Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

“Bronze” — A Reprise, Sort Of

PicassoIn 2012, the Royal Academy in London had a total winner on its hands, in my opinion, with Bronze, an exhibition of about 150 bronzes from all over the world, dating from 5,000 years ago to the present. Robert Mnuchin, the dealer, thought so too:

We were struck by the dazzling breadth of inventiveness and the vast range of visual effects at play in the five centuries of bronze objects that the show brought together. After returning to New York, we could not get the show out of our heads. When we learned the exhibition would not be traveling outside of London, we decided that the experience of Bronze was one that New York audiences simply should not have to miss. We asked ourselves what we could do that would reflect the level of quality of the London show, concluding that we would be most successful if we focused on masterworks from the twentieth century.

And then they hired David Ekserdjian, curator of the RA show, to co-curate and write an essay for the exhibition that opened last week at Mnuchin: Casting Modernity: Bronze in the XXth Century.

MatisseNudeThis is one of the gallery shows that a museum would be proud to do. It includes many borrowed works that are presumably not for sale, as well as bronzes you can buy, assuming you have the wherewithal. The first room for example, contains Picasso’s Head of a Woman (Fernande), above at right, from The Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Trust and all five of Matisse’s Jeannettes (below right), borrowed from Glenstone, the private museum of Mitchell Rales. Matisses Grand nu assis (at left), from a private collection, is also there.

It also includes works by Twombly, David Smith, Lichtenstein, Bourgeois, Arp, Koons, de Kooning and others. There are more than 30 works in all.

Ekserdjian writes:

This extraordinarily bold hanging sculpture best illustrates the enormous distance that separates the artistic universe of the close of the millennium from Rodin’s world. It goes without saying that all these pieces have been carefully chosen — in the first instance — for their intrinsic artistic merits. Nevertheless, seen as a whole they cannot fail to suggest all sorts of intriguing and illuminating alliances and even rivalries both stylistic and perhaps especially thematic.

MatisseJeanettesEkserdjian categorizes these bronzes as he did for the RA show, analyzing them by grouping them as heads, animals and so on. With fewer objects, this — to me — is a little less satisfying, not more. Art history is never simple. Indeed, the essay concludes:

…the gulf that separates Rodin’s Thinker from Nauman’s Untitled (Hand Circle) is a vast one. What is more, the intervening works and decades cannot be reduced to anything approximating a simple formulaic progression. On the contrary, it is the twists and turns — the absence of a linear history — that make the panorama of bronze sculpture in the twentieth century so boundlessly fascinating. As a result, no anthology — even when it brings together so many stunning pieces — can hope to be entirely representative, but it can instead encourage us to see both the familiar and the unexpected in a new light. For each of us, which bronzes fall into which of those categories will be very different, but even the best informed will be bound to learn from the experience…

The exhibit will be on view until June 7. If you are in the neighborhood of East 78th Street, a visit would be well worth it.

Photo Credits: © Judith H. Dobrzynski  

174 LACMA Donors = $4.1 Million + 10 Varied Acquisitions

This past weekend, collectors associated with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art set a record at their 29th annual Collectors Committee fundraiser — contributing more than $4.1 million and deciding to buy 10 quite diverse works of art. Among the artworks: Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres’ Odalisque (below right); contemporary works by Roni Horn, Chinese artist Feng Mengbo and Iranian artist Mitra Tabrizian; an 18th-century Virgin of Guadalupe by Antonio de Torres; a pair of 9th century Japanese lions (below left) and a print – Taureau et Picador, from 1952 – by Picasso.

LACMA-IngresOdalisqueThis is one kind of museum participation that I quite like. In fact, I know of a few variations — the men do in on their own at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in an annual event called “One Great Night in November” — and it would fun to have a competition among the major museums each year. Which one could raise the most money for purchases in one event? 

In LA, the collectors bought each of the nine pieces proposed by curators, and at the outset of the evening, director Michael Govan announced that one trustee, Carole Bayer Sager, had purchased Helen Pashgian: Light Invisible, a monumental piece now on view that consists of “twelve two-part columns framed out of molded acrylic.” It’s an immersive experience, one that changes as viewers walk around, past and through the forms. 

To be a member of the Collectors Committee at LACMA, one must contribute at least $15,000, or $30,000 for Benefactor Level membership, or $60,000 for Angel Level membership.  “All membership money [goes] directly to a pooled fund that gives Collectors Committee members the privilege of helping make acquisitions for the museum,” the museum explains on its website. And this year, the press release for the weekend’s results said that “87 couples joined Collectors Committee 2014, including 23 new members. ” That is impressive.

LACMA-9thCJapaneseLionsThe release adds: “Throughout its 29-year history, this event has made 202 acquisitions through donations totaling more than $32 million.”

In LA, the event goes on for more than 24 hours. It begins on Friday evening, “with exclusive dinners for Collectors Committee members in the homes of seven LACMA trustees, each prepared by celebrity chefs and paired with wines presented by renowned California vintners.”  (Can’t resist: the dinners, not the trustees, are prepared by chefs.)

