Archives for April 2012

Interior of Paul Rudolph-designed Orange County Government Center, 2010Mark your calendars, architecturally-attuned art-lings! The Orange County Legislature is expected to vote at its meeting this Thursday afternoon, beginning at 3:30 p.m., on whether to save or demolish the flood-damaged Paul Rudolph-designed Orange County Government Center. There will be a chance for public … [Read more...] about Goshen Commotion: Vote Expected Thursday on Endangered Paul Rudolph Building

Good luck trying to get a good view at Sotheby's presale exhibition (open, until noon on Wednesday, but only to Sotheby's clients) of one of the best-known images in the world---Edvard Munch's "The Scream." Partly for security reasons and partly to convey the dramatic awe of a "chapel" (as a Sotheby's specialist called it), the small pastel-on-board is engulfed by a dark cave. … [Read more...] about Munch’s “The Scream”: Who Will Buy It? For How Much? (plus video)

Zeus, we hardly knew you. When you were catalogued by Sotheby's for its Dec. 8, 2011 sale, you looked like this: Marble head of Zeus Ammon, Roman Imperial, c. 120-160 A.D., bought at Sotheby's by Metropolitan Museum for $3.55 million (presale estimate: $800,000-$1.2 million)But when I saw you yesterday, installed near the entrance to the Leon Levy and Shelby White Court for … [Read more...] about After a Good Scrubbing, $3.55-Million Zeus Installed at the Met

Will the above works by Georgia O'Keeffe at Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AR, soon be joined by this?Georgia O'Keeffe, "Radiator Building---Night, New York," 1927, Fisk University, NashvillePosting Monday evening in haste, I suggested (based on accounts I had read) that the prolonged court battle regarding the fate of Fisk University's Stieglitz Collection is finally … [Read more...] about Nashville/Bentonville Saga: What’s Next in Fisk/Crystal Bridges Stieglitz Collection Case?

Alice Walton, speaking in Bentonville, AR Chalk one up for Alice Walton, one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. This just in from the Tennessean's Heidi Hall: The Tennessee Supreme Court has rejected the state's latest move to keep Fisk University's art collection in Nashville year-round. In January, Attorney General Bob Cooper appealed a lower … [Read more...] about News Flash: Court Clears Way for Fisk-Crystal Bridges $30-Million Collection-Sharing Deal

Timothy Potts, Getty Museum's director-designateNo Getty Museum director has been so bedeviled by controversy before even assuming his post.First, Timothy Potts, who comes on board Sept. 1, told me in an interview that he hadn't yet "seen a document on the details" of the Getty Museum's highly important (and unusually stringent) antiquities-collecting policies---an oversight … [Read more...] about Chinese Jade Theft: Security Breach at Potts’ Fitzwilliam Museum Compounded by Publicity about Alarm Setup

From the 2012 Whitney Biennial: LaToya Ruby Frazier, "Corporate Exploitation and Economic Inequality!," 2011. © LaToya Ruby Frazier; courtesy the artist Photograph by Abigail DeVilleThey had me for a moment.Whitney Museum director Adam Weinberg and I had shared a very early period of our careers working in the Union Square office of the Art Workers News, an artists' rights … [Read more...] about Prank Alert: Whitney “Press Release” Turns Museum over to Demonstrators UPDATED

Close up of the exterior and windows of the Barnes Foundation's new Philadelphia facility, opening May 19Photo by Lee RosenbaumTwo readers respond to Rent-a-Barnes: Disregarding the Founder's No-Parties Intent:Robert Zaller, professor of history and politics at Drexel University, informs me there were plenty of parties (notwithstanding the prohibition in founder Albert Barnes' … [Read more...] about BlogBacks: Readers Weigh In on the Philly Barnes

Returning repeatedly to the Barnes Foundation's website to see whether there was any acknowledgement of the death of its general counsel (which has now been reported as a suicide in an obit by Stephan Salisbury of the Philadelphia Inquirer), I stumbled across the Special Events section. It appears that CultureDaughter, still engaged in her nationwide mission to find the perfect … [Read more...] about Rent-a-Barnes: Disregarding the Founder’s No-Parties Intent

There has been no official confirmation yet of the cause of the sudden death last week of Brett Miller, 47, the Barnes Foundation's general counsel. But a CultureGrrl reader, who insisted on anonymity, has told me that Miller's Philadelphia neighbors reported that he had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. One of Miller's neighbors told my source that Miller died "some time … [Read more...] about Death of Brett Miller, 47, Barnes Foundation’s Counsel, Said to Be a Suicide

More on this, here.I liked and respected Brett Miller, the Barnes Foundation's general counsel since January 2010, and I am saddened by the news (reported by Helen Stoilas of the Art Newspaper) that he was found dead this weekend at his home. There's nothing about this, at this writing, in the Phladelphia Inquirer. No cause of death has yet been disclosed. That Miller, an … [Read more...] about Brett Miller, Barnes Foundation’s Counsel, Found Dead UPDATED

Tobi Tobias, Pulitzer FinalistThe 2012 Pulitzer Prizes have just been announced, and ArtsJournal has broken the blogger barrier: Tobi Tobias has been named as one of two finalists in the criticism category, for posts on her Seeing Things blog on ArtsJournal (which also hosts CultureGrrl). Tobi was cited "for work appearing on ArtsJournal.com that reveals passion as well as deep … [Read more...] about Blogger Breakthrough: ArtsJournal’s Tobi Tobias Named Pulitzer Finalist

In another insult to second-class journalists (i.e., everyone who doesn't write for the NY Times), the Guggenheim vigorously promoted a major press conference Thursday morning to announce its new "global cultural exchange" and then made attendance superfluous by delivering the entire story to Carol Vogel a day early. Everyone who showed up at the Gugg's 9 a.m. breakfast had … [Read more...] about Latest Global Guggenheim Developments: Helsinki & Singapore

Now at the Getty: Statue of Persephone, c. 300 B.C., Regional Archaeological Museum of Aidone I've been traveling on a work-ation since Thursday, so I haven't had a chance to report on the press lunch hosted by Jim Cuno in New York City last Wednesday---his first since becoming president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. The last time I saw him preside at an NYC press gathering, … [Read more...] about Getty President James Cuno’s Odd NYC Press Lunch (plus new Morgantina show)

Object of Contention: 10th-Century Khmer "Athlete," held by Sotheby's The Feds are doing it again---trying to intervene in a cultural-property ownership dispute by seeking to seize an antiquity thought to have been out of its country of origin for decades. In what I believe to be heavy-handed and counterproductive interference in what should be, at worst, a legal dispute … [Read more...] about Cambodian Battle: Feds’ Second Antiquities-Seizure Attempt Aborted (for now)