Archives for August 2008

Okay, so WNYC has relaunched its entire website in a new format, and somehow my Whitney expansion commentary, which some of you may have heard live yesterday afternoon, has (at this writing) vanished, except for this audio-challenged link.But fear not, art-lings: My New York Public Radio editor has forwarded to me the segment's mp3, which I have managed to post in playable form … [Read more...] about You Can Hear It Now (finally!): My WNYC Commentary on the Whitney’s Expansion

Pam White, interim director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art, leading a media tour through the flood-damaged facility (Photo from the museum's blog, Art Matters)[UPDATE AT THE END: AAMD's just-released statement.]The blogosphere (including my blog) has been getting bent out of shape about the request by one of the University of Iowa's board members, Michael Gartner, for … [Read more...] about Repose for Iowa’s Pollock? Museum’s Director Is Optimistic UPDATED WITH AAMD STATEMENT

If you missed it live, you CAN'T hear me now, commenting on the Whitney Museum expansion on WNYC. That's because they're revamping their website tonight and relaunching it tomorrow. The culture editor said she MIGHT get it up tonight. There is an audio bar for my commentary here, but so far it doesn't work. We can all try it again later.For now, let's just say that I offered … [Read more...] about Audio Glitch: My Not-Yet-Online Radio Commentary on the Whitney Museum Expansion

What's an antiquities-collecting American museum to do?In one important respect, the American Association of Museums' Standards Regarding Archaeological Material and Ancient Art, issued yesterday, substantially differences from the standards announced on June 4 by the Association of Art Museum Directors. This may confuse the issue for U.S. institutions trying to do the right … [Read more...] about AAM’s New Antiquities Acquisition Standards: More Sweeping than AAMD’s

Members of New York's City Planning Commission (Amanda Burden, chair, in white), minutes before today's Whitney voteEmbraced on all sides by glowing adjectives, the Downtown Whitney expansion project was unanimously approved this afternoon by New York's City Planning Commission, which had heard nothing but accolades in testimony by community denizens and government staffers at … [Read more...] about Downtown Whitney Lovefest, Continued: City Commission’s Vote, CultureGrrl’s Radio Commentary UPDATED

Installation shot of "Lee Krasner: Little Image Paintings" at the Pollock-Krasner HouseI finally made the pilgrimage to the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in The Springs, NY, just a week after the opening of a great focus exhibition at the house: "Lee Krasner: Little Image Paintings, 1946-1950" (to Oct. 31), organized by Helen Harrison (seated above), director of the Abstract … [Read more...] about Vamping in the Hamptons: Pollock-Krasner House Gives Lee Her Due

I couldn't say this until I got my correspondent's permission this morning: The person who tipped me off late yesterday afternoon to the possibility that the University of Iowa might be thinking about selling its Pollock was none other than the marketing and media manager of the museum itself, Maggie Anderson......which bespeaks a real concern among museum staffers about the … [Read more...] about More on Iowa Pollock: University Museum Official Was My Tipster

Jackson Pollock, "Mural," 1943, University of Iowa Art MuseumIt's down-the-slippery-slope time again. Only this time that slope has been slicked by the Iowa floods. Brian Morelli of the Iowa City Press-Citizen reports:The Iowa state Board of Regents will conduct a study to determine the value of one of University of Iowa's most prized and expensive possessions.Regent Michael … [Read more...] about University of Iowa’s Pollock: Possible Source of Flood-Recovery Cash?

Sotheby's stock chart, as of 12:57 p.m. todayInvestors seem not to have loved what they heard in Sotheby's Tuesday announcement of its first-half results and its much more detailed elucidation of its finances in the Form 10-Q, filed yesterday. The auction house's publicly traded stock yesterday slid nearly 8% on a day when the Dow rose 40 points. Yesterday's filings provided … [Read more...] about Tales from the 10Q: Details on Sotheby’s Guarantees

What do art museum PR people do in their spare time?It isn't every art museum press officer who writes a book good enough to get favorable notice in the NY Times and the New Yorker. (Okay, maybe Lincoln expert Harold Holzer of the Met.)But Erin Hogan, director of public affairs at the Art Institute of Chicago, scored that coup with her Spiral Jetta (so called because it … [Read more...] about “Spiral Jetta”: Chicago Museum Spokeswoman’s Literary Coup

Both Sotheby's and Christie's managed to eke out small increases in the total sales (including both auction and private sales) for the first half of 2008 over that of 2007, and both (as was also true last year) were neck-and-neck. As a public company, Sotheby's (unlike Christie's) reports not only sale totals but also revenues, net income and earnings per share. Those figures, … [Read more...] about Auction Report, First Half of 2008: Mostly Sunny, Some Clouds

Gary Tinterow I come to praise Gary Tinterow, not to bury him. CultureGrrl readers know I've been periodically critical of the Metropolitan Museum's curator of 19th-century, modern and contemporary art. But in a laudable collection-sharing arrangement that we can only hope will proliferate more widely at the Met and other institutions, Tinterow has agreed to long-term loans … [Read more...] about Collection Sharing: Gary Tinterow Does It Right

David Galenson, University of Chicago economics professor Is Richard Hamilton's 1956 Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? (click and scroll down) the fourth-greatest artwork of the 20th century? Somehow, I doubt even the artist would make that claim.David Galenson's ranking of the importance of this and other 20th-century landmarks according to … [Read more...] about The “Richard Hamilton” Question: What is it that makes art rankings so appealing?

Glenn Lowry and Deborah Wye at Tuesday's Kirchner previewWhy has the Museum of Modern Art decided to give Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, a middling German Expressionist, the "first New York museum show devoted entirely to his work" (as decribed by the show's curator, Deborah Wye)? The chief focus of Kirchner and the Berlin Street, which opens to the public on Sunday, is an eye-popping … [Read more...] about Ronald Lauder’s Trophy Kirchner Gets MoMA Showcase