CultureGrrl’s Wild Ride: Me, aloft in a cherrypicker last May, at the in-construction Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
This annual feature (here, here, here, here and here) has special poignancy for me this year. That’s because, with the sputtering (after a strong start) of my three-week Last-Gasp Fund Drive (ending this Friday at 2 p.m.), this 2011 Edition may well be the last.
So in the retrospective spirit in the season, and looking forward to fulfilling my new professional resolutions in 2012, here are CultureGrrl’s Top 20 Stories (plus one) for 2011, in chronological order, with an emphasis on the controversies that we’ve been following:
My Huffington Post Interview with Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough
Clyfford Still Museum Circumvents Donor Intent (CultureGrrl Circumnavigates Construction Site)
Director’s “Hide/Seek” Revelations: What REALLY Happened; What Won’t Happen Again
Crystal Bridges’ Director on Fisk Art-Sale Controversy: “We don’t need that collection.”
Museum Musical Chairs: Met at the Whitney; MoMA at Folk Art—Part I and Part II
News Flash: NYS Regents Pass Stringent Deaccession Regulations (finally!)
Rotten “Soft Diplomacy”: Ai Weiwei’s Plight and U.S. Museums’ Appeasement
Invigorated by Investigators: Adventures at the IRE Conference (plus video from my panel)
Folk Art Museum’s Bad-News Day: Sale to MoMA Consummated, Disgraced Patron Sentenced
Lewis Stew: Carlos Museum’s Belated, Inadequate Disclosure of 19 Gifts from Indicted Collector
9/11 Memorial Photo Essay: Dispiriting Design, Stark Ambiance
Boston MFA Purchases Caillebotte’s Male Nude, Denudes its Permanent Collection
Q&A with Carmine Branagan: National Academy Resurrected after Near-Death Experience, Director Unrepentant
Vereshchagin Chagrin: Russian Realist the New Deaccession Sensation
Crystal Bridges Gazing: Video Tour of Alice Walton’s New Museum–Part I and Part II
Crystal Bridges Accounting: How Much Did Alice’s Palace Cost?
Crystal Bridges Accounting: How Much Did the Art Cost?
Knoedler Curdler: Lessons to be Gleaned from the Authenticity Allegations
Crystal Bridges Challenge: Molding Moshe Safdie’s Arki-tecture into Art-chitecture
Explaining the Bomford Bombshell: My Q&A with Michael Brand, Getty Museum’s Ex-Director
I’ll end this selective round-up with a bittersweet bonus-link to my Finnish television debut, in which I vaingloriously extolled the importance of art blogging in general and CultureGrrl in particular, while privately contemplating my blog’s imminent demise. The title of that segment (in Finnish) was: “Art Bloggers Are Coming!”
It should probably have been: “Art Blogger is Leaving!”