tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-267972062024-03-08T08:50:48.645-05:00CultureGrrlCultural Commentary by Lee Rosenbaum, who also writes for the Wall Street Journal (Leisure & Arts), NY Times (including six Op-Ed pieces) and Art in America. Must-read art blog, cited by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/arts/design/22admi.html?ex=1311220800&en=9925063c35d6d0a4&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">The New York Times</a> and the <a href="http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-ca-artsnotes16.2jul16,0,4000348.story?coll=cl-artone">Los Angeles Times</a>.Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153866687825148232006-07-25T17:10:00.000-04:002006-07-26T09:46:00.103-04:00CultureGrrl Moves to ArtsJournal!I'm pleased to announce that, after rigorous hazing rituals, I have been admitted to the blogging roster of <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/">ArtsJournal</a>, the distinguished forum for cultural journalism that many of your already bookmark for news and commentary. I look forward to stirring up more contemplation and controversy for a larger audience. This, my original blogsite, will remain up but dormant. It's exactly three months since I began this labor of love. I was born to blog!<br /><br />Come visit <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span> at her <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/">new address</a>!Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153844801264128212006-07-25T12:19:00.000-04:002006-07-25T12:30:15.366-04:00Bloggers in Concert<a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/man/archives20060701.shtml#107059">Tyler Green</a> adds his own impressions to <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/blogback-my-row-with-tinterow_25.html">the Tinterow tintypes</a>. Sometimes reasonable bloggers <span style="font-weight:bold;">CAN</span> agree! (Who says we have <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/lets-rumble_20.html">a feud</a>?)Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153843475300821932006-07-25T12:04:00.000-04:002006-07-25T12:44:53.766-04:00Museum Transparency and the Tangled WebNo, this is not another exposé; it's my commentary on museum websites, inspired by the <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/archives20060723.shtml#107042">Terry Teachout Challenge</a>. My fearsomely prolific fellow blogger, who is also the theater critic for the <span style="font-weight:bold;">Wall Street Journal</span> (among his many distinctions), recently discussed what he likes and dislikes about the websites of American theater companies. He ended the post with a shoutout to <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span> for her critique of museum websites.<br /><br />I'm going to turn this around a bit, not bothering with the basics. Most museums do provide the essential information about directions, admission fees <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/lowry-and-de-montebello-on-admission.html">(don't get me started)</a>, exhibitions, collections, etc. <br /><br />But most could do more to make navigating their labyrinthine halls less confusing. More importantly, at a time when museums are being asked to display greater transparency in governance and operations, the web represents a missed opportunity for more openness. What follows are things that I'd like to see on more museum websites, with credit to the few who are already doing it:<br /><br />---<span style="font-weight:bold;">Help in navigating galleries</span>: For fans of pre-planning, the <span style="font-weight:bold;">National Gallery of Art</span>, Washington, provides clickable gallery maps, like <a href="http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/ploc?location=West+Main+Floor+Gallery+6">this one</a> of the West Main Floor, Gallery 6, the locus of one of the museum's great treasures, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Leonardo da Vinci</span>'s "Ginevra de' Benci." Doing a search for that work can get you a gallery map with its location marked in red. Clicking that dot gets you a list of all the works in that room, each of which can be clicked for a wealth of details, including exhibition history, provenance and even bibliography. You can also browse the galleries by clicking on the various rooms.<br /><br />---<span style="font-weight:bold;">What you WON'T see</span>:---Ever go to a museum specifically to view certain iconic works, only to discover that one or more of them is missing? The <span style="font-weight:bold;">Clark Art Institute</span>, Williamstown, Mass., keeps you posted on <a href="http://www.clarkart.edu/museum_programs/collections/off_view/content.cfm?ID=146&marker=1&start=1&nav=1">art that is off view</a>, with an explanation of where it's gone and for how long.<br /><br />---<span style="font-weight:bold;">New on view</span>: On the <span style="font-weight:bold;">Metropolitan Museum of Art</span>'s website, you can download their annual reports of Recent Acquisitions, including <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/recent_acquisitions/_files/ra_2004_2005.pdf">this one</a> from 2004-2005, containing (on page 14) curator <span style="font-weight:bold;">Keith Christiansen</span>'s discussion of the <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/dubious-duccio_11.html">Duccio "Madonna and Child"</a>. The <span style="font-weight:bold;">J. Paul Getty Museum</span> also publishes an <a href="http://www.getty.edu/art/acquisitions/">acquisitions list</a>.<br /><br />---<span style="font-weight:bold;">Annual reports, board minutes</span>: The Getty <a href="http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article01.asp?id=386">recently stated</a> that it would publish more detailed financial and governance information on its website. The <span style="font-weight:bold;">British Museum</span> already does this: Here are its most recent <a href="http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/corporate/guidance/minutes/2303(06).pdf">trustee minutes</a> and its <a href="http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/corporate/guidance/TAR03-04.pdf">annual report</a> (although the most recent posted report is from fiscal 2004).<br /><br />---<span style="font-weight:bold;">Press release archives</span>: Some museum websites include this; few are as comprehensive as the <a href="http://www.guggenheim.org/press_office.html">Guggenheim</a>'s, which goes back to 1998.<br /><br />---<span style="font-weight:bold;">Curatorial contacts</span>: Wish you could easily communicate with a curator? The <span style="font-weight:bold;">San Francisco Museum of Modern Art</span> posts <a href="http://www.sfmoma.org/info/admin_teldirectory.html">contact e-mails</a> for its various curatorial departments.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">SOON</span>: What museums never post, but should.Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153839137422243022006-07-25T10:52:00.000-04:002006-07-25T10:52:17.423-04:00BlogBack: My Row with TinterowResponding to my posts <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/gary-tinterow-on-divine-right-of.html">here</a> and <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/museum-collections-curatorial_24.html">here</a> about Metropolitan Museum curator <span style="font-weight:bold;">Gary Tinterow</span>'s views on collection management, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Rob Krulak</span> writes: <br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Beyond claiming the public's stake in the holdings of art museums as a private concern of curators, Gary Tinterow also seems to credit curators with the very creation of great public collections, as if there is an unbroken golden chain of specialist curators that stretches into the prehistory of every art museum.