Archives for September 2006

"Sock Puppet Bites Man"? I had to rub my tired eyes at midnight when I came upon that lame headline on the last of yesterday's editorials in the NY Times. Was the overblown Lee Siegel contretemps really weighty enough for the august editorial board to weigh in on? Then I got to this sentence, which really woke me up: Sock puppetry may be rampant online, but journalists writing … [Read more...] about NY Times Eats Sock

Here's one from the "What will they think of next?" files: I'm an art lover and a dark-chocolate addict, so I must be the target audience for Art Bar, a product from Ithaca, N.Y., that I came across last week at the Cornell Campus Store. At least 10% of the chocolate profits are used to sweeten the pot for arts education. I'm a Lindt fan myself, but this was pretty good! The … [Read more...] about Bringing Culture to Chocoholics

Can it really be five years? Make a wish for healthy traffic and blog out the candles. … [Read more...] about Happy Birthday, Modern Art Notes

Mark Ledbury, associate director of the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., replies to Clark Bars the Barnes?: We here at the Clark always read your blog with great interest. However, in respect of your Sept. 11 post, "Clark Bars the Barnes," I feel that a short response might be in order. Please let us reassure you there was no intention to bar the Barnes, devalue the … [Read more...] about BlogBack: The Clark on the Barnes

The NY Times today finally gets around to reporting on the fractional gifts fracas that is roiling the museum world. (CultureGrrl readers learned about it here on Monday.) But the Times fails to acknowledge possible compromise solutions, discussed in CultureGrrl and originally proposed by Donn Zaretsky on Sept. 8 in The Art Law Blog. Lawmakers could require museums to take … [Read more...] about Fractional Gifts Update

The belated answer to last week's Where in the World is Lee Going? is, of course, my alma mater, Cornell University, whose dairy bar has just invented a new ice cream flavor, "Banana Berry Skorton," named for its newly inaugurated cardiologist-president (first name, David). Directly after this very untraditional and unstuffy investiture, to-die-for samples of the new dessert … [Read more...] about Another Voice in the Antiquities Debate

This article in yesterday's NY Times, identifying Walt Whitman as a pioneering sock puppeteer, has prompted me to shout out to all you CultureGrrl fans who want to do my self-aggrandizing for me. (After all, wasn't it Whitman who wrote: "I celebrate myself, and sing myself/And what I assume you shall assume"?) Just think what this bloviating blogger would say about herself in … [Read more...] about Sock It to Me!

The Munch Museum in Oslo will publicly display the recently recovered "The Scream'' and "Madonna'' before repairs of any theft-related damage are performed. This from Bloomberg reporter Beate Evensen: The museum, the city and the police decided to display the paintings because of "the great interest in the paintings and their condition after the robbery, and the fact that it … [Read more...] about New Transparency: Revealing the Damaged Munchs

The ad hoc local group, Friends of the Barnes, just sent a letter to its constituents plotting its next desperation move to keep the Barnes Foundation in Merion. The letter states: We feel that we are being locked out of the [Philadelphia] Inquirer's coverage of the Barnes Foundation and that the newspaper is biased in favor of the move [to Philadelphia]. There was no mention … [Read more...] about Speaking of the Barnes …

The Clark Art Institute this Friday and Saturday will host a lecture and symposium in Williamstown, Mass., on the topic of private-collector museums---a subject I have explored in some depth for both the Wall Street Journal and NY Times. My articles discussed the special aura of such "jewel box" museums and lamented the now successful campaign to get court approval for … [Read more...] about Clark Bars the Barnes?

It's a bit like closing the museum door after the donors have already escaped: The Association of Art Museum Directors is now lobbying for a change in a law that Congress has already passed---Section 1218 of the 2006 Pension Protection Act, a provision that radically alters the rules for giving fractional gifts of art to nonprofit institutions. Museum officials say this change … [Read more...] about The Fractional Gift Fracas

The J. Paul Getty Trust has now posted the press release about governance reforms that its communications head, Ron Hartwig, had told me was on its website, but wasn't. Thanks to CultureGrrl, you can now read it here. But I am still of the opinion, as expressed in a previous post, that these measures do not go far enough. As I have stated, the Getty should immediately make … [Read more...] about The Getty’s Governance Reforms: Still Too Little, Too Late

Why have Michael Kimmelman's inane observations about the U.S. Open (i.e., "Gonzalez gently caressing Ljubicic's shaved head, for some reason") been given almost a full page today in the NY Times' Weekend Arts section? Maybe because they're not fit to print in the Sports section. COMING NEXT WEEK: CultureGrrl opines on The Beauty of Boxing. (Just kidding.) … [Read more...] about Inquiring Tennis Fans Want to Know…

Ron Hartwig, vice president for communications at the J. Paul Getty Trust, replies to CultureGrrl's The Latest Getty Shockers: Time to Come Clean and Clean House: I know blogs often rely on shock value, and lively rhetoric, but given the serious issues we've had to deal with these past two years, and the equally serious and thoughtful way in which we have been dealing with … [Read more...] about BlogBack: The Getty Replies to “Latest Shockers”

To a major university that is inaugurating its new president today. CultureGrrl may or may not be posting before Monday. You have not risen to the "HELP LEE BUY A LAPTOP!" challenge. (See righthand column to contribute.) I have not forgotten my promise to provide more posts from my recent Berkshires trip. (Better late than never.) Meanwhile, please scroll down: I've provided a … [Read more...] about Where in the World is Lee Going?