Archives for April 2006

Every so often, an artwork speaks to you so directly that it seems to have been made just for you. Whatever I might (but won't) say about the rest of the Whitney Biennial, it displayed one piece that it did something that no other artwork has ever done: It made me cry. Most visitors overlook Hannah Greely's unprepossessing coat stand in the middle of a third-floor gallery, as … [Read more...] about Last Stand

Renzo Piano's gloriously light-filled and complexly layered atrium for the reconfigured Morgan Library and Museum is a universally admired triumph. There's just one problem: In providing the ultimate "wow" space, Piano has taken Morgan out of the Morgan. Part of the mystique of any house museum is the spirit of the master of the house. But now J.P. Morgan's outsized ego has … [Read more...] about The Atrium That Ate the Morgan

New audience members (thankfully, there are new audience members) at the NY Philharmonic really do need to read the helpful guidance that the orchestra provides on its website, regarding "When do I applaud?": The audience does not applaud between movements of a piece. The many neophytes in the house last night for the astonishing tenor Ian Bostridge's mesmerizing account of … [Read more...] about Philharmonic Philistines

Since no culture blog would be complete without a little envy-driven carping about New York Times arts coverage, let's get right to Carol Vogel's generally excellent piece on the overheated art market. Evidently, art-market reporting is exempt from the rules on anonymous sourcing that, like them or not, now apply to other Times scribes in the wake of the Blair flare-up and the … [Read more...] about “Anonymous” is an “Expert”

CultureGrrl's digital dithering was stilled today by the funeral of a wonderful cousin, seemingly robust, suddenly dead from a brain aneurysm at only 55. Life and abrasive commentary will go on, but not today. … [Read more...] about Hiatus

Lately, my lunch card has been full, with invitations to press briefings at some of the New York's ritziest restaurants. These invitations come mostly from two New York-based, arts-PR firms, on behalf of a growing number of out-of-town museums. You might say that these institutions have better use for their money than the lavish nourishment of hoards of poorly remunerated art … [Read more...] about Free Lunch

Since this blog is titled CultureGrrl, not ArtGrrl, lets go to Andrea Bocelli singing with the New York Philharmonic. On second thought, let's not. As a subscriber, I just got an e-mail inviting me to order tickets, ahead of the general public, to his "Intimate Evening of Romantic Arias" ("intimate" meaning Avery Fisher Hall instead of large arenas). The announcement links to … [Read more...] about Oh No, Not Bocelli

Yes, artlings, the answer to yesterday's Question of the Day (see below) is: D) All of the above. Kudos to Sylvia Hochfield in the May issue of ARTnews, who captures Zahi Hawass's megalomania with the killer quote, "I am Pharaoh," uttered by the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the occasion of the museum's new Hatshepsut … [Read more...] about Hawass’s Chutzpah

Who said: "I am Pharaoh"? A) King Tut B) Queen Hatshepsut C) Zahi Hawass D) All of the above. (Answer published tomorrow.) … [Read more...] about Question of the Day

It's an unfortunate metaphor: Cai Guo-Qiang's Clear Sky Black Cloud, puffing a whiff of gloom over the roof garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at noon every day from now till Oct. 29. The black cloud of the Met's antiquities mess may take longer to dispel. That's because the museum's trove of "beauty that may be booty" (borrowing a description of the Getty's holdings, … [Read more...] about Black Cloud Over the Met

Apologies to Linda Nochlin, who, as you probably know, penned the above sentence in 1971, applying to artists, not the then unspawned species of digital diarists. Moving on from Guerrilla Girls to CultureGrrl, this blog owes its existence to Sreenath Sreenivasan, associate professor and tech guru at the Columbia University School of Journalism, who told assembled alums … [Read more...] about Why Are There No Great Women Bloggers?

Since I always have more opinions and information on the artworld than the Mainstream Media can use, I've decided to throw some of those juicy tidbits into this blog. Stay tuned for my first post! … [Read more...] about StartUp