<br /><br />That's just not how great museum collections are formed, evolve, or even come to be called great. I suppose civic entrepreneurs, private collectors (what would the Met be without Havemeyers?), journalists, academic art historians, the public, the brilliant non-specialists who created our earliest civic collections, and everyone else who contributes to the institutional and aesthetic meaning of museums were just along for the ride.</span></blockquote>Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153752050318926342006-07-24T10:37:00.000-04:002006-07-24T10:40:50.346-04:00Museum Collections: Curatorial Privilege and the Public InterestThis is an overly long post, but a serious subject deserves serious treatment. The following are my promised comments responding to <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/gary-tinterow-on-divine-right-of.html">comments made to me last week</a> by Metropolitan Museum curator <span style="font-weight:bold;">Gary Tinterow</span>.<br /><br />One of the prime movers in founding the <a href="http://www.artcurators.org/">Association of Art Museum Curators</a> in 2001, Tinterow appears more focused on curator-power than on public accountability, as evidenced by his recent remarks to me on the subject of collection management. <br /><br />Decisions to sell objects from museum collections must not be subject to the subjective judgments or personal preferences of individual curators, however knowledgeable and well-intentioned they may be. The governing presumption should be: What enters the public domain stays in the public domain, except for works that are clearly inferior in quality or condition. The public has paid for them, after all, through the tax deductions given to the donors of money or of art.<br /><br />Curatorial prerogatives are not absolute; they must be subordinated to the professional guidelines set by the <a href="http://www.aamd.org/">Association of Art Museum Directors</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Both the deaccessioning and the disposal of a work of art from a museum's collection require exceptional care and should reflect policy rather than reaction to the exigencies of a particular moment. Standards applied to deaccessioning and disposal must be at least as stringent as those applied to the acquisition process and should not be subject to changes in fashion and taste.</span><br /></blockquote><br />Tinterow may have been correct in observing to me that some museum officials have sold objects, only to have their successors (or curators at other museums) subsequently retrieve them for the public domain. But far from justifying incautious deaccessioning, this merely demonstrates the folly of it. There is no justification for disposing of works that tomorrow's curators may deem worthy of study or exhibition, no matter how much today's curators want to fund their own purchases of art through sales of objects that they deem expendable.<br /><br />How much do today's curators at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, for example, wish that they still had the fine Hudson River School paintings that were sold in the 1950s (as discussed in <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/my-article-on-minneapolis-in-todays_18.html">my recent Wall Street Journal article</a>) by then director Richard Davies, who deemed them not important enough for the collection? Different types of art go in and out of fashion. A museum's collection should be for the ages and not be subject to such vagaries.<br /><br />The Met's most recent deaccession controversy involved its plan to sell a sculpture by <span style="font-weight:bold;">Eduardo Chillida</span>. That plan was abandoned after it was revealed that the donor of the work opposed the sale. Tinterow told me last week that the sculpture would never be exhibited at the Met, because it is too large. But, as <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F00F15F83C5B0C778DDDA80894DE404482">Michael Kimmelman reported</a> in the <span style="font-weight:bold;">NY Times</span>, it had already been exhibited there three times, making the curator's resolve never to show it again seem questionable.<br /><br />There are probably a number of art museums that would be very pleased to make room in their galleries or sculpture gardens for an important Chillida. If the Met has no use for a museum-quality work, it should lend or give that object to a sister institution that <span style="font-weight:bold;">CAN</span> use it, thereby keeping it in the public domain where it belongs.<br /><br />The spectre of finite exhibition and storage space, raised by Tinterow in the comments I quoted last Friday, is a real concern. The late <span style="font-weight:bold;">Stephen Weil</span>, a noted authority on legal issues involving art museums, once suggested that institutions were going to have to consider "triage" for their collections, because they had accumulated more stuff than they knew what to do with. <br /><br />But not all museums are overstuffed. Collection-sharing <span style="font-weight:bold;">IS</span> an option---one that should be more seriously explored by all museums with a superabundance of riches.Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153581675829508292006-07-22T11:18:00.000-04:002006-07-22T17:32:07.393-04:00CultureGrrl in the New York Times!Welcome to all you <span style="font-weight:bold;">NY Times</span> readers, who had to Google "Culture Grrl" [sic] to link to me from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/arts/design/22admi.html">Roberta Smith's excellent article</a> today on museum admission fees. Her contribution to the story-that-refuses-to-die was a detailed compendium of the many museums that offer free admission all the time, or at least some of the time.<br /><br />She was a bit unfair, though, to <span style="font-weight:bold;">Glenn Lowry</span> of the Museum of Modern Art, who (as <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/lowry-and-de-montebello-on-admission.html">my post</a> indicates) expressed sympathy for <span style="font-weight:bold;">BOTH</span> sides of the argument---for and against admission fees. Roberta only quotes his argument against fees, making MoMA's $20 mandatory tariff appear to be against his own principles.<br /><br />My thanks go to art blogger <a href="http://zekesgallery.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight:bold;">Chris "Zeke" Hand</span></a> for alerting me, all the way from Montreal, that the mention of <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span> was "the first time the New York Times ever published the term 'art blog.'" Is this true?<br /><br />Things would have been easier for you Times surfers if the online version had linked to my blog. But when I tried to get the newspaper's surfing serfs to put up the link, I got this reply: <br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">We hyperlink to our own topic pages (please notice that all hyperlinks in the story take the reader to internal New York Times pages), and so we can't include the link to your blog.