If all goes according to plan, you’ll be able to hear me tomorrow morning in an “Arts File” segment on WQXR, New York’s public classical music station. I’ll be commenting on the New Museum’s Skin Fruit exhibition and the controversy surrounding it. The news peg is this Saturday’s symposium on the relationship between private collectors and museums.
Preparing for my three minutes of broadcast fame prompted me to ponder, once again, the complicated issues surrounding this show. One of the many things that I didn’t manage to express in my allotted time is my belief that the attempt by the New Museum’s officials to position their private-collector exhibition in the grand tradition of “public/private partnerships” (as they call it) is a distortion and misuse of that term as I have always understood it.
The “partners” in public/private partnerships have traditionally been governments, government arts agencies and public foundations, on the one hand, and individuals, corporations and private foundations, on the other. These funders are in partnership with each other, to benefit the museum, its exhibitions and its programs.
Now we’re being asked to entertain the notion that private individuals and public institutions can themselves be “partners.” That, to my mind, is a dangerous concept. It suggests that the institutions and their benefactors are jointly in charge of the museum enterprise, or some aspect of it. There’s a big difference between “supporters” and “partners.” That distinction must not be blurred.
I’m not saying that the New Museum disagrees with me on this or has violated that distinction. What I AM saying is that in attempting to position its current show within the tradition of “public/private partnership,” it’s imbuing “Skin Fruit” with more consequence than it deserves and using slippery semantics to elevate Dakis Joannou to the status of latter-day J.P. Morgan. The “skin” on this “fruit” is a treacherous banana peel.
The megabucks moguls who helped establish our nation’s major museums during the Gilded Age were motivated by civic-mindedness—a mission to build communities and enrich the lives of local citizens through these new institutions (and perhaps expiate some guilt by so doing). They were building museum collections for the long haul, not for three-month exhibitions. NewMu/Joannou is a different animal.
You can hear me discussing the symposium and the exhibition at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow on 105.9 FM or by clicking the “Listen” button on the right side of WQXR’s website. I hope that before Kerry Nolan and I begin our conversation, my favorite WQXR host, Jeff Spurgeon, will once again intone, “CultureGrrrrrl.” Nobody rolls ’em like he does!
The podcast will be posted later on the station’s website. I will, of course, give you the link, once it’s up.
But art-lings, I will not be bringing you a report from the New Museum’s Saturday matinee. Instead of “sympos-ing” I’ll be “Nose-ing.” Given the choice between seeing art (in this case, William Kentridge‘s set designs) and hearing people talk about it, you can guess which one wins:
