—LA Weekly staff writer Dan Hernandez, in his blog, Intersections, criticizes the Los Angeles County Museum for using English-only labels in its highly acclaimed The Arts in Latin America: 1492-1820 [via]. LA Times critic Christopher Knight lauded the show as “easily the most important exhibition in Los Angeles this year.” (It drew similar raves last year in Philadelphia.) Too bad it wasn’t made more easily accessible to LA’s large Latino population.
—The Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Germany, shows Picasso, Munch, Kirchner, LeWitt, Serra and…Bob Dylan’s paintings?
—The Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, reports that its summer show, I WANT Candy: The Sweet Stuff in American Art, “has been made possible by a gift from
”
Do you think philanthropy with a direct product tie-in is what Tocqueville meant by “self-interest rightly understood”?
Please lick (I mean, click) the link below for comments from LACMA and the Hudson River Museum.
—Barbara Pflaumer, LACMA’s associate vice president and director of press relations, responds to my call for bilingual labels for the museum’s Latin American show:
The exhibition, “The Arts in Latin America, 1492 to 1820,” currently on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, shares with the Spanish-speaking public several bilingual offerings including the 14-page color brochure available for free at the entrance of the exhibition, as well as the audio tour and the catalogue.
—Michael Botwinick, director of the Hudson River Museum, took my gentle teasing about his institution’s sugar daddy much more seriously than I had intended:
Sugar refining has been a key part of Yonkers industrial base since the early 20th century. Domino and its predecessor corporations (still at that site) have been a part of the industrial landscape of Yonkers for about 100 years.
To their [Domino’s] credit, they have been a consistent supporter of the Museum since at least 1983. They have always been low-key and never pushed for recognition. Their support generally going for the unsexy “General Operations.” While I admit that asking them was a kind of no brainer, I want you to know it was our idea, and occurred long after we had organized the show. We did not even approach them until the catalogue was in manuscript form. We approached them based on a 25 year relationship. They simply said yes and asked no more of us.