Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

The Met Aces A New Online Feature

I’ve always been a fan of galleries showcasing new acquisitions by art museums, so I suppose I was predisposed to like the web feature announced today by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.* It’s called MetCollects, and there will be one episode a month, each going deep on a recent acquisition. The press release describes it as a “first look,” but of the three episodes so far they are all already on view.

DP277234No matter, really. Aside from the focus on new things to see, I like MetCollects because viewers of it will — or can — really look and learn. Each has a slide show, and if you turn it on — instead of changing slides yourself — each slide remains on the screen for about 4 seconds, which sounds like a little but isn’t (try it). Part two of two episodes provides a video interview with the artist (William Kentridge in one case) or the curator (Keith Christiansen). Unlike some previous web attempts, these too are substantial in length — 4:03 for Kentridge and 3:11 for Christiansen.

So what are the inaugural episodes? From the release:

* The Refusal of Time (2012), a …multimedia meditation on time and space by artist William Kentridge… The installation is jointly owned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum.
* The 1808 portrait by Francois Gérard of one of the greatest political figures of modern times, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand Périgord [at left], with an interview by Keith Christiansen…Curator of European Paintings.
* …the Mishneh Torah by the Master of the Barbo Missal. This Italian manuscript from around 1457 is now jointly owned by The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The last one does not have a video, and I am not sure why.

At the bottom of each feature, there’s a link to Recent Acquisitions Bulletins — another plus. There you’ll find downloadable publications from the last five years.

This feature seems to be an ace to me because of its focus and its depth. It joins three other web features from the Met –the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, “launched in 2000, [which] …receives more than one million visits per month’ Connections (2011) [, which] offers personal perspectives on works of art in the collection by 100 members of the Museum’s staff [and] 82nd & Fifth (2013) [, which] features 100 curators from across the Met who talk about 100 works of art from the collection that changed the way they see the world—one work, one curator, two minutes at a time.”

I’ve heard complaints only about the third, because (some critics say) the episodes are too short to convey meaningful information. That’s a matter of taste and attention span.

My only complaint is finding these features on the Met website. They are all tabs under the “Collections” heading on the home page, but I initially found them by using the site index.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Met

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met

 

 

Collector Jonathan Demme Joins The Sellers

In the late 1990s, I was pleased to meet director Jonathan Demme, maker of Silence of the Lambs, Married to the Mob and Philadelphia, among other movies, and to listen to him talk about his collecting of Haitian art. He preparing for an exhibition of more than 100 works drawn from his collection at the gallery at Equitable Center. I wrote about him and the exhibition for The New York Times in an article headlined A Convert Spreads the Word for Haitian Art.

JDemmeDemme quickly became known as the owner of one of the most, if not the most, comprehensive collections of Haitian art in the U.S. Now, though, he and his collection are back in the news because he’s selling it — well, about 90% of it. According to an AP story published in the Washington Post,

More than 900 pieces — many of them by artists with little or no formal training but abundant talent — will be auctioned at Philadelphia’s Material Culture on March 29-30. The sale will be preceded by a weeklong exhibition that is free and open to the public….

Demme, whose collection includes many pieces produced at the Centre d’Art, the landmark Port-au-Prince art cooperative destroyed in the 2010 earthquake, said he plans to donate a portion of the proceeds to the rebuilding effort. The auction is expected to bring in $1 million to $1.4 million.

Demme is OK with letting go of his treasures, comparing himself to a parent sending his kids to college. “You’re going to miss having them around, but they are making the right journey. This work is leaving storage and my walls and going out to find new homes.”

Demme had an eye for this kind of art. He fell into it by happenstance, and then he made his instinctual reaction to Haitian art into a quest for the best, in his eyes — like all good collectors.

My first thought on hearing of the auction was, how horrible — why not donate it to a museum? Or at least some of it? But then I began to wonder: what museum would take it? That’s very unclear to me.

 

 

An Art Museum For Las Vegas After All?

Here’s a switch: Las Vegas, whose art museum closed in 2009, is talking about building a new art museum — this one to focus on contemporary art. Whether this one is any more viable than the first is a matter of conjecture. Interestingly, in the information I’ve been able to find online, there’s not a mention of a collection or much about art. It’s all about a new building with 35,000 square feet of gallery space on a two-acre site downtown.

marquee1I caught wind of this on the local CBS news website. The article began:

A major campaign to raise money for The Modern Contemporary Art Museum kicked off in Las Vegas. Anna Auerbach with Moonridge Group says they need to raise $29 million in order to move forward with the project. The museum will be located in downtown Las Vegas on East Charleston Boulevard and South Arts Way. Auerbach says most cities of this size have an art museum of this scale, and it’s time Las Vegas does too….

The museum will be one of three complementary components of a progressive cultural center that will showcase art, technology, and design in addition to providing essential training and tools for a new wave of artists and designers. The campus will include three components: The Modern Contemporary Art Museum, the Center for Creativity, and Luminous Park, anoutdoor sculpture garden and community gathering space.

The Modern Contemporary Art Museum will house…an important and progressive series of rotating exhibits….and showcase the works of both established and emerging artists from the 20th century onward. The Modern will also include a retail store/gift shop, a bistro and event spaces.

So as you’ve read, the price for this is $29 million. And how much have organizers raised? Would you believe $2.5 million? So they’ve gone public before raising even a tenth of the cost. That’s unusual in itself, fundraisers will tell you. Generally, they want to amass funds or pledges for at least half before going public. In this case, the organizers are taking another strange path — they’re trying crowd-funding for $100,000. They posted their plea on Indiegogo with a campaign running through Apr. 17, according to Nevada Business. As of this posting, they have $10,155.

