Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Barron’s Strange Report On Art Museums

Last weekend, Barron’s–the financial weekly–published a cover story on art museums. It’s a crazy salad of a piece, full of supposedly new thoughts that are actually old, composed with a strange tone that shifts throughout the piece, exaggerating in parts, and so on. It frequently cited net assets as a sign of wealth, which includes items like land, when it should have used endowment figures. It has a few non sequiturs (notice the paragraph below on the Met). And it bore what I think is a misleading headline, Billionaire Art Museums. (see chart below)

I don’t usually like to comment negatively on other people’s articles, but this piece, read by investors–and potential donors–is too weird to ignore. Let me pull out a few things, along with some comments and questions, in bold:

  • “Take the Philadelphia Museum of Art…During the recession, the grand old dame of Philadelphia saw its endowment—which covers some 25% of its operating expenses—plunge by nearly $100 million in just one year. According to data provided by Foundation Source, the museum’s revenue fell from $146 million in 2008 to just $60 million in 2009. In response, the museum cut staff and salaries and increased admission fees. It also postponed, for a year, a special exhibition on Spanish art, and cautiously put its plans for a Frank Gehry–designed expansion on an “as paid for” basis. Today, the Philadelphia museum appears to have put its worst financial struggles behind it. Total assets are at $733 million, up 7.8% from where they were five years ago. And in July, the museum opened an exhibition of Gehry’s architectural models built for its $350 million project, signaling that its expansion plans were back on track.” There are too many apples-and-oranges comparisons in this paragraph. Total assets up just 7.8% is worrisome to me, not a sign of strength. 
  • “”…the museum [of Fine Arts, Houston] navigated its way through the financial crisis. By June 2012, its total assets, at $1.12 billion, were just 3.8% shy of where they stood in 2008. Again, not quite a resounding comeback, on its own at least, is it? 
  •  [in FY 2013] the Met’s total reported assets clock in at $3.47 billion—2.1% below where they stood in 2008. Things are rapidly improving. In September, the Met unveiled a new outdoor plaza and fountain financed with a $65 million gift from industrialist billionaire David Koch, one of its trustees. And in a move reminiscent of the far flusher days of a not-too-distant past, the museum is currently showcasing its new gift of 78 cubist paintings, drawings, and sculptures from the philanthropist Leonard A. Lauder.” Huh?
  • “Among the strongest indicators of current financial optimism is the explosion of mammoth expansion projects, itself a harbinger of plans for greater programming, bigger crowds, and ever-more-epic shows. Last December, the Cleveland Museum of Art completed an extensive $320 million renovation and a new addition that saw its space increase by some 35%.” This project has been in the works for years, and its completion signals nothing about the future. Nor, really, does the next example–MoMA’s expansion into the site of the Folk Art Museum. 
  • At MFA-Houston: “…Since 2009, admission attendance at the museum is up 30%. Last year, revenue from ticket sales, at $2.5 million, rose 56%, over 2012. Its slate of recent blockbuster shows included last year’s “Picasso: Black and White.” In the meantime, fund-raising efforts have landed two record-breaking years in a row for the museum. In 2013, it raised $16 million, up 23% from the previous year.” That number seems very small for an institution with a budget of around $85 million, doesn’t it? 

BarronsChartAll that said, the article makes two good points–some museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art–have increased the size of their boards, at least in part to raise money. That is not a bad thing. And the final paragraph is a very good one:

For all of the glory bestowed on a trustee at one of the august museums on our list, moderately wealthy benefactors would be wise to be contrarians. Their time, money, and collection are likely to be treated better, have more impact, and serve society better when put to work at a regional or local museum.

 

Guggenheim Helsinki Finalists Announced

1The word from Helsinki is, I think, good. After reviewing 1,715 submissions, the architecture jury for the proposed Gugggenheim Helsinki museum has chosen six finalists–and even they don’t know whose design goes with which name. The names are not the usual suspects (hooray!):

  • AGPS Architecture Ltd. (Zurich, Switzerland and Los Angeles, United States of America)
  • Asif Khan Ltd. (London, United Kingdom)
  • Fake Industries Architectural Agonism (New York, United States of America; Barcelona, Spain; and Sydney, Australia)
  • Haas Cook Zemmrich STUDIO2050 (Stuttgart, Germany)
  • Moreau Kusunoki Architect (Paris, France)
  • SMAR Architecture Studio (Madrid, Spain and Western Australia)

The jury process is described here in their statement. You can go here to see the images (including interiors), one of which is at right. Another is below.

The designs are sure to  be controversial, and I don’t have a favorite (yet).

2

Spalding Takes On Art’s “Self-Congratulatory In-Group”

I suppose I first became aware of Julian Spalding, the British art museum director, when I went to Glasgow some years ago and visited Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. I hated it, and I blamed Spalding, who was then the director of art galleries for Glasgow. Kelvingrove’s collections–which include Dali’s  Christ of St John of the Cross, Rembrandt’s A Man in Armour, and works by van Gogh and Monet, among other things–had been reinstalled for maximum tourist appeal, in themed galleries with dumbed-down labels. The lobby was like a playground for kids, who were running around, and the noise level was very high. Forget about a sanctuary; Kelvingrove was like a noisy New York City restaurant that required shouting for communication.

SpaldingNow I see that Spalding, who was said to be responsible for what people termed was this “populist” approach, is far from the knee-jerk person I suspected him to be. My apologies.

