Art Museum Day’s Odd Couples: Corcoran/GWU, MASS MoCA/Crystal Bridges, Smithsonian/Hebrew University

In the provocative spirit of CultureGrrl, come join me, faithful art-lings, in an unconventional commemoration of Art Museum Day, spotlighting some unlikely pairings that have recently hit the news. Whether conceived in a spirit of innovation or desperation, they’ve caught our attention by being unexpected and a little eyebrow-raising:

—There have been new developments in the doomed three-way marriage of the Corcoran Gallery and College of Art + Design with George Washington University and the National Gallery.

As reported by Peggy McGlone in the Washington Post, GWU just laid off 10 of the 19 faculty members who still remained from the Corcoran’s pre-takeover days. The remaining nine “will join 40 university faculty” at the reconstituted Corcoran school at GWU, where “enrollment was 294 for the academic year that just ended,” compared to 404 who were enrolled in fall 2014 (the first year under GWU), according to the McGlone.

Here is GWU’s update on its renovation plans for the Corcoran’s historic building. And here’s the National Gallery’s announcement from last October of its acquisition of 1,541 additional works (mostly prints, drawings and watercolors) from the Corcoran’s collection. The National Gallery had accessioned some 6,430 of the Corcoran’s 17,000 artworks in February 2015. On May 29, it opens an exhibition of Photographs and Videos from the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

For those who still harbored some hope that the Corcoran’s college would retain some of its distinctive identity, recent developments in the marriage of unequals suggest otherwise.

 

—At first blush it would seem that no two art museums could be more unlike in spirit or substance than the feisty, cutting-edge MASS MoCA in North Adams and the more conservative, traditional Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, AR. But in March the two announced that they would forge a partnership to develop arts programing at a decommissioned Kraft Foods plant in downtown Bentonville, expected to open in 2018.

An interest in repurposing industrial facilities as cultural meccas is one thing that unites these two institutions:

In explaining this odd coupling, Joseph Thompson, MASS MoCA’s director, wrote me: “Our institutions and communities are obviously wildly different: south versus northeast; fast-growing hub of global commerce versus a tiny post-industrial city still finding new footing in the 21st century; a well-resourced institution [emphasis added] versus one that sometimes skates on thin ice. And yet, despite all those differences, there is something that resonates between us about our shared aspiration for making art, music and creativity a defining and even transformative part of the daily life of our off-center hometowns.”

As for the allure of Crystal Bridges’ “well-resourced” operations (thanks to its wealthy founder, Alice Walton), Thompson acknowledged that “certainly our expenses and any overhead costs we incur will be covered, to the extent we have any, and if we share exhibitions, development and production costs will also be shared—and cost-sharing sometimes makes all the difference in the world.”

 

—Many of the programs and projects that have occupied the attention of the Smithsonian Institution’s new secretary, David Skorton, were set in motion before his arrival last July (including the stalled proposal to establish a London outpost).

But this one has his fingerprints all over it: Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and the Smithsonian on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish the Albert Einstein Foundation—“a broad initiative encompassing several projects that celebrate Albert Einstein’s legacy, promote peace and advocate for greater education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (collectively known as “STEM”).”

The deal is reminiscent of the much more ambitious alliance that Skorton, as president of Cornell University, had forged with another institution of higher learning in Israel—an academic partnership between Cornell and Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, to establish Cornell Tech, an in-construction graduate-level campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City.

As noted in Hebrew University’s announcement, Einstein had left his entire estate and intellectual legacy to that institution (which he co-founded). Included are more than 80,000 documents and archives related to his work.

“The Albert Einstein Foundation will use the archives…, along with the Smithsonian Institution’s resources, to further honor his vision,” the university’s announcement says. Plans include a global STEM Summit on Sept. 10, 2017, which “will showcase innovation and scientific work from the Hebrew University and the Smithsonian Institution and allow participants access to leading minds and innovators in their respective fields.”

Although I did receive an emailed invitation to the signing of the MOU in Washington, I see nothing, at this writing, about it on the Smithsonian’s website for press releases (which does include news about the recent signing of an MOU with Yale). Are they low-keying this so as not to provoke proponents of academic boycotts against Israel (some of whom have protested Cornell Tech)?

My own take on this touchy topic: Academic freedom and scholarly collaborations should transcend political differences. That goes for both cultural and educational exchanges.