</span></blockquote><br />For those of you who took the trouble to Google me in order to ogle me, you can link to my posts related to the Met's admission-fee hike <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/met-almost-free-if-you-want-it-to-be.html">here</a>, <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/lowry-and-de-montebello-on-admission.html">here</a>, <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/times-shortchanges-met_15.html">here</a>, <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/blogbacks-mets-admissions-frissons_19.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/met-fee-reasonable-timesmen-can.html">here</a>. (Do you think I'm overdoing it?)<br /><br />Y'all come back now!Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153497747995889272006-07-21T12:01:00.000-04:002006-07-23T14:00:15.103-04:00Gary Tinterow on the Divine Right of CuratorsAt a press breakfast before a briefing held at the Metropolitan Museum this week for its upcoming <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/met-collects-rent_14.html">high-rent loan show</a> of French 19th- and early 20th-century masterpieces, I got into a discussion about the Met's deaccessioning practices with <span style="font-weight:bold;">Gary Tinterow</span>, curator in charge of 19th century, modern and contemporary art. He made a point of revisiting that subject with me after the briefing. I publish those comments here, but (except for a brief closing salvo) I will reserve until next week my comments on his comments.<br /><br />Here's what Tinterow told my digital voice recorder: <br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">What journalists have to understand is that curators and administrators make decisions about the formation of the collection every day. We’re the gatekeepers, going in, and we’re the gatekeepers coming out. When something gets here, it’s because a curator has made a decision to admit this work. When something leaves, it’s because the curator has made a decision for it to leave. <br /><br />So the notion that there is some purity to a collection, that some greater force has brought works of art into a museum and the curators therefore are not the appropriate voice to determine the shape of the collection is to ignore how collections are formed to begin with.<br /><br />Museums have actually acquired back works that they sold. What you assume is that we have unlimited storage and unlimited money, and neither is the case. Not only do opportunities change, but tastes change. And what didn’t make sense in 1900 might make sense in the year 2000. No one has a crystal ball and you are always making the collection from the perspective of today. <br /><br />Something can be sold [from the museum], can be bought by a collector and can be regiven [to the same museum] in 50 years. So we don’t have the sense of finite opportunity. The collections are organic.<br /><br />The most precious thing really is not money. The most precious thing is space. And that is our most severely restricted resource: it’s space, both for exhibitions and for storage. And that’s how we have to manage the collections.</span></blockquote><br />The "most precious thing" is <span style="font-weight:bold;">SPACE</span>? I had always thought it was the art.Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153496950410517152006-07-21T11:10:00.000-04:002006-07-21T11:50:17.843-04:00Met Fee: Reasonable Timesmen Can DisgreeThe <span style="font-weight:bold;">NY Times</span> apparently decided it needed to balance <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/times-shortchanges-met_15.html">its arts reporters' crusade</a> against the coming increase in the Metropolitan Museum's "sugggested" (make that "recommended") adult admission fee. So it brought in someone from the Business Section, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/arts/design/21pric.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">David Leonhardt</a>, to bring some economic pragmatism to the discussion.<br /><br />An interloper in today's "Weekend Arts" section, Leonhardt offers a detailed economic and political argument in the Met's defense.<br /><br />If you view his article on the Times' website, don't neglect to click on the sidebar, "The Price of Admission," to see what some other U.S. museums are charging. Several other museums rightfully belong to the "$0 Club," including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.<br /><br />Next week, we will undoubtedly hear from someone in the Times' Style Section: what to wear on the Met admissions line, so that the cashiers won't think that you're a rich cheapskate and will hand you your button without giving you a dirty look.<br /><br />Is there no end to this discussion?Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153417545151939072006-07-20T13:21:00.000-04:002006-07-20T16:18:30.420-04:00Museum Exhibitions: Root for the Home TeamOne thing not mentioned in <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/my-minneapolis-article-in-wsj-part-ii_18.html">my WSJ piece</a> on the expanded Minneapolis Institute of Arts was the temporary loan show in the new wing, <a href="http://www.artsmia.org/surreal-calder/">The Surreal Calder</a>.<br /><br />Better for the MIA that I didn't mention it.<br /><br />Organized by the Menil Collection, Houston, this show took a one-stop shopping approach to curating: Almost all its Calders are from a single source, the Calder Foundation (which is run by the artist's family and contains works from his estate). The Surrealist works, all gathered in one introductory gallery, rather than interspersed with the Calders for comparison, are generally not the ideal examples to make a case for that movement's influence on Calder's work.<br /><br />By importing a show curated by an outsider and regarded as a likely crowdpleaser, Minneapolis perpetuates the self-effacing mistake made by many museums when they open new facilities: They don't show confidence in their own curators' ability to conceive something important and engaging enough to enhance the inaugural hoopla. (I'm also thinking of the <span style="font-weight:bold;">Andrew Wyeth</span> show, organized by the <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/05/pianissimo.html">High Museum</a>, Atlanta, for its reopening, but guest-curated by an outsider.)<br /><br />I'm constantly impressed by the intelligence and talents of lesser-known curators whom I meet on the road, and what better time to showcase their unique voices than when their museum is the center of public and media attention? True, the home team is mostly engaged in reinstalling the permanent collection, but surely someone can step up to the plate to bat one out of the park---a homegrown exhibition worthy to be viewed during prime time and later toured to other institutions.<br /><br />In Minneapolis' case, it appears, from the advance exhibition schedule, that the first upcoming major temporary exhibition to be organized in-house is "San Francisco Psychedelic," Feb. 10-June 10, 2007.<br /><br />What are they smoking?Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153411726399515082006-07-20T11:51:00.000-04:002006-07-20T12:08:46.413-04:00Berry-Hill UpdatesMore on the Berry-Hill Galleries' bankruptcy situation has been posted online today by <a href="http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article01.asp?id=379&tf_teaser=0">The Art Newspaper</a>. Reporter <span style="font-weight:bold;">Martha Lufkin</span> indicates that other dealers, who are Berry-Hill creditors, are getting nervous.<br /> <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">James Berry Hill</span>, a director of the gallery, <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/06/berry-hill-premises-on-and-off-market_27.html">told me</a> on June 26 that the gallery was settling claims against it, "so that nobody is harmed." He also said at that time that the gallery's East 70th Street premises were no longer for sale.