Archives for October 2010

It figures that I'd be halfway around the world (and not blogging) when the Association of Art Museum Directors announced its long overdue decision to lift the sanctions it imposed almost two years ago on the National Academy. As CultureGrrl readers know, I broke the story about the National Academy's stealth deaccessions in late 2008 of two important paintings---a Church … [Read more...] about National Academy No Longer Ostracized: It’s About Time! UPDATED WITH PODCAST

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, construction photo, July 2010 [NOTE: This will be my last CultureGrrl post for about two and a half weeks. I'll be fleeing halfway around the world to pry myself away from computers, e-mail and blogging!] Fisk University on Friday filed in Davidson County Chancery Court its 92-page revised plan for a proposed $30-million sale of a … [Read more...] about Fisk/Walton Saga: AAMD’s Admonitory Letter Sent to Wrong Recipient

Installation shot of the Guggenheim Museum's "Chaos and Classicism" showHolland Cotter, in today's NY Times finds the Guggenheim's current exhibition, Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918-1936, to be "totally engrossing" (as did I, in my much-Twittered CultureGrrl review, published Friday). But he doesn't think that you'll react as he did.Cotter … [Read more...] about “Won’t Pull Crowds”? NY Times’ Perverse Attendance Prediction for “Chaos and Classicism”

Installation shots from the big fall shows at the Guggenheim, left, and MoMA, rightThere's an electric energy in New York right now, zapping between two parallel but sharply contrasting shows that have just opened at Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. MoMA's show, focusing on American art after the Second World War, is beautiful but not too bright. (I've touched … [Read more...] about Reactionary vs. Revolutionary: Post-World War I & II Shows at Guggenheim and MoMA

Storm King Art Center's director and curator, David Collens (left) and its chairman, president and co-founder H. Peter Stern (right) look on as president John Stern blows out the sculpture park's 50th-birthday candles.I have always wanted to walk into, rather than gaze down upon, Maya Lin's Storm King Wavefield, her four-acre commissioned earthwork at Storm King Art Center in … [Read more...] about MeTube: Meandering (at last) Through Maya Lin’s “Storm King Wavefield”

Merryl Tisch, Chancellor, NY Board of Regents Robin Pogrebin's three-weeks-after-the-fact post mortem in the NY Times about the NY Board of Regents' astonishing, inadequately explained about-face on deaccession regulations sheds some light on what went on behind the scenes. Robin includes this quote from the influential letter addressed to the Regents by Glenn Lowry, … [Read more...] about NY Times Explores Death of State’s Deaccession Regs; Ignores New Law Subverting Donor Intent

Jackson Pollock's "Number 7, 1950," seen through David Smith's "Australia" (detail), at MoMA's Ab-Ex showWith my typing fingers entangled in ribbons of red tape (related to my late father's estate) I won't have time today to give you my extended take the Museum of Modern Art's artistically rich but interpretively disappointing Abstract Expressionist New York show, which opens … [Read more...] about MeTube: MoMA’s Ab-Ex Show as Curator Ann Temkin Views It

I now have another reason not to set my alarm early today to attend the Guggenheim's roll-out of its new orbiting BMW satellites. Not only has Carol Vogel already done the heavy-lifting for us, but the museum is going to webcast its 10 a.m. news conference live, here.You don't even have to be a journalist to attend the announcement by Richard Armstrong, director of the … [Read more...] about Guggenheim’s Orbiting BMW-Branded Satellites: Watch Today’s Live Launch!