Archives for January 2011

The Smithsonian's Board of Regents today released the six-page report of its ad hoc advisory committee on exhibition policy, formed in the wake of the "Hide/Seek" controversy.Here are the key passages:The Smithsonian must encourage and provide a forum for dialogue on the important issues of the day. This mandate carries the obligation to produce exhibitions that may be … [Read more...] about Smithsonian Committee’s Recommendation: Keep the Hot-Button Shows Coming (and keep Clough) UPDATED

Rocco Landesman, chairman, National Endowment for the Arts Rocco Landesman has mouthed off again, and the news may not be good for Peoria. But this time, I think that Rock-the-Boat Rocco has expressed some hard truths that have relevance not only to the world of theater, which he knows the most about, but also, perhaps, to the world of art museums. In his post yesterday on … [Read more...] about Financial Shakeout: Do We Need Fewer Arts Organizations?

Zahi Hawass, secretary general, Egypt's Supreme Council of AntiquitiesIn a case of bad timing, the Egyptian government announced last Monday that antiquities chief Zahi Hawass had sent a letter to Hermann Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Germany, renewing his demand for the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin's Neues Museum. (Germany promptly replied … [Read more...] about Damage Control: Zahi Hawass’ and American Preservationists’ Statements

Looters have broken into several cases at the famed Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, told the Associated Press that the celebrated King Tutankhamun treasures were safe. But The Eloquent Peasant [via]---the blog of Margaret Maitland, a D.Phil. candidate in Egyptology at the University of Oxford---has matched images (from the Al Jazeera news … [Read more...] about AP’s Video of Looting’s Aftermath at Egyptian Museum, Cairo UPDATED

In her Thursday NY Times piece, The Permanent Collection May Not Be So Permanent, Robin Pogrebin constructs a straw man and then knocks it down: She mentions several museums that have recently put works up for sale and observes: A few years ago sales like these were likely to have gone unnoticed. Yet deaccessioning---the art world term for selling pieces from a … [Read more...] about Deaccession Digressions in NY Times: What Matters, What Doesn’t

Smithsonian Regent John McCarter Jr.Next week we're likely to discover more about what the Smithsonian has learned from the "Hide/Seek" contretemps and whether this painful experience will have any lasting impact on institutional policy and practice.A brief report by a three-person panel, which met only once (earlier this month) to review Smithsonian policies in the wake of the … [Read more...] about Smithsonian Regents to Discuss “Hide/Seek”-Related Report of Ad Hoc Policy Panel

President Obama delivering last night's State of the Union addressWhite House photo: Peter SouzaGiven the ruffle-no-feathers tone of President Obama's long, tedious "State of the Union" last night, It's not surprising that art and culture never enlivened the speech. In the least substantive such address in recent memory, one of the few moments when the orator-in-chief ventured … [Read more...] about What Obama Didn’t Say: Why Art is Crucial to the State of the Union

Rep. Scott Garrett (R., NJ), chairman of Republican Study Committee's Budget and Spending Task ForceAs we eagerly await President Obama's "State of the Union" address tonight, wondering whether the arts will merit a passing mention, it's gratifying to know that former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a recent discussion with Candy Crowley on CNN, added his voice to those of … [Read more...] about Zero for NEA, NEH, PBS? Colin Powell Prefers Military Cuts

Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough appears to be changing his story.Mike Boehm of the LA Times reports that during a brief interview after the public Los Angeles forum addressed by Clough yesterday, the Smithsonian's head stated (in Boehm's words) that he "didn't consider [the removal of David Wojnarovicz's video from the "Hide/Seek" exhibition] an act of censorship because … [Read more...] about Clough’s LA Flip-Flop on the Removal of “Hide/Seek” Video UPDATED

Harry PhilbrickThe Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts announced today that it has finally named a director for its museum, which recently embarked on a dubious deaccession spree. Harry Philbrick, director of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Ridgefield, CT, since 1996 (who last September announced he would be leaving that post by the end of 2010) will assume his new … [Read more...] about Philly Philbrick: New Director for Pennsylvania Academy’s Museum

When David Met Jonathan: Behind them, at December's New York Public Library symposium, is a photo of Walt Whitman, left, and his lover, Peter Doyle, whose relationship started the two curators talking about the show that eventually became "Hide/Seek." I really did try to give David Ward, co-curator of the National Portrait Gallery's hot-button "Hide/Seek" show, a chance to … [Read more...] about MeTube: David Ward on the Genesis of “Hide/Seek” (and on Wojnarovicz)

Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough in his office on Tuesday, with Frederick Waugh's "Southwesterly Gale, St. Ives," 1907, Smithsonian American Art MuseumEveryone knows that Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough on Tuesday broke his personal embargo on "Hide/Seek" media interviews by speaking to the Washington Post and the NY Times. What you probably didn't know (until now) … [Read more...] about My Huffington Post Interview with Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough

Does this new Guggenheim have less than a snowball's chance in Helsinki? (Above, left to right: Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén, director, Helsinki Art Museum; Tuula Haatainen, deputy mayor, Helsinki; Richard "Strong-Arm" Armstrong, director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Jussi Pajunen, mayor, Helsinki; Ari Wiseman, deputy director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation) Back in May … [Read more...] about Guggenheim Helsinki: Might Antarctica Be Next?

"Masterpiece" Turned Merchandise: William Merritt Chase, "Autumn Still Life" In my May 1990 article for ARTnews magazine---"How Permanent is the Permanent Collection?"---I coined the term "off-the-wall deaccessions" to describe disposals of works important enough to the selling institutions to have been recently shown on their own walls. The Pennsylvania Academy of the … [Read more...] about PAFA’s Folly: “Off-the-Wall” Deaccessions

Now up on HuffPost Arts is Form Foils Function, in which I reach a more forceful, focused conclusion, based upon my prior CultureGrrl musings, about Diller Scofidio + Renfro's perplexing plans for the new museum that Eli Broad intends to build in Downtown LA for his 2,000-piece contemporary collection.Despite my criticism of the design, I have to take issue with Nicolai … [Read more...] about Do-Over for The Broad? My Huffington Post Piece on Eli’s Planned LA Museum