I know AJ’s readers want to believe that the Obama Administration will do wonders for the arts and humanities communities. I know you don’t like to hear otherwise. But I have to tell you honestly what my reporting turns up: so far, not so good.

Yes, the $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts in the stimulus bill was great news. But while we wait for appointments to head the NEA and the National Endowment for
the Humanities, the appointment of Kareem Dale (below) as mini-czar — which is now likely to be temporary — and two lesser appointments suggest politics-as-usual.  

Last night, The Daily Beast published my report on this. As I hinted when I first wrote here about Dale (stay tuned, I said), his appointment is not likely to last very long. It’s sad that his name was discovered by, or leaked to, The New York Times in the first place. 

The most disappointing element of the story, however, is the appointment of Hollywood fundraiser Jeremy Bernard as the NEH’s White House and Congressional liaison; it’s an important job. Bernard claims a bachelor’s degree from Hunter College on his website, but Hunter says he did not graduate. When queried, the NEH said the degree is not in his documentation for the appointment. But the whole thing, not just the resume inflation, makes him a bit of an odd fit for the scholarly NEH.

I am pretty sure, by the way, that the White House has recognized this whole situation as a personnel snafu that has to be fixed. And it will — the question now is how and when. 

Here’s a link to my Beast article.

And P.S.  I did not write the headline or deck.   

The Indianapolis Museum of Art is having a good March: there’s been a steady stream of announcements — on a laudable new searchable database of deaccessions, the acquisition of Gauguin’s “Volpini Suite” of zincographs, and this week on the news that the museum had met its goal of acquiring 125 gifts for its 125th anniversary in 2008.

But on my recent visit there — too short — I had a chance to see first-hand, and was charmed by, a less splashy effort by the museum. Last year, the IMA was among the first of the museums to receive art from the “Fifty Works for 50 States” program started by legendary collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel. They are, of course, the one-time mail clerk and librarian who donated 1,000 works to the National Gallery of Art and then had so much more to give that they set up a program to spread the rest throughout the land — with 50 works going to one museum in each of the 50 states. 

I visited the Vogels last fall on an assignment for The Art Newspaper: They are exactly as billed. Soft-spoken, humble, the very opposite of many flamboyant contemporary art collectors, they really do have a rent-stabilized apartment on New York’s Upper East Side that is filled to the ceilings with art works and art books. I sat at their kitchen table (as they do, below) and could find no place to hang my coat, bag or umbrella.

This was the situation after they had made their gifts!

Imagine what it was like before the trucks came to carry artworks away.    

Last December, the Indianapolis Museum became the the first to display all of its nifty 50 at once. And they look fine in a gallery of their own. Mostly works on paper, this collection includes pieces by Robert Mangold (below, Looped Line Torn Zone), Lynda Benglis, James Bishop, Elizabeth Murray, Edda Renouf and Richard Tuttle. They were made between the late 1960s and 2000.  

The IMA show runs through April 12. After that the works will be displayed throughout the collection. I’m not familiar enough with the IMA’s collection to make a judgment about how these works fit in and fill in, but Max Anderson, the director, certainly seemed pleased with these acquisitions.  

As for the Vogels, because of their health and age, they’ve slowed down — though they told me they are still collecting. And they love it when artist-friends drop by. In December, they made their first visit to Art Basel Miami Beach, where the documentary about them, “Herb & Dorothy,” was being shown. And as the IMA shows, what a great legacy they’ve created.   

Here’s a link to my article from The Art Newspaper, and here’s a link to the documentary website. There, you can find out where to see the award-winning show.

Photo Credits: (top) courtesy Fine Line Media; (bottom) courtesy Indianapolis Museum of Art.  

A few weeks back, I mentioned an article in the Wall Street Journal describing an effort by the National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy to get foundations to devote a much larger proportion of their grants to minorities, poverty alleviation and other social causes. If the Committee succeeded, the arts would obviously be disadvantaged.

Today the Journal continues its coverage with an article about reaction to the report. Some foundations are fighting back. One — the California Wellness Foundation — even cancelled its membership with the Committee, the author, Mike Spector reports. And Paul Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, called the recommendation “breathtakingly arrogant.”

Kudos to the Journal for its continuing coverage. You can read the whole article here. The comments are good, too.

 

is more Jack Nicholsons. Seriously.

This revelation came in Monday’s New York Post, which said that a new memoir from Allegra Huston, Angelica’s sister, included a passage on Nicholson’s acquisition habits. “He
collected paintings to the point of obsession,” she wrote.

A little snooping around turned up more details. Nicholson apparently owns an eight-room
 home, modest by Hollywood standards, on Mulholland Dr. that is stuffed with just part of his collection — not just on the walls, but stacked in unoccupied rooms. The rest is in storage. Among his paintings are works by Picasso, Magritte, Bonnard, Matisse, Bacon and Dufy. In late 2007, he told the Times of London:

“I just like art…I get pure pleasure from it. My grandmother was an amateur painter.”

And: 

“I got involved in buying paintings when Diana Vreeland [the former Vogue editor] got me to an auction in England. Up came this beautiful Tiepolo drawing at Sotheby’s. I bought it for Anjelica Huston as a present. That’s how I got started.”

And:

“People look at an abstract painting and ask, ‘What’s it supposed to be? What’s the point?’ Hell, it’s a painting, that’s the point. It’s not supposed to be anything. Its job is to get you to look in a different way. That’s also what actors are supposed to do. Provide a stimulating point of departure for thought and feeling.”

Spoken like a true collector. 

Why is the Iranian new year, Nowruz, a reason for celebration in the arts world?

Well, the Met can rejoice because a group of Iranian-Americans held a sumptuous dinner-dance at — where else? — the Temple of Dendur. David Patrick Columbia’s New York Social Diary has the pictures. (Keep scrolling — NYSD also has some great pix of Maastricht.) That must have added some much-needed cash to the Met’s coffers.

But President Obama also gave a little signal when he sent a videotaped message to the Iranian people late last
week. It offered a new beginning in diplomacy between our two countries — and contained a message
 to the cultural world here, too, according to a couple of White House-ologists and cultural mavens.

The President used the occasion of an ancient Persian festival called Nowruz to extend the olive branch. Then he said:

Nowruz is just one part of your great and celebrated culture. Over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and more beautiful place….We know that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world.

Obama made no promises, offered no cultural overtures. But at the end of the message, he returned to the arts:

There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences.  But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago:  “The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence.”

Obama is a master of symbolism and of gesture. His campaign arts policy promised he would expand cultural diplomacy, though the post-election task forces, according to one knowledgeable source, did not focus on the issue. This speech, though, indicates that Obama is thinking about it.

Maybe the nation’s orchestras, operas and museums should be too.