Archives for April 2007

Where are the new leaders of nonprofit arts organizations and institutions going to come from? According to Involving Youth in Nonprofit Arts Organizations: A Call to Action, a report just issued by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, there's a crisis approaching: As baby boomers in the arts approach the end of their careers, nonprofit organizations must act quickly to … [Read more...] about The Coming Arts Leadership Brain Drain

It didn't make the NY Times' online company news page and but the gray lady has finally introduced a general culture blog, ArtsBeat. It's about time that Virginia Heffernan's Screens, a blog about online video (heavy on YouTube) had some company on the newspaper's online Arts page. So far, the arts blog, launched Friday, has confined itself to dispatches by Ben Ratliff and Jeff … [Read more...] about New Arts Blog at NY Times: Will Visual Arts Be Blogworthy?

Click the link below to read the press release announcing the Barnes Foundation's rather long shortlist of architects to design its new facility in Philadelphia. I wish that architects of conscience would boycott this project, but the commission is too much of a plum. In other Barnes news, it just announced the award of a $5 million challenge grant from the Andrew W. Mellon … [Read more...] about Barnes Architect Shortlist

In November, I took the J. Paul Getty Trust to task for the shockingly skimpy one-page financial summary in its belated 2005 annual report. The 2006 report, which it had promised "at the beginning of 2007," has now been published, and the good news is that it provides detailed statements of financial position, financial activity and cash flow (pages 100-103). The bad news is … [Read more...] about Making Amends: The Getty Provides Detailed Financials in 2006 Annual Report

Got my notebook, got my pens, got my camera, got my beloved Sony ICD-SX25 digital recorder, got lots of questions. Ain't got no hot water in the hotel shower (but, hey, you can't have everything). Good thing I'm not a travel writer. Now I'm off to the expanded Seattle Art Museum, which means I've got no more time to post. Are you ready, Mimi and Brad? … [Read more...] about SAM I Am

Renzo Piano and his cohorts "swooped into town last week," according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, to discuss ideas for the new Kimbell Art Museum annex. Mary Rogers of the Star-Telegram reports: The architectural team arrived with a box filled with a variety of site plans that included not the single plot of land where the newest addition will rise, but the entire museum … [Read more...] about Tentative Details on the Kimbell’s Planned Renzo Piano Annex

Remember this? I guess that Barry Diller wears the pants at his new Gehry-designed IAC building in New York, because the billboard advertising "the boyfriend trouser" is no longer blocking the view of the structure from the south. But when I drove by last Friday night, around 9 p.m., I was startled to see the interior of this bulky building completely lit, top to bottom. What's … [Read more...] about Gehry’s “Gap” Vanishes

"I'm going to Seattle," I told a friend yesterday. "You're going to see what?" CultureGrrl readers probably already know what I'm going to see. But I'm bound by my usual Wall Street Journal gag rule, so I can't tell you about the main thing that I'm going to see in Seattle before I tell the WSJ's readers. Judging from what happened when I went to Boston, I'll probably find … [Read more...] about Addled in Seattle

Apparently my highlights tour, posted Friday---images of important works in the Metropolitan Museum's "permanent" display of Greek and Roman art that are not there permanently---created confusion in some readers' minds: The Modern Kicks blog expressed uncertainty the next day over whether I was "trying to imply that there's something unusual or not proper about their presence … [Read more...] about More on the Loans to the Met’s Greek and Roman Galleries

To squelch recent speculation that it has changed its position on sending the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, the British Museum on Friday issued this official statement, which essentially restates its longstanding objection to releasing the frieze to Athens: The Trustees have for years been looking to see if there is any reasonable ground on which a way forward with Greek … [Read more...] about British Museum: No Movement on the Marbles

First, back home today from a perfect weekend visiting my graduate-student daughter, making a poor attempt at golf with the more adept duffers of my family. Why do foursomes behind us keep hitting into us? Are they trying to tell us something? We also met my daughter's new boyfriend, whose name is Lee. My son's longtime girlfriend, Lisa, is nicknamed Lee. And CultureGrrl's name … [Read more...] about Where in the World Is Lee Going?

Please raise a mouse to me some time today: It's CultureGrrl's First Anniversary! I must confess that no one read CultureGrrl for the first two weeks: I did it without telling anyone, to see if I liked it. For better or worse, you see that I did. Then I sent the URL to a few people I respected in the artworld. The reaction was uniformly positive, except for one blog-averse … [Read more...] about Happy CultureGrrl Anniversary

In a situation reminiscent of the Parthenon Marbles contretemps between the British Museum and Greece, Egypt is asking the Altes Museum, Berlin, for a temporary loan of its famed bust of Nefertiti. Both museums are understandably leery of lending to nations that have previously insisted that ownership of these antiquities should be transferred to the source country. Agence … [Read more...] about Should Berlin Lend Nefertiti to Cairo?

This just in from the Athens News Agency, regarding the flurry of premature excitement over the supposed softening of the position of British Museum director Neil MacGregor on the question of whether the Parthenon marbles might be temporarily reunited in the nearly completed Acropolis Museum: [Greek] Culture Minister George Voulgarakis on Thursday commented..., "I read with … [Read more...] about Will the Parthenon Marbles Reunite?

(Part I is here.) Below are some of the objects that you won't see reproduced in today's NY Times piece by Michael Kimmelman. The newspaper's chief art critic uses the final installment of the reinstalled Greek and Roman galleries as an occasion to propagandize for the Metropolitan as a "universal museum." (Can't we just call it the "encyclopedic museum," and leave Mars and … [Read more...] about The Met’s New Greek and Roman Galleries–Part II