Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

What’s New About the New Greek Galleries at MFA?

Do people learn more at art museums when chronology governs a display or when a thematic narrative rules? It’s a perennial question, and traditionally many museums with extensive collections answer it with the former because, with a broad, deep array of art in a particular category, they can. Less well-endowed collections have often gone the thematic route simply because they can’t do a civilization or a period justice with their skimpy (or gap-filled) holdings.

MenanderBut not always. Lately more museums are going narrative because they thing visitors find it more appealing. So it was not perhaps surprising that the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston will on Tuesday open three Ancient Greek galleries, encompassing about 230 objects, with themes: wine, in Dionysos and the Symposium; poets in Homer and the Epics; and performers in Theater and Performance. The three galleries have been renovated for the new first-time thematic displays, and many of the pieces have been conserved.

That’s dramatist Menander, c. 1st C BC – 1st C AD, at right.

I haven’t seen these displays, but I’m for the trial. Even if you look at the small selection of objects for these galleries online, you’ll notice a lot of painted red-on-black vases and marble sculptures. In many a museum, faced with a sea of them — particularly the vases — visitors naturally tune out of the details because there are so many. One must be really patient, truly study the vases, to appreciate them in full.

Here, perhaps themes will help.

According to the press release announcing this change, MFA is also deploying technology to help:

The MFA’s renowned collection of Greek art contains some of the most visually complicated objects in the Museum. iPads will be placed near two particularly detailed vases in order to explain the narratives and “unpack” their symbols. Visitors can discover details they may not have otherwise noticed (similar to “Looking Closer” interactives in the Benin Kingdom Gallery and Kunstkammer Gallery).  In the Homer Gallery, one iPad will focus on the Mixing bowl (calyx krater) with scenes from the fall of Troy (about 470–460 BC). Circled by a continuous frieze of episodes from the Greek sack of the city of Troy, depictions include images of the priestess Kassandra, King Priam of Troy and the Trojan warrior Aeneas. The iPad in the Theater and Performance gallery highlights the Mixing bowl (volute krater) with the Death of Thersites(about 340 BC)—an elaborate vase that was probably influenced by a lost play. Depicted are Achilles, who has just beheaded Thersites, as well as divinities and a number of characters from the Iliad.

Is this a populist move that will be criticized as pandering? It may, but — sight unseen, mind you — I don’t think, in concept, it should be.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the MFA, Boston

Crystal Bridges: The Anti-Whitney-Biennial

Saturday is the day. That’s when the art world, which has been wondering what Don Bacigalupi, president of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and assistant curator Chad Alligood have been seeing for the better part of 2013 and much of 2014 on their search for underappreciated artists, will find out. That’s when the museum unveils State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now — their selections. It is definitely an unconventional ride through art in America.

I say that even though I haven’t seen the show, though the press preview was today (I think), but I have gotten a little look. I have the illustrated checklist, and I’ve looked up several of the artists. I’ve also talked with Bacigalupi, talked with a couple of them, and selected five (which was really hard), to feature in an article. My piece, something of a curtain-raiser, is in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Crystal Bridges Museum Gives Underappreciated Artists a National Show.

Though Bacigalupi says there were no quotas, the 102 artists selected were spread pretty evenly around the country: 24 from the Northeast, 25 from the South, 26 from the West and 27 from the Midwest. Most have an arts education — many with advanced degrees. Most have local “support systems.” Nonetheless, Bacigalupis said, “many said it was their first studio visit.”

They picked 54 men and 48 women — even though Bacigalupi says they saw and spoke with more women artists than men. He acknowledges that “Not everyone will love everything in the show but I don’t think they should.” (A. Mary Kay’s painting is below; there are four additional artists’ works on the WSJ link.)

AMaryKay

A key question: did they avoid controversial works? He says no. “We’re not avoiding anything…but communication has to be in two directions,” he told me. Or, to cite the quote I used in my article: “We wanted work that would engage people, not push them away, so even when artists here are asking tough questions, they are doing it in a way to open a conversation, not shut it down.” I don’t ever hear that from other curators or dealers.

I didn’t get into this in my story, but the exhibition doesn’t have a theme, and the curators didn’t divide their choices into afterthought themes either. So as you might imagine, “Hanging has been a challenge,” Bacigalupi told me. “You have to make the works cohere as an exhibit, communicate what these works are about.”

He said they hung the works with an eye to “conversations, connections, resonances – but not themes.” So instead of paragraphs of text introducing a gallery, providing context, Crystal Bridges will have “pithy wall texts that will help visitors into the conversation,”  serving as “a point of departure.”

One gallery has these lines:

Human hands shape and frame the natural world.

Everyday stuff reveals grace and grit.

A stilled moment expands awareness.

Unexpected materials gain power and meaning.

Human bodies carry personal and historical significance.

Personal stories open avenues for empathy.

Another has these:

Materials and imagery can communicate heritage.

From a single image, complex tales unfold.

The stuff of daily life can reveal hidden stories.

Crystal Bridges also says that “There’s a great presence of the artists” in the didactics. In the catalogue. Bacigalupi wrote:

… one of the most meaningful things this project has presented is the opportunity to share much more about the artists themselves than a typical exhibition might. We hope that the faces of these artists, their voices and stories, the contexts and communities in which they make their art, and the intersections of their art and their lives will be rich additions to the guest experience. We want to incorporate as many of these layers as we can in our galleries, interpretive devices, and educational programs.