Then, “On Saturday morning, LACMA curators presented artworks proposed for acquisition; at the annual Collectors Committee Gala on Saturday night, members enjoyed a dinner prepared by chef Joachim Splichal (Patina Group) and voted on which artworks to acquire.” Details in the release — as some works were simply purchased outright by trustees, just as Sager had.

Here’s a list of acquisitions with images. Nice.

Art History For The 21st Century

In fall 2012, James Cuno, president of the Getty Trust, chastised art historians in an op-ed on the web for being behind the times in their use of digital tools. I agreed, and wrote a post about it. So I’ve watched to see what the Getty was going to do about it — and I outline some of those initiatives in today’s Wall Street Journal.

JamesCunoMy Cultural Conversation with Cuno is headlined Modernizing Art History, and it details his thoughts, as well as a few from others who work at the Getty, on digital art history.

Even though this is 2014, most curators and academic art historians remain a bit at sea about the real, as opposed to the theoretical, potential of exploiting digital technologies to create new knowledge in the art realm. But Cuno promised, as I wrote,

I’m convinced this is something the Getty has to enable. …We have the means to push the needle.

The Getty Foundation is sponsoring three institutes — at George Mason University, Harvard and University of California, Los Angeles — this summer, “where art historians can learn about the tools, methods and potential of digital art history.” Applications are closed, however, and as I understand it not everyone will be accepted.

I learned this morning of another such institute — also already full — at Middlebury College, sponsored by the Kress Foundation. It’s called the “Summer Institute on Digital Mapping and Art History” and runs Aug. 3 through Aug. 15.

I suspect we will need many more of these, along with a lot of good question that can be asked with the new tools, before we make great discoveries — but I am hopeful.

 

Way Beyond Museum Walls: A Driving Tour

Many museums these days say they want to meet people where they are — to go beyond their walls. And where are a lot of people but in their cars?

image004That may or may not have been the motivation of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Ct., when it developed its newest initiative, but I thought would give a little visibility to it anyway: To accompany its exhibition Pasture to Pond: Connecticut Impressionism, which runs through June 22, the Bruce has developed a guided driving tour, complete with map,  of some of the scenes around the state that are featured in the paintings in the show.

It’s using a system called Guide by Cell to get people to experience art “beyond the exhibition, indeed beyond the Museum’s doors, into our local towns and villages to further the appreciation and understanding highlighted in this show that Connecticut was a birthplace of American Impressionism.”

According to the press release:

The driving tour begins at the Bruce Museum and ends at Greenwich Point Park, highlighting five different locations over a distance of about 12 miles. Active driving time is approximately 30 minutes. The guide and map will be available in the gallery to exhibition participants, as well as on the Museum’s website at brucemuseum.org. All of the Museum’s Guide by Cell programs are generously underwritten by Nat and Lucy Day.

The release calls this “a new foray into the Museum’s use of the Guide by Cell system,” which implies that its in-museum cell tours use the same system — and that’s good because presumably museum-goers will already be familiar with it. Guide by Cell is new to me — I’ve actually never used a cell phone guide in a museum — but it calls itself a leading supplier of guides to cultural institutions.

Photo Credit: October Morning, 1919, by Leonard Ochtman, courtesy of the Bruce Museum

It’s A Deal: St. Louis And Basel

Richter-St_Louis_Museum_Four Richters for four Rothkos — that’s the bargain.

As anyone who has visited the St. Louis Art Museum can tell you, the works it owns by Gerhard Richter are, along with its Beckmanns, among the stars of its collection. They rarely travel — people go specifically to see them. (I wish we in New York City had as good a trove in a museum.) But the museum has made an exception for pretty good reasons: the Richters, including Betty (at right) will go to Basel to the F0undation Beyeler’s Richter retrospective, which will be on view May 18 through Sept. 7. That means they’ll be on view during Art Basel. As SLAM spokeman Matthew Hathaway put it:

These are among the most important examples of Richter’s oeuvre, and it’s important to us and, presumably, the artist, that they be included in a major retrospective. The Beyeler is a world-class institution, and their exhibition will overlap with Art Basel, which will give our paintings considerable visibility.

Rothko-Beyeler-1948And in return, the Beyerler is sending four Rothkos. They’ll be on view in St. Louis from May 24 through Sept. 14, in place of the Richters. They include Untitled from 1948 (at left), which the St. Louis Post-Dispatch describes as “one of Rothko’s multiform works, with small patches of color, mostly tawny yellow, blue-gray and red on a salmon-pink background. Five feet by a little over four feet, it’s the last painting that Rothko signed on the front of the painting, said Kelly, before switching to backs.”

The swap also means that Rothko’s Blue and Grey and Untitled (Red-Brown, Black, Green, Red) from 1962 and his Untitled (Plum and Dark Brown), from 1964, will be in St. Louis. The museum has four of its own Rothkos to put in the show, including Red, Orange, Orange on Red from 1962, two acrylic Untitled works 1969, and another Untitled in watercolor and graphite, from 1944.

I’m telling this story not only because I think it’s a pretty good deal for both parties, but also because I want to commend the Post-Dispatch for writing a story about it. I think it’s important for people to know how museums work.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of SLAM