<br /><br />But <a href="http://stribling.com/propinfo.asp?webid=978925&type=SALE">here they are</a>, still available on Stribling's website for $20 million. The offering is described as "a once in a lifetime opportunity," but no longer characterized as "a court supervised sale."Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153410190186909042006-07-20T11:33:00.000-04:002006-07-20T12:22:04.113-04:00With this Gehry I Thee WedPssst, wanna own a <span style="font-weight:bold;">Frank Gehry</span>? <br /><br />Now you can: Tiffany & Co. has just put <a href="http://www.tiffany.com/shopping/category.aspx?menu=1&ismenu=1&mcat=148204&page=12&omcid=FOG54&cid=130340">his new line</a> online. <br /><br />Doesn't this polymath already have enough building projects to occupy him from now until 2050?<br /><br />Do you think my 25-year-old son <span style="font-weight:bold;">Paul</span> and his gorgeous, intelligent girlfriend <span style="font-weight:bold;">Lisa</span> will read this and get ideas? (Oy! Am I in trouble!)Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153407729377926122006-07-20T10:50:00.001-04:002006-07-20T12:11:55.183-04:00Let's Rumble!<span style="font-weight:bold;">Geoff Edgers, </span>in today's post on <a href="http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/exhibitionist/2006/07/arts_blog_bicke.html">his arts blog</a> for the <span style="font-weight:bold;">Boston Globe</span>, thinks he detects "<a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/culturegrrl-leaps-to-her-own-defense.html">a feud</a> brewing in the arts blogosphere" between me and <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/man/">a certain redhead</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Tyler</span>'s been a very kind mentor (and linker) to this blogging newbie, and <span style="font-weight:bold;">Lee </span>likes him. But, as my evil alter ego, <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span>, always snarls: Reasonable people can (and frequently should) disagree. <br /><br />Isn't that what blogs are for?Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153342362764317252006-07-19T16:51:00.000-04:002006-07-19T16:53:46.733-04:00BlogBacks: Met's Admissions FrissonsHere are a few readers' responses to <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/met-almost-free-if-you-want-it-to-be.html">my defense</a> of the Metropolitan Museum's new <span style="font-weight:bold;">suggested</span> $20 adult admission fee.<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">CRAIG RANAPIA: I'm not really sure the "suggested admission fee" isn't really a semantic slight of hand. After all, as anyone whose met my mother can tell you, 'suggestions' properly expressed can sound a hell of a lot like an order.<br /> <br />I'm quite aware that cultural institutions don't keep their doors open on moonbeams and good intentions, public and private charity are unreliable sources of income, and I always have the choice to turn on my heels and walk out if I think a clearly posted admission charge is unreasonable or I just don't have enough cash. (While I don't like it any more than you, I can see a rationale for charging admission to special exhibitions while leaving core collections open to the public. Whether these so-called "blockbuster" shows are worth the tab for visitors and institutions is another debate.) <br /><br />As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to install a turnstile in your entrance be honest about what you're doing and why. Don't try and shame twenty dollar bills out of people.<br /><br />MARK BARRY: The new Met admission isn't that important, as long as they retain the "suggested" portion. I'm immune to the cashier, no matter the response. Many of them are also artists and could care less. My wife gets embarrassed at times, so to compromise I'll give a quarter, for two.<br /><br />A PRESS RELEASE FROM THE HOMELESS MUSEUM, which describes itself as "a subversive, multi-disciplinary art project": The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the richest museum in the country, is in dire need of funds. The Homeless Museum (HoMu) invites you to support this great institution on Tuesday, Aug. 1, when the Met's new "suggested" admission fee goes into effect, by paying the entire $20 fee with pennies only. Please present 200 ounces (or 12.5 pounds) of pennies at the cash registrar for admission.<br /><br />This is HoMu's second Penny Campaign. The first one was conducted in November 2004 at the Museum of Modern Art.</span></blockquote><br />Do you think <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/times-shortchanges-met_15.html">Randy Kennedy</a> will pony up his pennies?Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153320735170261682006-07-19T10:34:00.000-04:002006-07-19T10:52:15.183-04:00Schjeldahl on Klimt<a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/criticizing-critics_19.html">Speaking of critics</a>, I commend to you <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/critics/art/articles/060724craw_artworld">Peter Schjeldahl's piece</a> in the July 24 <span style="font-weight:bold;">New Yorker</span> on <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/06/restitution-resolutions-cashing-in-on.html">Ronald Lauder's purchase</a> of "Adele Block-Bauer I" for the Neue Galerie, New York.<br /><br />An outtake:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Is she worth the money? Not yet. Paintings this special may not come along for sale often, and the hundred and four million dollars spent for a so-so Picasso, “Boy with a Pipe,” two years ago indicated that irrational exuberance could be the booming art market’s new motto. But Lauder’s outlay predicts a level of cost that must either soon become common or be relegated in history as a bid too far. <br /><br />And the identity of the artist gives pause. The price paid is four and a half times the previous high (already a stunner, in 2003) for a Klimt; until a few years ago, the artist ranked as a second-tier modern master both at auction and in the estimation of most art critics and historians....The purchase of “Adele” tests the possibility—ever less to be sneezed at, these days—of rewriting art history with a checkbook.</span></blockquote><br />Here's <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl </span>on the art market's <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/lloyd-webbers-de-soto-is-no-star_05.html">irrational exuberance</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Coming Soon</span>: A further examination of the Neue Galerie and its collection.Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153318332701516672006-07-19T10:11:00.000-04:002006-07-19T10:12:12.703-04:00Criticizing the CriticsThis post may seem to be what one of my editors disapprovingly calls "inside baseball." It grows out of <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/culturegrrl-leaps-to-her-own-defense.html">my post yesterday</a>, responding to a critic who criticized my criticism of a critic. Have I lost you already? Probably. Nevertheless, here goes:<br /><br />Why do you rarely see strongly negative reviews about new or newly expanded cultural facilities? <span style="font-weight:bold;">Cesar Pelli</span>'s (pre-<span style="font-weight:bold;">Taniguchi</span>) expansion of the Museum of Modern Art, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Frank Gehry</span>'s Guggenheim Bilbao, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Santiago Calatrava</span>'s new wing (with wings) for the Milwaukee Art Museum---all received generally favorable notices when they opened, only to become more controversial with the passage of time. Similar revisionism also seems to occur in reviews of the acoustics of new concert halls---<span style="font-weight:bold;">Rafael Viñoly</span>'s Kimmel Center in Philadelphia comes to mind.