it’s a step in the right direction, I guess. Still it has yet to get into the Senate. You can read more about it on the Cultural Assets blog of Greenberg Traurig.

For Near Eastern antiquities, these are desperate times; they require fresh thinking and the challenging of conventional wisdom.

 

Tom Krens: At It Again?

Tom Krens, the museum consultant formerly known as the director of the Guggenheim Foundation and booster of multi-branch museums, has always lived by the philosophy of “Go Big or Go Home.”

2013_WCMA_KrensNow, he is at it again. Last week, the Berkshire Eagle reported that Krens–who first proposed the creation of Mass MoCA in North Adams, Mass. nearly three decades ago–wants to start another massive art venue nearby. The new art palace would create 160,000-sq. ft. of gallery space on North Adams’s Harriman-West Airport grounds.

Said the Eagle:

The idea for the museum, which would be privately owned by a for-profit group of investors and cost an estimated $10 million to $15 million to build, was presented to the city’s Airport Commission during a special meeting on Tuesday. It would be named the Global Contemporary Collection and Museum and contain a collection of about 400 works of art, according to Krens.

“The basic concept is to work with a group of, essentially investors, to put together a world-class collection of contemporary art,” Krens said.

The idea was a hit. The Airport Commission unanimously voted to begin lease negotiations with Krens.

Krens said that construction could begin next year if the idea gains financial backing. The article also said:

The 68-year-old Krens said he’d been working on the concept for about five years. It was originally planned for China, he said, but “the idea of spending a little more time in the Berkshires was attractive to me.”

This proposal can be viewed in two ways. As I wrote just about a year ago in The New York Times,  Mass MoCA is also expanding, doubling its exhibition space to 260,000 sq. ft.  The state of Massachusetts provided money for the expansion on the theory that a bigger Mass MoCA, along with the expanded Clark Art Institute and the Williams College Museum of Art, both nearby, will be too much to see in one day and thus turn day-tripping tourists into over-nighters.

That’s believable if you think the audience for art is pretty big–and likely to want to spend two full days in a gorgeous setting inside looking at art.

Krens, in the Eagle, also argued that his GCC will be complementary, not competition for Mass MoCA. “pointing out that Mass MoCA does not have a collection and his museum would not have exhibition programming. The Global Contemporary Collection and Museum would be ‘positioned to complement the Clark, to complement Mass MoCA,’ not compete with them…”

Krens has pulled off many long-shots before, and lost some too. Who knows whether he can persuade investors to give him money for this. He does have a personal motivation: ” A graduate of Williams College, Krens still owns a home in Williamstown that he purchased in 1972.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Williams College Museum of Art

 

WSJ Masterpiece: The Taj Mahal, As I Saw It

Even if you have never been to the Taj Mahal, you have a picture of it in your mind, right? It’s a full frontal view, and it’s unquestionably beautiful.

But there is more to this marvelous, yes, mausoleum, and after going to India last winter, I wanted to say so and explain why. The result was published in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal–in the Masterpiece column (which I have praised  on this blog many times). It was headlined (and decked) The Taj Mahal’s Seductive Charms: As a visitor wanders the 42-acre site, this monument to love reveals itself in alluring stages.

It’s hard to find a key paragraph to quote here–my article unfolds a bit like looking at the Taj. So I post a few pictures instead–the full-frontal we know, a detail of the marble inlay, and an angled view of the dome. But click on the link to the WSJ, too–it has a marvelous sunset view that includes the adjacent Yamuna river. TajMahal

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“Softening” The Museum Brand

I couldn’t find a press release on the museum website about this, but a couple of newspapers recently reported that the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is changing its name. And I did find, on the website, an item in “Mia Stories”— its direct to consumer communication.

minneapolis-institute-of-art-new-mia-logoFrom now on, there will not be an “s” on the end of arts. It is simply the Minneapolis Institute of Art. And from now on, the acronym should no longer be pronounced as M-I-A, as in “missing in action.” It should be pronounced “me-ah”–rhyming with DIA, the New York-based art foundation, and not with DIA, the Detroit Institute of Arts.

This is going to take awhile. People and publications will now have to remember that in Detroit, there’s an “s.” But in Minneapolis, no. I expect a lot of mistakes and corrections.