In his latest salvo, Spalding takes on the art-world powers in the U.K. In a speech he was set to deliver today, according to The Guardian, he is expected “to launch a ferocious attack on work that ‘rejoices in being incomprehensible to all but a few insiders’.” The article continues:

In a lecture on “the purpose of the arts today”… Julian Spalding...will say that the public purse should only fund work that is “both popular and profound, as truly great art is”. He will also criticise the supporting of works that appeal “to a self-congratulatory in-group”.

By 2015, the Arts Council will have “invested” £2.4bn of funds from the government and the National Lottery over a four-year period. According to Spalding, state arts funding should be restricted to subsidising “peaks in our shared culture” – such as King Lear, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – rather than the “rarefied delights” of artists such as Jeff Koons and Hirst, who he says create “sham, glittering ornaments of an amusement-arcade culture”.

And here’s a passage I like:

Spalding said that great art cannot be predetermined to tick boxes on funding application forms: “No government money should be spent on trying to influence the creation of art. The arts have to be personally felt.”

Right now, in this country, we have a lot of grants being offered to artists making socially conscious art, or art with a social purpose. I doubt, as I think Spalding would, that artists trying to please a funder on this will make great art.

Spalding goes on to blast a few works by name and artists. Read them here. I leave decisions on those works in particular up to each of you.

Overall, though the U.S. has a different system of funding for museums, mostly, I think he makes points well worth heeding here.

 

NPG Effort Raises Good Question Re: Crowdsourcing

About six weeks ago–and I missed it–the National Portrait Gallery started a crowd-sourcing initiative called Recognize that pitted three works in the collection against one another and asked the public to choose one. The other day, the Washington Post raised questions about it–appropriately, I think. The whole exercise seemed, my words not the Post’s, like a stunt in search of a mission.

Let’s  begin with the NPG’s description:

This November, the National Portrait Gallery will unveil a special crowdsourced wall in our galleries, called “Recognize,” as a place to highlight an important person in our collection. Every few months we will announce a new lineup of candidates for consideration and invite the public to vote on which one will be featured on the “Recognize” wall.

The first three choices:

James Meredith became the first African American student at the University of Mississippi. His admission to “Ole Miss” in 1962 was a flashpoint in the civil rights movement.

Georgia O’Keeffe became one of the most dynamic and compelling artists of the twentieth century, known for both her large-scale paintings of detailed, magnified flowers and her kinetic cityscapes.

Bette Midler has earned many accolades for her various musical, theatrical, film, and television performances, including three Grammy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, three Emmy Awards, a special Tony Award, and two Academy Award nominations.

npg-collage-update.jpg__800x600_q85_cropOn what criteria were people to be voting? “Who will be recognized at the National Portrait Gallery for his or her contributions to American culture?’ And mention about the merits of the twp photographs and one poster in contention? Nope.

And, asked the Post, “Why these three seemingly disparate images?”

Interestingly, the blog post announcing the “contest” did not evoke a single comment. Two weeks later, in another blog post, the NPG announced the “winner.”

Of these three outstanding contenders, Georgia O’Keeffe received 43 percent of the votes, and so Arnold Newman’s portrait of her will appear on the Recognizewall in early November! The installation will be announced here.

The NPG did not say how many voted, but nevertheless declared the experiment a success (the Post said 3,829 votes were cast). As to the Post’s question about why these three images were chosen, the NPG offered “connective tissue” that was “Kleenex thin”:

Each had an anniversary during the time of the project, although none is a milestone. O’Keeffe’s 127th birthday would have been Nov. 15 (she was born in 1887) and Midler turns 69 on Dec. 1. Meredith became the first African American student at the University of Mississippi — a significant event in the civil rights movement — on Oct. 1, 1962, 52 years ago.

There’s no real harm in doing this kind of thing (except for the opportunity costs), but it just seems like a real stretch, a cheap stunt to “engage” more people. But the NPG’s answers to the these questions make it look rather desperate for “engagement.” Nothing drives people away more than desperation.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

Happy Thanksgiving, Courtesy of The Bruce

The Bruce Museum sent a seasonal greeting yesterday that I’d like to share. It’s Frans Snyder’s Still Life with Fruit, Dead Game, Vegetables, a live Monkey, Squirrel and Cat (c. 1635). It’s on view now there, as part of Northern Baroque Splendor: The HOHENBUCHAU COLLECTION from: LIECHTENSTEIN. The Princely Collections, Vienna.  Well, part of it is, anyway, through Apr. 12, 2015. Thereafter, the exhibit will travel to the Cincinnati Art Museum.

FSnyders

Here’s the BG, drawn from the press release:

The Hohenbuchau Collection was gathered by Otto Christian and Renate Fassbender and has been on long-term loan to the Collections of the Prince of Liechtenstein in Vienna, where it was exhibited in its entirety in the former LIECHTENSTEIN MUSEUM in 2011. A selection of some 80 paintings from The Hohenbuchau Collection was recently shown at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in Germany (11/08/2013 – 02/23/2014), and paintings from The Collection are regularly being displayed alongside The Princely Collections, in the permanent exhibition in Vienna as well as on touring exhibitions worldwide.

Primarily comprised of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century paintings, the collection exhibits all the naturalism, visual probity and technical brilliance for which those schools are famous. While many modern collections of Old Masters specialize in a single style or subject matter, the Hohenbuchau Collection is admirable for offering examples of virtually all the genres produced by Lowland artists – history painting, portraiture, genre, landscapes, seascapes, still lifes and flower pieces, animal paintings and hunting scenes.

I thought it was perfect to share on Thanksgiving.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Bruce Museum