<br /><br />And now that the initial euphoria over the November 2004 reopening of the Museum of Modern Art has passed, a second wave of assessments has been considerably more critical than the first round of polite plaudits.<br /><br />As one who has enjoyed her share of hardhat tours and press previews of expensive, ambitious museum construction projects, I can attest to a natural reluctance to rain on these elaborate and expensive parades. So many well-meaning, talented people have spent so much time, intellect, money and effort on these new cultural facilities that it's hard to be unkind, let alone censorious.<br /><br />And there's another dynamic at work: The most successful architects are also great salesmen. They convince clients to hire them by making their concepts and designs seem like the most appropriate and creative solutions to the problems at hand. They are such powerful advocates for their own work that they (or their enthusiastic museum-clients) also succeed in winning over the critics with the same rhetoric. Too often, these writers see with their ears instead of their eyes.<br /><br />So we have Taniguchi "making the architecture disappear," with walls that seem to "float." We have "a flotilla of sails" atop <span style="font-weight:bold;">Renzo Piano</span>'s <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/05/pianissimo.html">addition for the High Museum</a> in Atlanta, and "piazzas" (that might otherwise be called merely "lobbies" or, if outdoors, "plazas") at Piano's addition to the Morgan, his <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/06/outtakes-from-whitney-hearing-part-ii_22.html">planned Whitney expansion</a> and the High. All of these were originally the words of the architects and their clients, which were later appropriated by the critics as their own. Too often, however, the reality is more prosaic than the hyperbole.<br /><br />The architects and museum officials think about these buildings far longer and more deeply than the critics, who spend a few days at most to arrive at their pithy assessments. It is tempting, while up against a deadline, to adopt the intelligently expressed, well-honed party line. But it's a temptation to be resisted, or at least carefully examined.<br /><br />As for <span style="font-weight:bold;">Michael Kimmelman</span>'s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/arts/design/19kimm.html?ex=1153368000&en=57c4cb23d1371dd8&ei=5070">initial MoMA appraisal</a>, it seemed like a grudgingly positive review, with a more skeptical assessment struggling to get out. Maybe (if <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/you-dont-need-kimmelman-to-see-which_17.html">last Friday's swipe</a> is any indication) it soon will.Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153247306635541502006-07-18T13:52:00.000-04:002006-07-18T14:31:14.773-04:00CultureGrrl Leaps to Her Own Defense!Blogger <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/man/">Tyler Green</a> incorrectly claims today that I object to <span style="font-weight:bold;">NY Times</span> critic <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/14/arts/design/14klim.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">Michael Kimmelman's flipflop</a> on the new MoMA.<br /><br />"Critics," my blog-colleague wrote, "shouldn't be locked into one viewpoint for life."<br /><br />Hey, <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span>'s been known to change her mind every now and then. That's a woman's (and a critic's) prerogative. What I objected to <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/you-dont-need-kimmelman-to-see-which_17.html">yesterday</a> was, as I wrote, "the manner in which Kimmelman chose to announce" his apparent about-face: in a discordantly gratuitous aside, buried in an article about something else.<br /><br />If he's formed a substantially new opinion on something this important, the chief art critic of the cultural paper-of-record should, as I wrote yesterday, craft "a more considered article about what he REALLY thinks," instead of slipping a fast one by us, without explanation or elucidation. <br /><br />Is "that too bad," Tyler?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">More tomorrow</span> on the problems and challenges that writers like me (and Michael?) face in appraising new cultural facilities.Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153244572128844022006-07-18T13:38:00.000-04:002006-07-18T13:42:52.160-04:00My Minneapolis Article in the WSJ---Part IIHere's the second part of my article, appearing on the <span style="font-weight:bold;">Leisure & Arts</span> page in today's <span style="font-weight:bold;">Wall Street Journal</span>. (Here's <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/my-article-on-minneapolis-in-todays_18.html">Part I</a>).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The MIA [Minneapolis Institute of Arts] had not originally planned to engage a "starchitect." But it was essentially shamed into doing so by the ambitions of its institutional peers: For its 2005 expansion the Walker Art Center had used Herzog & de Meuron, the Minneapolis Central Library had hired Cesar Pelli, and Jean Nouvel has designed the new Guthrie Theater, which began regular performances on Saturday.<br /><br />A relatively conservative establishment in a quiet residential area, the MIA "didn't really see a need to promote cutting-edge architecture, because that isn't who we are in art. That's the Walker," noted curator Jacobsen, who had served as architectural liaison for the contractors, architects and curatorial staff. But after talking to three local architectural firms, Mr. Jacobsen recalled, the MIA ultimately felt "we had to go with a bigger name." Enter Mr. Graves, who had designed the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, as well as the renovation and expansion of the Newark Museum in New Jersey. Also important were what Mr. Jacobsen termed the "well established connections" between the architect and Target, the MIA's biggest corporate donor, for whom Mr. Graves had designed a well-received line of housewares.<br /><br />Speaking of the architect, Evan Maurer, who was the MIA's director until 2005, recounted during a recent interview that "what he and I talked about was how to be Michael Graves and be contemporary, but to exist between a 1974 minimalist building and a great Beaux Arts building-with materials, with proportions, with references. I think he did that brilliantly."<br /><br />If not architecturally dazzling, the new wing is respectful of the museum's pre-existing facilities and hospitable to its art. Appealingly clad in richly textured Jura limestone, its box-like structure is relieved by niches and slim columns-deliberate references to the flagship neoclassical building. Its one glaringly false note is the kitschy faux sky, strewn with abundant white clouds, that is painted on the Venetian plaster dome crowning Graves's three-story atrium.<br /><br />More daring in design, and strikingly dissimilar from each other as they are from the MIA, are Cesar Pelli's library and Jean Nouvel's theater. The former is invitingly open and light-filled, with soaring spaces and frosted images of digitized Minnesota nature photos, silk screened and baked onto its expansive glass walls-an evocation of Minneapolis' famously frozen winters.