For MIA, this is understandable–and to a certain extent, welcome. For me, dropping the “s” suggests more attention to visual arts, and less emphasis on all the other arts, like music, dance, and theater. that sometimes find a home in art museums. Nothing wrong with the latter, but I prefer the emphasis on the visual. Still, I may be disappointed on that score. The museum recently posted on its Facebook page about a “August musician-in-residence” named Lydia Liza, the lead singer of a local band, Bomba de Luz.

And here’s what MIA said in the “Mia Stories” post:

The “Arts” in the name was deliberately and ambitiously plural, inscribing the vision of the institute as a place for performing as well as visual arts. The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, now the Minnesota Orchestra, was to be housed alongside the museum, ballets and plays were to be performed. The original architectural designs offered plenty of space—designs that were never fully realized.

MIAlogoSo much the better, I think.

The current change was made in consultation with Pentagram, the design firm in New York that has worked with dozens of arts organizations, including the Whitney and the Philbrook Museum. The MIA also acquired a new logo, at left, and has dumped the old one, at right. Here’s what MIA says about that as well as the pronunciation:

Mia, on the other hand, means “mine” in Spanish and other languages, and, as the new logo designed by Pentagram demonstrates, readily establishes a complete identity apart from the initials. Mia will now be the common name of the museum, while dropping the “s” in Arts simply resolves a bit of history. No one needs to worry about the vision behind this place anymore, set in stone for a hundred years now, only how to reflect it in words.

But there is one thing to resolve: the museum’s URL is www.artsmia.org.  When I plugged in www.artmia.org, I got nothing.

Sometimes these rebranding exercises are trivial pursuits, tinkering when the focus should be on more important things. They can also be very expensive.

MIA did have a bit of a problem with its nickname, so this one seems warranted. I notice, for now at least, that museum’s mission has not changed:

The Minneapolis Institute of Art enriches the community by collecting, preserving, and making accessible outstanding works of art from the world’s diverse cultures.

Well-put, as its the vision statement: “Inspiring wonder through the power of art.”

That’s a proper focus.

 

Now This, For A Big Museum, Would Be Experimental

Arthur Bowen Davies +Chateau Langeais - Touraine +c1924 +Princeton University Art MuseumYou rarely hear about a contemporary watercolorist setting the world ablaze with a traffic-stopped gallery show or museum exhibition. Or, for that matter, setting auction records. And let’s face it, in some ways, if something doesn’t happen in the contemporary art world, it doesn’t happen in the art world. It is that myopic (or blindered, choose your description).

So I was very pleased when I received an announcement this spring that the Princeton University Art Museum was presenting Painting on Paper: American Watercolors at Princeton, through Aug. 30. I went and my review is in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal. In my piece, headlined Reviving a Forgotten Medium, I took the time to relate a little history about watercolors in America, including this passage:

It was in the late 19th century, especially between 1870 and 1885—when artists actively promoted the medium and the American Watercolor Movement thrived—that watercolors hit a zenith. Yet well into the 20th century, museums regularly staged watercolor shows; the Brooklyn Museum actually held biennial International Watercolor Exhibitions, showcasing new ideas and trends, from 1923 through 1963. There are still shows of watercolors by geniuses like John Singer Sargent and the occasional broad survey. But somewhere along the way watercolors picked up an association with amateurs and lost their appeal for many professionals.

What major museum would organize a watercolor biennial today?

The Princeton show is decidedly uneven, but I appreciated the opportunity to see works by some artists I knew little or not at all–like Thomas Charles Farrer, whose Three Eggs I cite in the review (shown at right)–and some different works by those I do, like two wonderful paintings by Arthur B. Davies–a beach scene called The Riviera and Chateau Langeais (above left). I appreciate the inclusion of folk art, too.

The exhibit has a few masterpieces by Charles Burchfield and Winslow Homer (which beautifully illustrates my review, so see it at that link above) and some good works by the likes of Edward Hopper. The show is flawed because it is drawn mostly from the museum’s collection. But as I conclude in my review, “”Painting on Paper” is gratifying, its shortcomings offset by the very fact that it exists.”

I’d like to see another museum try this–by borrowing or from its own trove.