Archives for November 2008

Virginia Curry, a retired FBI agent who was involved in art-crime investigations in Los Angeles, responds to Italian Museum "Super-Manager": Illustrious Artworld Signatories Oppose New Profit-Driven Post: The Italian museum system has no money, save what they receive for the foreign loans of their collection. Italy is proof that under socialism there is barely money left for … [Read more...] about BlogBack: Reader Defends Appointment of Italian Museum “Super-Manager” Resca

Robert Henri, "Jessica Penn in Black with White Plumes," 1908, Crystal Bridges MuseumI recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal about how art auction houses report results in a way that make their sales appear more successful than they really are.But thanks to a tip from a reporter in Arkansas, Leslie Newell Peacock of the Arkansas Times, I recently came across one way in … [Read more...] about Go Ask Alice: Where’s the Top Lot (Robert Henri) That’s Gone Missing from a Christie’s Price List? UPDATED

I.M. Pei's new Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar In one of the more puzzling turns by an architecture critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff in yesterday's NY Times published a 640-word dispatch from Qatar, in which he described but never really evaluated the much anticipated new Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, opening to the public next Monday. According to Ouroussoff, architect I.M. … [Read more...] about The Un-Review and the Review: Ouroussoff Merely Describes I.M. Pei’s Qatar Museum, Lauds Ito’s Unbuilt Berkeley Museum

         Mario RescaAs of yesterday, some 2,400 art historians, museum luminaries and other concerned artworld notables had signed the petition against the planned appointment (scroll to the bottom) of Mario Resca, former head of McDonald's Italy, to the new position of "super manager" for Italy's museums. The petition (including English … [Read more...] about Italian Museum “Super-Manager”: Illustrious Artworld Signatories Oppose New Profit-Driven Post

"Mummy Mask of the Lady Ka-nefer-nefer," Egyptian, Dynasty 19, St. Louis Art MuseumThe fight over the St. Louis Art Museum's "Mummy Mask of the Lady Ka-nefer-nefer"continues, with the stakes raised higher by the recent appointment of the museum's director, Brent Benjamin, to the U.S. State Department's Cultural Property Advisory Committee, which considers (and usually grants) … [Read more...] about Mummy Mask Morass: Egypt’s Hawass Again Threatens to Haul St. Louis Director into Court

In an Op-Ed piece to appear in tomorrow's (Saturday's) LA Times, businessman/collector Eli Broad, who was the founding chairman of LA MOCA, challenged the Los Angeles philanthropic community to join him in stepping up to the (collection) plate for the financially beleaguered museum. Broad writes: I'd like to make a proposal to the MOCA board and to the civic angels of Los … [Read more...] about Eli Broad Offers LA MOCA a $30-Million Challenge Grant

It's a wall label so small and inconspicuous near the beginning of the Metropolitan Museum's just opened Beyond Babylon show (to Mar. 15) that if you didn't look for it, you would probably miss it: What IS that recent U.S. legislation referred to in this cryptic label, and how did it make it "too difficult and risky" for Syria to lend to the Met 55 works, already … [Read more...] about Terrorism’s Cultural Toll: 55 Syrian Loans Excluded from Met’s “Beyond Babylon” Show

LA MOCA's Geffen Contemporary: Closing Jan 6 to June 30Because there's been so much concern and speculation about the endangered LA MOCA, I thought I'd publish the fact sheet just issued by the financially beleaguered institution. The clinchers, which come at the end, are these: MOCA is exploring several options, and in doing so talking to many partners in the Los Angeles … [Read more...] about LA MOCA’s Crisis Fact-Sheet Scenario: Keep Identity and Programing, Expand Collection, Raise $$$$

Relinquished by Cleveland: Apulian Volute-Krater, Darius Painter, ca. 330 BC Steven Litt, the Cleveland Plain Dealer's art critic, is the go-to person for the full details on yesterday's agreement by the Cleveland Museum to relinquish 14 objects to Italy, in exchange for collegial cooperation on various projects, as well as "13 antiquities similar to those being returned to … [Read more...] about More on Cleveland Museum’s Returns to Italy: 25-Year Loans

If figures that on my birthday, when I wanted to blog lite, there are more major news stories than candles on my cake. (Well, not quite.) I may flesh out some of these later. But for now:---Bloomberg and the NY Times (on the web only) both report that collector Eli Broad has changed his mind about not opening a museum of his own.CultureGrrl readers will remember that shortly … [Read more...] about Major News from All Over: Eli Broad, LA MOCA, Cleveland Repatriations, New Manager of Italy’s Museums

Catherine Opie talks about her day job on NY Times video of Guggenheim GalaWhile we're on the subject of the Guggenheim: Do you wish you could have attended last week's Guggenheim Gala? Now you can---via video on the NY Times website.Listen in as the Guggenheim's new director, Richard Armstrong, entertains the assembled swells with his dry wit, saying that he's "very happy to … [Read more...] about Artists Talk Market at Guggenheim Gala; Hirst Says He’ll Lower Prices

Jennifer Stockman, above, the president of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, responds to Conflicts of Interest: Museum Trustees Play the Market: The director and the curators, not the trustees, of the Guggenheim make all decisions as to the exhibitions that are shown at the museum. I in no way influenced the Guggenheim's decision to hold the 2007 retrospective of Richard … [Read more...] about BlogBack: Guggenheim President Jennifer Stockman on Trustees’ Conflict-of-Interest

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Chancellor of the Smithsonian's BoardBilled as its first public meeting, the Smithsonian Institution's Board of Regents' question-and-answer session yesterday with Smithsonian-ologists may have been therapeutic but it wasn't a sufficient step towards greater transparency: It didn't reveal to the public what goes on at the … [Read more...] about Why Aren’t All Smithsonian Board Meetings Public?

The lawn to the west of the Kimbell Art Museum, site of its planned Renzo Piano buildingThe Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, has opted to court controversy with plans (to be announced at a 9 a.m. press conference today) that will plant a new 90,000-square-foot, Renzo Piano-designed building just west of Louis Kahn's 120,000-square-foot 1972 masterpiece.According to the press … [Read more...] about Kimbell Museum to Construct Piano Building Beside Kahn’s Masterpiece UPDATED TWICE

At the end of my last post (on Sotheby's losses from contemporary art guarantees), I noted that "since Christie's is not a publicly traded company and doesn't have Sotheby's financial reporting requirements, we don't know whether its experience with guarantees this month was similarly unfavorable."Now Carol Vogel has weighed in with her market-crash post mortem in the NY Times. … [Read more...] about Christie’s, Like Sotheby’s, Goes Back-to-Basics