As those of you who have read this post already know, I’ve been mostly off-blog since mid-May for good reason—the early arrival of my fabulous (and, of course, brilliant) first grandson, followed by my beautiful (and also brilliant) daughter’s wedding in the Washington, DC, area (a good thing, since the weather for the outdoor ceremony was glorious, while here, in the NYC area, it was dismal).
With all this excitement, I’ve missed many big stories that I would otherwise have cogently commented upon—the bravura contemporary art auction at Christie’s; the likely deflation of the Hirshhorn’s wildly impractical “inflatable” and the related resignation of its director, Richard Koshalek; the postponement (possibly for three years) of the Peabody Essex Museum’s expansion, in the wake of the unexpected demise of its architect, Rick Mather; Connie Butler‘s move from her curatorship at MoMA to the chief curatorship at the Hammer; the estimable Mary Sue Sweeney Price‘s retirement from her long-time, distinguished directorship of the Newark Museum.
I also missed giving my usual unsolicited, undesired pre-meeting suggestions regarding issues urgently in need of consideration at the Association of Art Museum Directors’ annual meeting last week in Montreal (from which no statements of policy nor guidelines emerged). I did try to offer a few quick nudges on Twitter regarding actions that I felt AAMD needed to take.
The good news is that AAMD’s new president for 2013-14 is Timothy Rub of the Philadelphia Museum, who has always impressed me with his deep thinking on museum issues and his effective, resourceful, curator-centric leadership of the institutions he has led.
If anyone can reenergize the underachieving AAMD, perhaps Tim can. Hope springs eternal.