I imagine that some art world sophisticates will write off this show; I don’t think they should — at least not yet. I’m really looking forward to some thoughtful reviews.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Crystal Bridges and A. Mary Kay

 

 

 

More Dueling On the Corcoran Gallery

All this month, the National Gallery of Art announced on Sept. 5, “NGA Corcoran offers free admission and tours, Wednesday through Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. During the month of September, several exciting exhibitions and special installations are on view at NGA Corcoran before it closes for renovation in October.”

CorcoranVisitorsAs a result, the NGA says in a press release, “Free Admission at NGA Corcoran has quadrupled attendance.” And to add to the good feelings it is trying to create, the NGA said, “Admission will remain free of charge when NGA Corcoran reopens in fall 2015, following renovations.” Who can oppose free admission? Although it does in some ways devalue the museum and the art, free admission is generally a good thing.

Meanwhile, across town, those who have opposed the deal breaking up the Corcoran and handing the art to the NGA and the school to George Washington University, are planning a wake. They’ve sent Save the Date notices about their “Public Memorial Service for the Corcoran Gallery of Art” set for Saturday, Sept. 27. It will take place at 500 17th Street, NW Washington, D.C.  In other words, it will take place at the Corcoran itself. Then: 

The service will be followed by a symbolic burial ceremony and a wake at locations to be announced.

Guests are encouraged to wear black or dress in period clothing of the Victorian era as a tribute to William Wilson Corcoran: black arm bands, men in mourning coats, women in dark veils with black umbrellas.

Among the organizers are  Linda Crocker Simmons, curator emerita of the Corcoran, Elizabeth Punsalan, an art advisor who once worked for the Smithsonian in marketing and with collectors and is the former director of corporate relations and special events at the Corcoran,  and Carolyn Campbell, a former PR and Events Director of the Corcoran. 

We will watch to see if there is a showdown on the day. Corcoran management has often muffled situations; let’s see how they react to this one.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the NGA

And Now: The Answers To Who Said That

In my last post, I provided some quotes, thanks to Artspace, that could be attributed to four important critics as a back-to-school time test. And here are the answers:

Clement Greenberg

“I would not deny being one of those critics who educate themselves in public.”

“Everyone dislikes technical criticism of painting; and there’s no other decent kind. What’s wanted is horseshit. And the horseshit is so easy to write brilliantly, but I shan’t.”

what-did-leo-steinberg-do-900x450Harold Rosenberg

“The new American painting is not ‘pure’ art, since the extrusion of the object was not for the sake of the aesthetic. The apples weren’t brushed off the table in order to make room for perfect relations of space and color. They had to do so that nothing would get in the way of the act of painting.”

“Painting became the means of confronting in daily practice the problematic nature of modern individuality. In this way Action Painting restored a metaphysical point to art.”

Meyer Schapiro

“There is no ‘pure art,’ unconditioned by experience; all fantasy and formal construction, even the random scribbling of the hand, are shaped by experience and by nonaesthetic concerns.”

Leo Steinberg

“Whenever there appears an art that is truly new and original, the men who denounce it first and loudest are artists.”

“What really depressed me was what I felt these works were able to do to all other art. The pictures of de Kooning and Kline, it seemed to me, were suddenly tossed into one pot with Rembrandt and Giotto.”

Artspace didn’t construct its articles as a test; they are part of its Art 101 feature, a “Know Your Critics” series. Each article has much more useful reminders — or crib sheets. Here are the links:

What Did Clement Greenberg Do?

What Did Harold Rosenberg Do?

What Did Meyer Schapiro Do?

What did Leo Steinberg Do?

Now, who’s in the photo?

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Artspace

Back-To-School Time: A Test

Since its September, it’s a good time to reflect on what we know and what we don’t know.

So here’s a test: Who said these things about art?

  • logo“Whenever there appears an art that is truly new and original, the men who denounce it first and loudest are artists.”
  • “There is no ‘pure art,’ unconditioned by experience; all fantasy and formal construction, even the random scribbling of the hand, are shaped by experience and by nonaesthetic concerns.”
  • “I would not deny being one of those critics who educate themselves in public.”
  • “What really depressed me was what I felt these works were able to do to all other art. The pictures of de Kooning and Kline, it seemed to me, were suddenly tossed into one pot with Rembrandt and Giotto.”
  • “The new American painting is not ‘pure’ art, since the extrusion of the object was not for the sake of the aesthetic. The apples weren’t brushed off the table in order to make room for perfect relations of space and color. They had to do so that nothing would get in the way of the act of painting.”
  • “Everyone dislikes technical criticism of painting; and there’s no other decent kind. What’s wanted is horseshit. And the horseshit is so easy to write brilliantly, but I shan’t.”
  • “Painting became the means of confronting in daily practice the problematic nature of modern individuality. In this way Action Painting restored a metaphysical point to art.”

Hint: they were all said by critics – four men, whom Artspace is featuring in a series it calls “Know Your Critics.” The four are, as you may have guessed, Meyer Schapiro, Harold Rosenberg, Clement Greenberg and Leo Steinberg.

But who said what?

Answers soon.