Archives for August 2006

Speaking of architecture tours, the ceremony celebrating completion of the restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright's five-structure Darwin D. Martin House Complex, Buffalo, NY, is scheduled for Oct. 4. Martin House is one of Wright's best known Prairie House designs. A PBS documentary on "Frank Lloyd Wright's Buffalo" will air nationwide Sept. 4 at 10 p.m. EST and tours of the Martin … [Read more...] about More Architecture Updates

Want to get on a list for information about advance ticketing for Philip Johnson's iconic Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, opening to the public in Spring 2007? Send an e-mail to: glasshouse@nthp.org. (Thanks to the excellent architecture blog, Tropolism, for this heads-up.) … [Read more...] about People in Glass Houses

My thanks to CultureGrrl reader Sara Patel (who identifies herself as "a lecturer in museum studies in Greenwich London") for sending this link to a thought-provoking article criticizing British museums for overzealousness in their care of sacred objects. Tiffany Jenkins, the author of the article (which appeared in the July 11, 2005 issue of the London-based magazine New … [Read more...] about Safeguarding the Sacred: Sensitivity or Censorship?

The name's Brand. Michael Brand. The suave Australian, with his rugged good looks and daring international exploits in Italy and Greece, has until now been neither shaken nor stirred by the press. We were giving him time to figure out how to clean up the messes left behind by others at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where he was named director last August. But now that Brand has … [Read more...] about Michael Brand Lives Up to His Name

The State Hermitage Museum has just published on its website a defense of director Mikhail Piotrovsky. It is so ramblingly incoherent that its clumsy translation from Russian can only partly explain its muddled logic. Originally published Aug. 10 in Rossiiskaya Gazeta (Russian Newspaper), "The Case of Piotrovsky" does make one thing clear---that the director will not leave his … [Read more...] about Museumspeak, Russian Style

Berry-Hill Galleries, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December, last Friday closed on a $21-million loan, allowing it to stay in business, rather than liquidate under Chapter 7, according to the chief restructuring officer for the bankruptcy. That officer, Alan Jacobs of AMJ Advisors, said that the new loan (technically called "debtor-in-possession financing") comes … [Read more...] about Bankrupt Berry-Hill Stays Afloat: $21 Million From a New Lender

I promised to "dissect" this conversation, but there's not much to sink my scalpel into. Derek Gillman, recently named to lead the Barnes Foundation, does (sort of) pledge not to sell any of the art. Strangely, he gives more weight to Albert Barnes' first thoughts about his collection than his explicitly delineated last written words on the subject---that nothing be moved. When … [Read more...] about The Gillman/Green Dialogue

The latest twist in the Hermitage theft saga, involving an alleged private deaccessioning spree by a trusted, highly placed curator who tried to market the wares herself, raises the urgent question of whether other museums have sufficient safeguards in place to protect their own hoards from marauding employees. The unthinkable has now become thinkable, and whether it's security … [Read more...] about The Hermitage Heist: Could It Happen Here?

It doesn't quite sink to the depths of the NY Times' Oct. 6,2002 Page-One article that solemnly chronicled Britney Spears' "process of refashioning herself for a new career," but it must surely rank as the all-time apogee of tackiness for the paper's "Arts & Leisure" section. I am, of course, referring to what must be the largest, sorriest photo ever run on that section's … [Read more...] about Oops! The Times Did It Again!

More shocking news about the Hermitage thefts: The Associated Press reports that Larisa Zavadskaya, the deceased curator who had been in charge of the Department of Russian Culture, had allegedly tried to sell the stolen objects herself, according to an antiques dealer who told investigators about the curator's dealings with him. The Hermitage has done a poor job of updating … [Read more...] about The Hermitage Story Keeps Getting Worse

Tyler Green, my ArtsJournal blogging colleague, promises a Q&A with the Barnes Foundation's new executive director and president, Derek Gillman, this Monday. Unlike CultureGrrl, Mr. Modern Art Notes is grudgingly in favor of the Barnes' planned move from Lower Merion to Philadelphia. It will be interesting to see just how much Green can draw out of Gillman, concerning the … [Read more...] about Green Grills Gillman

Do people still actually believe the Hitler-was-a-frustrated-artist theory of why the world suffered through a World War and the Holocaust? Four years ago, the Williams College Museum of Art suggested as much, in an exhibition that I reviewed for the WSJ on Hitler's early years in Vienna. The fate of the world, as seen by the show's curator, Deborah Rothschild, may have rested … [Read more...] about Weak Watercolors Caused World War II?

Here's that little tale I promised you in my previous post: Once upon a time, many years ago, before Lee became that celebrated artworld superhero, CultureGrrl, she was visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art just for pleasure, wandering dreamily among the Cézannes. Suddenly, a school group trooped in, accompanied by a teacher who could not possibly keep an eye on … [Read more...] about How Lee Saved a Cézanne

By a remarkable coincidence, the 1864 Mathew Brady albumen silver print of Abraham Lincoln and the 1865 wood engraving of Lincoln's second inaugural ball, which I had caught basking in the sun at the recent reopening of the renovated Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, were removed yesterday, just a day after I exposed their exposure. Bethany … [Read more...] about Smithsonian Update: Modest Abe Stops Sunbathing

The Association of Art Museum Directors has done it again: In its just-released report on The Acquisition and Stewardship of Sacred Objects, AAMD suggests that a hot-button issue be addressed with "special consideration" and "sensitivity," but asserts, as always, that museums should ultimately do as they see fit: In the absence of applicable legal requirements, these decisions … [Read more...] about AAMD’s “Sacred Object” Statement: No Guidance on Givebacks