Happy Together: My Qin Dynasty friend in the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum near Xi’an, China
I did manage to make it to China, but because of my personal losses, 2010 was a tough year for me.
It was still a reasonably good year for CultureGrrl, however: This was the first time that the total number of “unique visitors” to the blog for a full calendar year topped (by a large margin) half a million. The Cult of CultureGrrl has now spread to the Huffington Post, bringing me a new platform and bringing new readers to CultureGrrl. My commentary continued to be heard on local public radio stations in New York and California (WNYC, WQXR, KCRW) and on National Public Radio, not to mention Swedish public radio! I ended the year with a new (for me) technological innovation—a narrated, annotated slideshow (using my own photos) of the architecture and installations at the expanded Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
I’m particularly grateful to the many contributors and advertisers who have supported my work during times that were economically challenging for many and personally challenging for me. After ArtsJournal stopped placing ads on its blogs (due to technical difficulties), several advertisers stepped up to my new CultureGrrl Classifieds. Late last year, I joined the Blogads network, hoping to attract a broader base of sponsors. (So far, nothing. Hope springs eternal for a prosperous New Year.)
On New Year’s Day, I did my usual end-of-year accounting and my ritual shaking-of-the-head after comparing the blog’s small income with my very large expenditure of time and effort. But I was blogging on auto-pilot last year: I didn’t aggressively seek out paid journalistic assignments (although I managed to publish five Wall Street Journal pieces—all but one in the first half of the year).
Dealing with my parents’ gradually deteriorating conditions, as their only child, felt like falling in slow motion off a cliff. Under those circumstances, blogging was the easiest way for me to satisfy my professional urges—quick, punchy, immediate and compatible with my frequently disrupted schedule. This discursive diversion helped me to maintain a semblance of sanity
over the past year. What was, I hope, informative for you was definitely
therapeutic for me.
Given what I’ve been through, this New Year feels to me like a major watershed—a time to think about how best to use the time remaining to me, now that I can focus on my own goals.
I still harbor a probably vain hope that I can eventually find a website, a publication or a blog angel to financially support the continuation of CultureGrrl and to help me devise a business plan. More likely, though, I’ll become more proactive in approaching mainstream media publications with article proposals and taking paid gigs as a speaker or panel moderator. (I had to turn down a couple such invitations last year). Time spent in those pursuits will likely reduce my posting frequency (but you’ve heard me say that before).
In any event, here’s hoping that the New Year brings auspicious new beginnings, for you and for me.
In the meantime, here are CultureGrrl’s Top 20 Stories for 2010, in chronological order, with an emphasis on the controversies that we’ve been following:
Dealer-to-Director: Why Jeffrey Deitch is Wrong for LA MOCA
Getty-Brand Face-Off: Ex-Director Gives Me His Side of the Story
Dealer-to-Director: More on Why Jeffrey Deitch is Wrong for LA MOCA
The End of Art History: Getty Abandons Preeminent Research Database (rescued here)
My Q&A with Christie’s Marc Porter on Third-Party Guarantors and the “Tilted Playing Field”
Deitch Assumes Directorship: What He Needs to Do at LA MOCA
Cleveland Museum’s Bonds for Expansion Backed by Art Acquisition Funds
To BP or Not to BP? Should Art Museums Accept Polluted Sponsorship?
Single-Collector Museum Shows: CultureGrrl’s Seven Recommended Ethical Guidelines
Fisk/Walton Saga: AAMD’s Admonitory Letter Sent to Wrong Recipient
National Academy No Longer Ostracized: It’s About Time! (with WNYC podcast)
Brooklyn’s Costume “Transfer” to the Met: A Huge Deaccession-in-Disguise
MeTube: Morgan Library’s Glorious Restoration, Before and After (Part II, here)
From “Piss Christ” to Ant-Covered Jesus: The Culture Wars Resume
Heir Files Claim for Met’s ex-Morozov Cézanne: Is Bolshevik Loot Like Nazi Loot?
MeTube: Curators and Director Discuss “Hide/Seek” Controversy in NYC
Transparency Gap: Minneapolis Institute Refuses to Discuss Greek Hot Pot
WaPo Kennicott’s Bad Call on Clough’s Call: Seeing “Hide/Seek” in Black/White
Met’s Lackluster Velázquez Rediscovery: “Exceptionally High Quality”?
Reinstalled Art at “New” BMFA: My Irreverent Slideshow (and video)