<br /><br />The Guthrie Theater, Mr. Nouvel's first completed project in North America, is dark both inside and out. Meant to be mysterious and theatrical, it instead comes across as disorienting and gloomy. It transforms the distinguished regional theater from a 87,000-square-foot, one-stage facility adjoining the Walker Art Center into a 285,000-square-foot complex of three diverse performance spaces, a restaurant and education center-all relocated to the city's old industrial area on the banks of the Mississippi. Once best known for its flour mills, the riverfront is fast becoming the new trendy area for restaurants and residences.<br /><br />Critics and audiences alike will continue to debate the merits of these recent high-profile additions to this city's thriving cultural scene. But as Mr. Griswold recently observed, one thing is beyond debate: "There could be no more exciting time to be in the Twin Cities."<br /></span><br />[But wait! There's more to the story that could fit in the WSJ. Coming in <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span>, later this week, more Minneapolis maunderings!]Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153222107732130052006-07-18T07:26:00.000-04:002006-07-18T13:45:16.650-04:00My Article on Minneapolis in Today's WSJ---Part IAs you know, I can't link to the <span style="font-weight:bold;">Wall Street Journal</span>'s subscribers-only site, but I <span style="font-weight:bold;">AM</span> allowed to post the text of my article. I'll do it in two parts, so as not to tax the short attention spans of hyperactive blog readers. (It's on today's <span style="font-weight:bold;">Leisure & Arts</span> page (D6), for those of you who still turn pages, instead of clicking hyperlinks.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Minneapolis<br /><br />With unflashy simplicity, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts has bucked the attention-seeking trend in museum expansions: Its new 113,000-square-foot wing for 20th- and 21st-century art, designed by Post-Modernist Michael Graves, boasts neither eye-popping "destination architecture" nor interior "Wow" space, and wasn't motivated by a desire to supply sumptuous accommodations for megashows circulated by world-famous institutions. What's more, the Midwestern museum's new director and president, William Griswold, seems far more intent on organizing what he calls dossier" exhibitions focused on individual works from the permanent collection.<br /><br />The new structure joins the museum's original McKim, Mead & White building and its last expansion, designed in the mid-1970s by Kenzo Tange. "It's very much a building about the art," explained Mr. Griswold, who came here in October after having informed the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where he was acting director, that he did not want to be named permanent director.<br /><br />The MIA's expansion and renovation increase the gallery space for its permanent collection and temporary exhibitions by some 40%. Nearly 1,000 works have emerged from storage-among them, a 1969 wall-sized painting from Frank Stella's "Protractor Series" that was too large for the old galleries. Prominently displayed in the new wing is the museum's sexiest new acquisition---its first car, a sleek, silver-painted 1948 Czechoslovakian Tatra T87, designed in 1936.<br /><br />For the first time, the museum will have galleries for the permanent display of textiles, 20th- and 21st-century prints and drawings, contemporary crafts, silver, American regionalism, folk art, Chinese export porcelain, Ukiyo-e paintings and postwar color photography. On a recent press tour of the expanded premises, Mr. Griswold paused in the color-photography gallery, candidly describing the museum's collection in that area as weak. "I wanted this gallery to propel us to collect,"<br />he observed.<br /><br />The collection's most glaring weakness is in the area of American paintings from the 19th to early 20th century-a gap largely blamed on one of the most infamous art-selling sprees in American museum history: From 1955 to 1958, a former director, Richard Davis, unloaded some 4,500 objects, including at least 350 paintings (among them, important works of the Hudson River School). He believed the museum should stop trying to be encyclopedic and, instead, focus on certain areas that he deemed important. Works he bought with the sale proceeds included a Seurat and a van Dyck.<br /><br />The MIA's current holdings are strong, however, in decorative arts (including 16 period rooms), Old Master paintings (including highly important works by El Greco, Rembrandt, Poussin and Goya), and Chinese and Japanese art. The number of Japanese galleries has just grown from nine to 15, all newly named for collector Mary Griggs Burke, in appreciation of the recent announcement by the 90-year-old St. Paul native that she will bequeath "a significant portion" of her personal and her foundation's collections to the museum. (Another portion is destined for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.) The MIA recently received a six-month loan of 55 Burke works-from the 12th century to contemporary-to celebrate its expansion.<br /><br />The museum's Chinese art collection, one of the finest in the country, owes much to a two-person, gallery-filling juggernaut-Bruce Dayton, longtime MIA trustee and former president and chairman of Dayton Hudson Corp. (the original parent of Target Corp.), and his wife, Ruth, a devotee of Chinese culture and philosophy. Some 2,600 objects in every curatorial area came to the MIA thanks to Dayton benefactions. At a recent VIP cocktail reception, Robert Jacobsen, senior curator of Asian art, introduced the Daytons to their latest sight-unseen purchase for the Chinese galleries-a rare, unusually large ding (cauldron) from sixth century B.C., labeled as "a masterpiece of late Chou bronze casting." Other recent high-profile purchases have included a $5 million landscape by Claude Lorrain.<br /><br />But gaps remain, and to fill them the museum is raising $50 million for its acquisitions endowment, in addition to the $50 million for its renovation and expansion. Some $91.2 million in gifts and pledges has been raised to date, all of it from individuals, foundations and corporate donors, not government allocations. Target, headquartered in Minneapolis, contributed more than $10 million for the expansion, for which it received naming rights to the museum's Target Wing.</span><br /><br />[If you just can't stand the suspense of waiting for <span style="font-weight:bold;">Part II</span>, invest in a copy of the WSJ!]Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153147253494854282006-07-17T10:39:00.000-04:002006-07-17T10:53:53.990-04:00You Don't Need a Kimmelman to See Which Way the Wind Blows<span style="font-weight: bold;">Michael Kimmelman</span>, in last Friday's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/14/arts/design/14klim.html">NY Times</a>, offhandedly demolished the Museum of Modern Art's <span style="font-weight: bold;">Yoshio Taniguchi</span>-designed building in a one-sentence putdown:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">The sums that places like the Museum of Modern Art squander on mediocre buildings, which become obsolete the moment they open, are scandalous.