Da Bronx STILL Don’t Get No Respect

Hey, NY Times, you got a problem with the Bronx? Well, gray lady, we’re tawkin’ about my native borough, so I got a problem with YOU!
First this. And now, the Bronx Museum of the Arts just held a big press preview, complete with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for its shiny new wing on the Grand Concourse, and you’re writing about…QUEENS? I mean, if the Bronx is in Westchester, then the Queens is in England, right?
Okay, I know: You bestowed 207 words on the Bronx Museum yesterday—the lead tidbit in the “Arts, Briefly” section. (Gee, thank you very much.) But you gave the Queens Museum of Art an impressive 805 words on its new wing today, plus two photos—and they haven’t even started building it yet! What are you thinking?
We can only hope that you’re planning to peg some expansive Bronx coverage to the museum’s public opening this Saturday. And…
(But wait. We interrupt to bring you this special report on the current whereabouts of the Times’ intrepid art scribe, Benjamin Genocchio, still determined to get to the press preview of the Bronx Museum. He was just spotted at a diner in New Rochelle, having coffee with arts editor Sam Sifton, who handed him a brand new GPS device to aid in his quest. Go get ’em, Ben!)
CultureGrrl did make it to the press preview (without a detour to Westchester) and left wondering whether the museum’s officials know they’re in the Bronx. The entire permanent collection (which includes works by “artists who have lived and/or worked in the Bronx and for whom the Bronx has been critical to their artistic development”) was off view. Instead, the galleries were entirely occupied by “Tropicália,” a show about contemporary art from (or influenced by)…BRAZIL? Look, I know there’s no melting pot like the Bronx, but the Brazilian influx had been previously unknown to me.
I figured that the inaugural show had to have been chosen to appeal to the local community that the museum most immediately serves, so I buttonholed Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión Jr. after the ribbon-cutting, to ask what percentage of the borough’s population was Brazilian.
“Very small,” he replied. “Miniscule.” Then he shot me a significant glance and tapped his finger to his head, to signal that CultureGrrl was using hers. And then he was out the door.
One person who does know that this museum is in the Bronx is its education director Sergio Bessa, who runs a variety of innovative programs for local students, some of which involve traditional artmaking or the production and editing of videos and podcasts. I particularly liked the concept behind the student docent program, which informs teenagers about art and about museum operations, while imparting knowhow on discussing art. The program ends with participants leading museum tours for their peers.
It will be interesting to see community’s response to the museum’s open house, Oct. 29.
Hey, Ben, do you read me?