Archives for March 2007

Steven Miller, executive director of the Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ, and adjunct faculty member at Seton Hall University's graduate program in museum professions, responds to The Secretary Vanishes: Smithsonian's Lawrence Small Resigns: I think the best news in the museum world today is the resignation of Larry Small at the Smithsonian. He never should have been hired in the … [Read more...] about BlogBack: Museum Director Steven Miller on Lawrence Small’s Sudden Disappearance

Lawrence Small, chief officer of the Smithsonian Institution, has resigned effective immediately. He had been under fire for unauthorized expenses (here and here). Today's Smithsonian press release that announced the resignation reports: Cristián Samper (sam-PAIR), director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, will be Acting Secretary while the Regents … [Read more...] about The Secretary Vanishes: Smithsonian’s Lawrence Small Resigns

Albright-Knox objects offered Friday at Sotheby's auction of Indian and Southeast Asian art were hammered down for a total of $6.1 million, bringing the grand hammer-price total (including Tuesday's Chinese art sale) to $22.2 million. More sales to come. The highlight of Friday's deaccessions was the life-size granite figure of Shiva as Brahma, Chola Period, ca. 10th-/11th … [Read more...] about Albright-Knox Disposals: More Windfalls and Fallout

IAC Headquarters as a Billboard Backdrop In his appraisal of Frank Gehry's new building in New York for IAC, Barry Diller's media and internet empire, the NY Times' architecture critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff, writes: Mr. Gehry's structure...looks best when approached from a distance....Viewed from the south, the forms appear more blocky. This constantly changing character imbues … [Read more...] about The Gap in Ouroussoff’s Gehry Appraisal

The Senate yesterday passed by voice vote a budgetary amendment introduced by that scourge of museums, Sen. Charles Grassley, that would freeze a planned $17-million increase for the Smithsonian Institution until it complies with a detailed list of strictures regarding employee compensation and ethics. As noted in Grassley's press release, the amendment still needs to survive … [Read more...] about War and Peace: More Smithsonian Conflicts Erupt; Truce Declared in Elbowed Picasso Dispute

Linda Nochlin at the "Global Feminisms" Press Preview At a time when the Feminist Movement is struggling for acknowledgment, if not allegiance, from the high-achieving young women who have benefited from it, along comes the new Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, trying to perk up that drooping "ism" for the 21st century through its inaugural … [Read more...] about Sisterhood is Dispiriting: Power to the Curators at Brooklyn’s New Feminist Enclave

Saving Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE) recently posted this powerful video (on its website and on YouTube) of Donny George Youkhanna, expatriate former director general of the Iraq National Museum, discussing the looting of his former museum and of archeological sites in Iraq. He is now visiting professor at Stony Brook University, New York. … [Read more...] about “Remember Iraq’s Heritage, Our Heritage”: Donny George’s Video

Listen up: You don't have to pay "more than $40 million" for David Rockefeller's 1950 Rothko, "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)," which he's dispatching to Sotheby's May 15 contemporary sale (as reported by Carol Vogel in today's NY Times). Why pay a fortune to David, when for just $295, you can get this "100% hand-painted" version of the same painting, on … [Read more...] about Buy Your Own Rockefeller Rothko—Just $295, with Free Shipping!

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, on its blog, Eye Level, gives as good as it gets today, by enumerating its accomplishments in direct response to the recent Smithsonian-commissioned report on its art museums. That report, made public two days ago, was sharply critical of SAAM's "intellectual approach to the presentation of the collections and exhibitions, which have … [Read more...] about SAAM Strikes Back

MAN and the Grrl at odds again---but this time we're respectfully disagreeing, rather than lobbing weapons of blog destruction. We have expressed opposite views on Michael Govan, who had approved an already in-the-works sale of an ancient Indian art from LACMA's collection, but then snatched it from the market and was admirably outspoken against undertaking such deaccessions in … [Read more...] about Bloggers at Loggerheads Again—But Nicely

Score a scoop coup for Jason Edward Kaufman in The Art Newspaper, for this report posted Tuesday (and cited yesterday by the Washington Post) about the highly critical findings, publicly released yesterday, of a panel of major museum professionals charged with a comprehensive review of the Smithsonian's constituent art institutions. Appointed by Ned Rifkin, the Smithsonian's … [Read more...] about Another Smithsonian Bad-News Day: Betsy Broun Gets a Bum Rap

Speaking of losing battles that I have journalistically championed... A new campaign was launched today in Great Britain, chaired by Parliament member Edward O'Hara, to return the British Museum's portion of the Parthenon marbles to Greece. I've supported the rejoining of the marbles numerous times (most notably in this NY Times Op-Ed piece), on the grounds that the sculptural … [Read more...] about Yet Another Campaign to Reunite the Parthenon Marbles

The beaten but unbowed Tom Freudenheim and Katka Hammond, one of the Buffalo Art Keepers (now more appropriately called the Buffalo Art Losers), respond separately to Albright-Knox Post Mortem: A Complete Defeat. Freudenheim writes: It's not that I don't agree with you [that the outcome of the anti-deaccession campaign was, regrettably, a "complete defeat"]. It's just that I … [Read more...] about Albright-Knox BlogBacks: Freudenheim and a Buffalo Art Keeper

a new MoMA PR person! Here's the PR on the PR: Glenn D. Lowry has announced the appointment of Cheri Fein as deputy director for marketing and communications at the Museum of Modern Art. As head of the marketing and communications division [repetitive, don't you think?], Ms. Fein will oversee some 24 staff in the departments of marketing, communications, and graphics. She will … [Read more...] about It’s Springtime, When CultureGrrl’s Thoughts Turn to…

Robert Buck, where were you when we really needed you? According to this afternoon's report by the Buffalo News of today's wildly successful (if thoroughly depressing) sale at Sotheby's of Chinese objects from the Albright-Knox Gallery's collection, the museum's former director finally weighed in, just a little too late to do any good. Buck is today quoted describing the … [Read more...] about Blowout Albright-Knox Sale: Ex-Director Buck Belatedly Bucks the Disposals