</span></blockquote><br />Come again? <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/arts/design/19kimm.html?ex=1153022400&en=5860af73c4585f0a&ei=5070">Here's</a> the same art critic, reviewing the same building, at the time of its opening (Nov. 19, 2004):<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">By and large the redone museum, although more than a trifle like the new corporate headquarters of modernism, is a triumph of formal restraint and practical design---an eloquent reaffirmation, within its galleries, of the enduring beauty of the Modern's historic, albeit tendentious, account of modernism....<br /><br />Mr. Taniguchi solved the problem of designing an immense museum by trying to make it disappear. Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian and Bonnard, not Mr. Taniguchi, are still the stars here, to Mr. Taniguchi's credit.</span></blockquote><br />What made Friday's decision-reversing jab all the more startling was that it was gratuitously slipped deep into an article about <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/lauder-covets-four-other-klimts.html">the Neue Galerie's Klimt</a>, to which it had no other connection than the expenditure of large sums. Do Kimmelman's reviews, like MoMA's "obsolete" building, have built-in obsolescence?<br /><br />Mind you, <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/05/top-10-list-whats-not-to-like-about_25.html">I'm no fan</a> of MoMA's new building, as <span you readers of style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span> readers well know. But I was surprised by the manner in which Kimmelman chose to announce his new view. (Actually, to be fair, there was a previous, similarly unexplained, aside: On Christmas Day, 2005, <a href="http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F00710F73C540C768EDDAB0994DD404482">Kimmelman opined</a> that the new MoMA had "all the charm of the Cherry Hill mall on Black Friday.")<br /><br />Maybe its time for a more considered article about what he REALLY thinks! Is it a "triumph," "mediocre" or just a bad day at the mall?Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153143498162935802006-07-17T09:36:00.000-04:002006-07-17T09:38:18.180-04:00BlogBack: Thomas Hoving on the Met's DuccioRight again, art-lings. The answer to <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/question-of-day.html">yesterday's question</a> is: <span style="font-weight:bold;">C) Tom Hoving</span>, author of "False Impressions, the Hunt for Big Time Art Fakes."<br /><br />Better known as <span style="font-weight:bold;">Philippe de Montebello</span>'s predecessor as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hoving dukes it out over <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/dubious-duccio_11.html">Duccio</a> in this <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl BlogBack</span>:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">James Beck has apparently not followed the standard methodology of determining a fake in the case of the Duccio at the Met.<br /> <br />For one thing, he doesn't take into consideration that the piece is a private devotional image, a non-"maniera-Greca" icon. So, it is not strictly correct to compare it with larger works by Duccio and his contemporaries. There is nothing with which to compare it.<br /> <br />For another, Beck does not put himself in the mind of his "forger." In the 19th century, Gothic items were invariably prettified. I have seen a dozen or so that are invariably more sinuous and soignée than anything made in the early 14th century.<br /> <br />The Met Duccio is too unpretty to be a 19th century fake. Beck's argument that the anatomy of the Christ is rather ugly is in fact a good argument for its being ca. 1300.<br /> <br />Similarly, the parapet or pedestal (or whichever it is) is exceedingly rare in Gothic art. Forgers virtually never add anything to their fakes that is rare and thus<br />risky. The foundation of fakery is to be safe.<br /> <br />Thus Beck's argument here, as with the one mentioned above, tends to substantiate the piece as authentic.</span></blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span> says, let the debate continue. What we really <span style="font-weight:bold;">DO</span> need is a Duccio dossier exhibition, organized by the Met, to allow the experts to convene, compare and contrast key examples from the artist's early oeuvre.Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1153099405700798812006-07-16T21:10:00.000-04:002006-07-16T21:47:41.093-04:00Question of the DayTomorrow, read a <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl BlogBack</span> on <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/dubious-duccio_11.html">the Met's Duccio</a>, by an artworld luminary sometimes known as the "showman," who now calls himself a "fakebuster." Who might that be?<br /><br />A) <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/04/hawasss-chutzpah.html">Zahi Hawass</a><br /><br />B) <a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002975737_chihuly6m.html">Dale Chihuly</a><br /><br />C) <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/05/de-montebellohoving-contretemps.html">Tom Hoving</a><br /><br />D) <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-art-made-mini-series-part-ii.html">Nigel Spivey</a><br /><br />For the answer, art-lings, click me Monday morning!Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1152978144291501542006-07-15T11:07:00.000-04:002006-07-15T11:42:24.293-04:00The Times Shortchanges the MetMust be another slow cultural news day at the <span style="font-weight:bold;">NY Times</span>: It <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/15/arts/design/15admi.html?_r=1&oref=slogin">dispatched reporter Randy Kennedy</a> to "humbly proffer" 50 cents to five different cashiers at the Metropolitan Museum. (The museum <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/met-almost-free-if-you-want-it-to-be.html">had announced this week</a> that it would raise its <span style="font-weight:bold;">suggested</span> adult admission fee from $15 to $20, effective Aug. 1.)<br /><br />Journalism 101 says not to prejudge a story before doing the actual reporting, but Kennedy confessed that he walked up to the unsuspecting set-ups and "waited to measure the level of scorn that would pour down" on him. <br /><br />Instead, he found "that brand of aggressive disregard particular to New York that is sometimes much more effective in evoking shame and extracting money. The first clerk...never even looked up from his screen [how dare he?]" but handed over the admission button "with the detachment of a Vegas dealer parting with a dollar chip. If he had been trained...in the most effective ways of wounding a conscience, he could have done no better."<br /><br />Maybe Kennedy's conscience was fragile because he knew that his undeniably strong investigative reporting talents should really be put to better use (and also because his guilty conscience knew he was merely feigning an inability to fork over three fivespots).<br /><br />What exactly did he want from those workaday cashiers: an effusive, "Oh thank you so very much, sir"? The Times is still trying to turn a non-story into a populist cause. Just pay what you want, Randy, and don't agonize over it.Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1152895495552041032006-07-14T12:40:00.000-04:002006-07-14T15:08:00.276-04:00A Touch of CrassOh my. The minions who put ads on my site (unchosen and unreviewed by me) came up with <a href="http://klimt.artgazebo.com/perl/frView?artID=159686&t=a&customerID=78767310-1418793628">this</a>. Apologies to <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/lauder-covets-four-other-klimts.html">Ronald Lauder</a> and <span style="font-weight:bold;">Gustav Klimt</span>.