With the $100,000, the organizers plan to hire a project manager.

In their plea, the organizers say they can move forward only with the public’s help and they add:

  • We deserve an art museum, an education center, and beautiful and safe public park in the heart of downtown
  • This complex will generate tremendous economic impact
  • It will educate individuals of all ages and backgrounds
  • It will create a legacy for our families, friends, and children

Good goals. But before I’d contribute — assuming I lived in or near LV — I’d want to know more about the art and the organizers, not to mention their long-term plan for building and sustaining a museum in Las Vegas.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Modern campaign

MASS MoCA Expands, With State Funds

It seems like only yesterday that MASS MoCA opened, but it was 1999. And today, MASS MoCA announced that was moving into its “Phase III renovation.”

The Massachusetts House of Representatives has just passed an omnibus capital improvement act that allots a $25.4 million grant to MASS MoCA for the project, and the bill now goes to the State Senate for consideration. Let’s hope.

The money will fund the museum’s “final phase of its multi-decade effort to renovate its 26-building, 600,000 square foot, 16-acre factory campus….Phase III development will include the addition of some 130,000 square feet of gallery space, ultimately doubling the space currently available for exhibitions, plus significant work on its performing arts courtyards and other exterior venues.”

MASS MoCA opened with “200,000 square feet of space renovated for galleries, stages, rehearsal studios, and art fabrication facilities.” Then, in its Phase II expansion, from 2002-2008, it added another 200,000 square feet of space for more “galleries, performing arts facilities, outdoor festival fields and courtyards, and 125,000 square feet of commercial lease space.” At the end of this project, the 19th century factory space MASS MoCA began with will be completely transformed (see the pix below).

MASS MoCA is unique, I think — not just for reclaiming so much factory space for art but that plus its public-private partnership (along with state-provided money, the museum has raised $110 million in private funds) and because it has kept alive North Adams, attracting overnight tourists.

Here’s a passage from the release on the point:

MASS MoCA projects a net gain in annual attendance of 65,000 patrons associated with the Phase III project. According to the C3D study, under current visitation patterns to the Berkshires every new 10,000 patrons to MASS MoCA translates to new region-wide economic activity of approximately $1.8 million, generating $160,000 in additional local and state tax revenues, such that the total impact of Phase III development could reach over $11,000,000 per year, and over $1,000,000 per year in new tax revenues.

Art has critical mass in that part of Massachusetts, with the Williams College museum and the expanding Clark Art Institute. Together, the three make a great draw — if only they could get tourists during the winter.

MASS MoCA

Photo credit: Courtesy of MASS MoCA

“Morning Canvas” Debuts, But When?

When do people want to “consume” the arts, for lack of a better word? Art museums, I’ve long said, are curbing their attendance, their much desired “accessibility,” by continuing to offer 20th century hours — mostly in the daytime, sometimes closing as early as 4 p.m. — in a 21st century world, where most people are busy working during museums’ opening hours.

MorningCanvasNow there’s another example of a well-intended arts offering at a crazy, unrealistic hour.

Recently, the Ovation TV channel launched an “arts programming” block, a two-hour show called “Morning Canvas.” But when it is cablecast? At 7 a.m. EST and 4 a.m. PST. Who does Ovation think will be watching then? A.m. TV is already a difficult time period and, as the editorial course of programs like “Today” and “Good Morning, America” seem to show, it’s easier to sell celebrity and fluff at that hour than seriousness.

This is really too bad. “Morning Canvas” bills itself as “featur[ing] an eclectic mix of US premiere documentary series and specials, encompassing all arts categories, including classical music performances, photography, dance, theater and the visual arts.” Hosted by Nikki Boyer, it began airing, Monday through Friday, on Feb. 24. The lineup looks interesting to me. Here are some highlights, cited by the press release:

  • The Aristocrats – Monday, March 10; Tuesday, March 11; Wednesday, March 12; Thursday, March 13. This fascinating four-part series follows some of the most famous society families in Britain and Europe – the Rothschilds, the Shaftesburys, the Marlboroughs of Blenheim and the March family of Goodwood – as they try to preserve their traditions and estates in a modern age.
  • Unfinished Masterpieces – Monday, March 24. Alastair Sooke explores the mysterious appeal of unfinished works of art. From Dickens’s unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Jane Austen’s Sanditon to Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, he talks to those who have attempted to finish these literary enigmas and those who believe that any such task is impossible.
  • Treasures of Ancient Egypt – Monday,March 31; Tuesday, April 1; Wednesday April 2. In this epic, visually stunning adventure through Ancient Egypt, journalist and art critic Alastair Sooke tracks down the treasures of the longest-lasting civilization in history uncovering the true story of its rise and fall through the ages.

This week, “Morning Canvas” is focused on:

  • Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau – Monday, March 3; Tuesday, March 4; Wednesday, March 5.  In the 1890s, Art Nouveau was an explosion of sexual, scandalous and revolutionary ways of depicting the world that swept rapidly from country to country, influencing the fine arts, graphic art, interior design, jewelry, furniture and lighting. The Art Nouveau movement embraced both new materials and technological innovations, such as various paints, iron and glass, while expounding on lines and curves based on real-life figures. Much of today’s art and concert posters are influenced by the Art Nouveau movement. Filmed in London, Glasgow, Paris, Brussels and Vienna, this series documents this hugely influential movement that rose rapidly to prominence and fell just as quickly due to the start of the First World War.

So, I guess the answer is time-shifting, saving the morning airing for nighttime watching. At least Ovation is trying — putting visual arts on television is always a challenge.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Ovation