Archives for September 2008

Number One: MoMA's director, Glenn LowryPatrick Cole in today's Bloomberg, citing this article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy (for which you'll need to purchase a day pass, if you don't subscribe), reports that the Museum of Modern Art's director, Glenn Lowry, was "the best-paid chief executive of a U.S. nonprofit art institution last year, with a total compensation package … [Read more...] about Who Are the Highest-Salaried Art Museum Directors?

Brad Cloepfil, architect of the Museum of Arts and Design (alias MAD)I've just learned a new tech trick. Click here to see my captioned slideshow of the Museum of Arts and Design. As you will see, both the museum and my slideshow have some foibles. I don't know why the photos look blurrier than they would if I merely posted them on the blog, and I can't eliminate the ad that … [Read more...] about Museum of Arts and Design: An Irreverent Slideshow

Nicolai OuroussoffNY Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, in his review for tomorrow's NY Times "Arts & Leisure" section (online today), demonstrates astoundingly meanspirited wrongheadedness: He puts the brand new Museum of Arts and Design at the end of his top-seven list of New York City buildings that he believes ought to be "candidates for demolition."It's time … [Read more...] about Critical Meltdown: Ouroussoff Recommends Demolition for Cloepfil’s Just-Completed Museum of Arts and Design

Alejandro Puente, "Everything Goes," 1968-70, New AcquisitionThe Museum of Modern Art's latest installation of contemporary works from its collection, Here is Every, has fallen below the critical radar. But it's the best of the five deployments of its contemporary forces since the Taniguchi-designed museum expansion opened almost four years ago. It's also the most … [Read more...] about MoMA Conquers Curator-Devouring Second Floor, Makes Plans for Nouvel’s Mega-Tower CORRECTED

The Guardian's Jonathan JonesJonathan Jones, in his blog for the British Guardian newspaper, has a beef with the Queen.In his post today, Someone should rescue this royal loot (pegged to the upcoming Buckingham Palace exhibition, Bruegel to Rubens: Masters of Flemish Painting), he declares:The fact is, the exhibitions at the Queen's Gallery are just public relations. The whole … [Read more...] about Art Revolt: Should the Queen’s Collection Be Liberated?

G. Wayne Clough in his Georgia Tech daysA donor might want programming input---there is always going to be that element of nuance there. You have to understand the dangers and the possibilities.So said G. Wayne Clough, the new secretary of the Smithsonian, in his recent interview with the NY Times' Robin Pogrebin.The only "possibility" that can emerge from allowing patrons to … [Read more...] about G. Wayne Clough and the Problem of Smithsonian Donor Influence

Waiting to speak at yesterday's Guggenheim ribbon-cutting ceremoney, left to right: Tom Krens, Peter Lewis, Mayor Bloomberg, Jennifer Blei Stockman (Guggenheim board president)Both parts of the above headline are akin to "Dog Bites Man": They are so expected as to be hardly news at all. But for the record, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation has just made the expected official … [Read more...] about Guggenheim Anoints Armstrong; Peter Lewis Jabs Tom Krens UPDATED

Here are my comments that were aired early this morning on New York Public Radio, which has more on its website, including a slideshow of objects. Click the arrow on the left. below, to listen now:There's one small way in which I wish I could fix what I said: In describing Michael Rakowitz's piece, "The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist (Recovered, Missing, Stolen Series)," … [Read more...] about Audio’s Up: Listen to My WNYC Appraisal of the New Museum of Arts and Design

Jenny Holzer, "For the Guggenheim": one masterpiece meets anotherEverything's happening at once this week in the New York art museum world: ---The opening of the striking new facility for the Museum of Arts and Design (about which I will post more later). The ribbon-cutting ceremony with Mayor Bloomberg is at 11:30 a.m. today. The museum opens to the public Saturday.---The … [Read more...] about New York’s Banner Week for Museums: MAD, Whitney, Guggenheim

Edward Durell Stone's 1964 Gallery of Modern Art, aka "The Lollipop Building"In the same spot on Columbus Circle, Brad Cloepfil's Museum of Arts and Design, aka "The 'H' Building," with CNN's offices behind it and Norman Foster's Hearst Tower beside itIf all goes according to plan, you can hear my impressions of the new Museum of Arts and Design this morning at about 6:46 a.m. … [Read more...] about My New York Public Radio Commentary on the Museum of Arts and Design This Morning

It's a wrap: NY Times enveloped in NBC-TV adsNY Times subscribers awoke this morning to a strange hybrid on their doorsteps: Three of the five sections of the paper were encased in ads for NBC-TV's new season, which usurped both sides of each section's back page (as well as the page facing the inside back page) and flapped over to the front (above). In addition, the bottom of … [Read more...] about NBC’s Art of NY Times Product Placement: Is Alec Baldwin the New Jeremy Piven?

I've just returned from a full-day audio-editing workshop at my alma mater---Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism---so I couldn't restrain myself from bringing you these soundbites excerpted (and spliced together) from Tom Campbell's press conference that occurred the day after he was named to become the next director of the Metropolitan Museum.Here, he (sort of) … [Read more...] about Press Conference Podcast: Tom Campbell’s Views on Antiquities and Contemporary Art at the Met

Sid Bass, amateur art critic and MoMA vice chairman, at the press previewDo we really need another van Gogh show?If the show in question is Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night, opening Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art, the answer is probably no. Will it be a blockbuster? Probably yes.Nothwithstanding the fact that Roberta Smith in her favorable take on this focus exhibition … [Read more...] about Sid Bass and MoMA’s Dark Night of Van Gogh

New York's new commercial gallery has some major museums in the bag. Memo to the Albright-Knox Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, Smith College Museum, Blanton Museum, Rose Art Museum, Neuberger Museum, Montclair Art Museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Nasher Collection … [Read more...] about The Launch of Haunch of Venison: Museums Go Commercial

The scene at Sotheby's, LondonNo matter what the NY Times and Bloomberg are telling you today, Damien Hirst's self-titled $200.75-million two-day auction, "Beautiful Inside My Head Forever," did NOT achieve results that exceeded its presale estimate (notwithstanding what Sotheby's asserted in its postsale press release, dutifully echoed by many scribes). I've previously … [Read more...] about “Beautiful Inside My Wallet”: London Sunday Times, WSJ Have First and Last Words on Hirst Sales