Archives for July 2006

Responding to my posts here and here about Metropolitan Museum curator Gary Tinterow's views on collection management, Rob Krulak writes: Beyond claiming the public's stake in the holdings of art museums as a private concern of curators, Gary Tinterow also seems to credit curators with the very creation of great public collections, as if there is an unbroken golden chain of … [Read more...] about BlogBack: More on Tinterow

This is an overly long post, but a serious subject deserves serious treatment. The following are my promised comments responding to comments made to me last week by Metropolitan Museum curator Gary Tinterow. One of the prime movers in founding the Association of Art Museum Curators in 2001, Tinterow appears more focused on curator-power than on public accountability, as … [Read more...] about Museum Collections: Curatorial Privilege and the Public Interest

Welcome to all you NY Times readers, who had to Google "Culture Grrl" [sic] to link to me from Roberta Smith's excellent article today on museum admission fees. Her contribution to the story-that-refuses-to-die was a detailed compendium of the many museums that offer free admission all the time, or at least some of the time. She was a bit unfair, though, to Glenn Lowry of the … [Read more...] about CultureGrrl in the New York Times!

At a press breakfast before a briefing held at the Metropolitan Museum this week for its upcoming high-rent loan show of French 19th- and early 20th-century masterpieces, I got intoCultureGrrl in the New York Times! a discussion about the Met's deaccessioning practices with Gary Tinterow, curator in charge of 19th, modern and contemporary art. He made a point of revisiting that … [Read more...] about Gary Tinterow on the Divine Right of Curators

The NY Times apparently decided it needed to balance its arts reporters' crusade against the coming increase in the Metropolitan Museum's "sugggested" (make that "recommended") adult admission fee. So it brought in someone from the Business Section, David Leonhardt, to bring some economic pragmatism to the discussion. An interloper in today's "Weekend Arts" section, Leonhardt … [Read more...] about Met Fee: Reasonable Timesmen Can Disgree

More on the Berry-Hill Galleries' bankruptcy situation has been posted online today by The Art Newspaper. Reporter Martha Lufkin indicates that other dealers, who are Berry-Hill creditors, are getting nervous. James Berry Hill, a director of the gallery, told me on June 26 that the gallery was settling claims against it, "so that nobody is harmed." He also said at that time … [Read more...] about Berry-Hill Updates

Pssst, wanna own a Frank Gehry? Now you can: Tiffany & Co. has just put his new line online. Doesn't this polymath already have enough building projects to occupy him from now until 2050? Do you think my 25-year-old son Paul and his gorgeous, intelligent girlfriend Lisa will read this and get ideas? (Oy! Am I in trouble!) … [Read more...] about With this Gehry I Thee Wed

Geoff Edgers, in today's post on his arts blog for the Boston Globe, thinks he detects "a feud brewing in the arts blogosphere" between me and a certain redhead. Tyler's been a very kind mentor (and linker) to this blogging newbie, and Lee likes him. But, as my evil alter ego, CultureGrrl, always snarls: Reasonable people can (and frequently should) disagree. Isn't that what … [Read more...] about Let’s Rumble!

One thing not mentioned in my WSJ piece on the expanded Minneapolis Institute of Arts was the temporary loan show in the new wing, The Surreal Calder. Better for the MIA that I didn't mention it. Organized by the Menil Collection, Houston, this show took a one-stop shopping approach to curating: Almost all its Calders are from a single source, the Calder Foundation (which is … [Read more...] about Museum Exhibitions: Root for the Home Team

Here are a few readers' responses to my defense of the Metropolitan Museum's new suggested $20 adult admission fee. CRAIG RANAPIA: I'm not really sure the "suggested admission fee" isn't really a semantic slight of hand. After all, as anyone whose met my mother can tell you, 'suggestions' properly expressed can sound a hell of a lot like an order. I'm quite aware that cultural … [Read more...] about BlogBacks: Met’s Admissions Frissons

Speaking of critics, I commend to you Peter Schjeldahl's piece in the July 24 New Yorker on Ronald Lauder's purchase of "Adele Block-Bauer I" for the Neue Galerie, New York. An outtake: Is she worth the money? Not yet. Paintings this special may not come along for sale often, and the hundred and four million dollars spent for a so-so Picasso, "Boy with a Pipe," two years ago … [Read more...] about Schjeldahl on Klimt

This post may seem to be what one of my editors disapprovingly calls "inside baseball." It grows out of my post yesterday, responding to a critic who criticized my criticism of a critic. Have I lost you already? Probably. Nevertheless, here goes: Why do you rarely see strongly negative reviews about new or newly expanded cultural facilities? Cesar Pelli's (pre-Taniguchi) … [Read more...] about Criticizing the Critics

Blogger Tyler Green incorrectly claims today that I object to NY Times critic Michael Kimmelman's flipflop on the new MoMA. "Critics," my blog-colleague wrote, "shouldn't be locked into one viewpoint for life." Hey, CultureGrrl's been known to change her mind every now and then. That's a woman's (and a critic's) prerogative. What I objected to yesterday was, as I wrote, "the … [Read more...] about CultureGrrl Leaps to Her Own Defense!

Here's the second part of my article, appearing on the Leisure & Arts page in today's Wall Street Journal. (Here's Part I). The MIA [Minneapolis Institute of Arts] had not originally planned to engage a "starchitect." But it was essentially shamed into doing so by the ambitions of its institutional peers: For its 2005 expansion the Walker Art Center had used Herzog & … [Read more...] about My Minneapolis Article in the WSJ—Part II

As you know, I can't link to the Wall Street Journal's subscribers-only site, but I AM allowed to post the text of my article. I'll do it in two parts, so as not to tax the short attention spans of hyperactive blog readers. (It's on today's Leisure & Arts page [D6], for those of you who still turn pages, instead of clicking hyperlinks.) Minneapolis With unflashy … [Read more...] about My Article on Minneapolis in Today’s WSJ—Part I