<br /><br />Please go down to this morning's <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/met-collects-rent_14.html">first post</a>, to see that <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span>, despite her <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/guthrie-herds-them-in_12.html">tacky moments</a>, deserves to be taken seriously!Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1152894785787311502006-07-14T12:31:00.000-04:002006-07-14T12:33:05.806-04:00Simon Singes Synge<span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span> occasionally strays to other art forms. (After all, I'm not merely <a href="http://artgirl.com/">ArtGirl</a>, though I kinda like her site!)<br /><br />I feel moved to note the complete disconnect between two reviews of the same theatrical event---Lincoln Center Festival's <a href="http://lincolncenter.org/search/event_details.asp?session=4401CF71-5390-4FEE-A3EB-15BBC6B74285&version=&ws=&bc=3&EventDateTimeID=24773&ProgramID=6&Srch=1&CompanyID=&ReturnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flincolncenter%2Eorg%2Fsearch%2Fresults%2Easp%3FtxtKeyword%253DDruidSynge%2526amp%253BdateMenu%253D%2526amp%253BprogOrg%253D%2526amp%253Bsession%253D4401CF71%252D5390%252D4FEE%252DA3EB%252D15BBC6B74285%2526amp%253Bversion%253D%2526amp%253Bws%253D%2526amp%253BcboStartDate%253D%2526amp%253BcboEndDate%253D%2526amp%253BcboProgramID%253D%2526amp%253BcboCompanyID%253D%2526amp%253BpageType%253DEventsCalendar%2526amp%253Bx%253D4%2526amp%253By%253D4">DruidSynge</a>---a marathon 8 1/2 hours of the six-play theatrical oeuvre of Irish playwright <span style="font-weight:bold;">John Millington Synge</span>.<br /><br />Here's the acerbic <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a7X0.3l5CK70&refer=culture">John Simon</a>, in today's <span style="font-weight:bold;">Bloomberg</span>:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">The brogue used is so thick it could blunt any knife trying to cut it, and left most of the audience chasing after comprehensible words like sparrows after sparse crumbs. The poor acoustics at John Jay College's theater made things tougher yet. Of the 19 actors, maybe three or four belong on a metropolitan stage....<br /><br />Garry Hynes, the Druid's artistic director, is not really major league despite her lofty reputation at home and abroad. She gets the job done, but without that inconspicuously convincing extra touch that marks the true master.<br /><br />Most important, poor, tubercular Synge, dying at age 37, did not grow into a significant dramatist.</blockquote></span><br />And here's the ecstatic <a href="http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/theater/reviews/12drui.html">Charles Isherwood</a>, two days ago in the <span style="font-weight:bold;">NY Times</span>:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Grandly entertaining and powerfully moving, “DruidSynge” is a major achievement for Ms. Hynes, her design collaborators and her superb 19-member acting company. Ranging across wide emotional territory without missing a beat, it brings alive a milieu that feels both intriguingly remote and utterly intimate, exotic in the eccentric syntax and unruly lyricism of its earthy dialogue — God bless the Irish! — but familiar in its consoling knowledge of the loneliness and despair that are the sorrowful scars of all humankind.</span></blockquote><br />Interestingly, Simon (or his editors?) mercifully withdrew a slap at veteran actress <span style="font-weight:bold;">Marie Mullen</span> that appeared in an earlier posting of his review (which I saw). Isherwood called her "great and glorious."<br /><br />In today's <span style="font-weight:bold;">Wall Street Journal</span>, <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/archives20060709.shtml#106934">Terry Teachout</a> comes down somewhere in between. (You'll have to scroll down a couple of items on his blog's July 14 entries to get to Synge.)<br /><br />Who would you trust, in deciding what to do with 8 1/2 idle hours on a summer's day? (As for me, I'm going to Broadway to see <a href="http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/7447">Sarah Jones</a> this weekend!)Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26797206.post-1152891200724611272006-07-14T11:33:00.000-04:002006-07-14T21:34:40.716-04:00The Met Collects the Rent<span style="font-weight:bold;">Harold Holzer</span>, the Metropolitan Museum's senior vice president for external affairs, thanked me yesterday for my favorable <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/07/met-almost-free-if-you-want-it-to-be.html">admissions-fee story</a>. It must be time, then, for the curmudgeonly <span style="font-weight:bold;">CultureGrrl</span> to bite the hand that stroked her.<br /><br />So lets dissect a disturbing first for the Met: its upcoming <a href="http://www.mfah.org/main.asp?target=exhibition&par1=1&par2=2&par3=358">Masterpieces of French Painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1800-1920</a>, touring next year to the the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. As the images on the Houston website show, its 135 paintings include some of the Met's tastiest Impressionist and Post-Impressionist crowd-pleasers.<br /><br />Sure to attract hordes (as did the Museum of Modern Art's <a href="http://www.mfah.org/main.asp?target=exhibition&par1=1&par2=3&par3=125">masterpieces compendium</a> in 2004, which also traveled to Houston and Berlin), this show marks the Met's sorry entry into the growing field of museums that use their collections as cash cows, renting out blockbusters for big bucks. The upcoming Met blockbuster, as Holzer told me, is an "opportunistic event," made possible by the need to remove the museum's French 19th-century paintings from the walls while those galleries are expanded. It is, he said, intended to "raise funds for this construction"---the first time that the Met has structured a traveling exhibition as a big moneymaker.<br /><br />Houston will up its admission fee from $7 to $15 for those wanting to see this show. The Met, as I observed in yesterday's post, doesn't believe in charging extra for special exhibitions on its own premises. But, in this instance, it's apparently happy to let others do it.<br /><br />Ironically, when the Met's director, <span style="font-weight:bold;">Philippe de Montebello</span>, was recently asked (at a <span style="font-weight:bold;">NY Times</span>-sponsored symposium, Mar. 6) how much other museums pay for borrowing and displaying Met-owned objects, he replied, "The loans are not rentals. They are not paid for." The borrowers, he said, just reimburse the Met for its expenses.<br /><br />This collegiality used to be the norm all over, and, until now, laudably remained so at the Met. But with its upcoming show, the Met joins the ranks of the <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/05/blockbusters-schlockbusters.html">Louvre</a> and the Hermitage, which have no qualms about bolstering their own finances at the expense of sister institutions. (For a better role model, see my <a href="http://culturegrrl.blogspot.com/2006/05/clark-does-it-right.html">previous post</a> on Clark Art Institute's loan show of Impressionist masterpieces.)<br /><br />Whatever happened to building buildings the old-fashioned way, through the generosity of donors? I guess that with the disappearance, some years ago, of financier <span style="font-weight:bold;">André Meyer</span>'s name from the Met's 19th-century European galleries, naming rights just aren't what they used to be.Lee Rosenbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06340023511369789521noreply@blogger.com