Granted, the Whitney gives you other benefits (hey, it comes in black too!) for your $75, along with this “limited edition,” commissioned from Jenny Holzer, as the museum describes it. (Is this “edition” numbered?)
But why have NYC cultural organizations suddenly decided that what we all need is artsy tee shirts? As a NY Philharmonic subscriber, I was amused when this hit my inbox two weeks ago:
Bid on T-shirt Autographed by Dudamel and Zukerman
Wasn’t the autograph of the NY Phil’s own music director-designate, Alan Gilbert, good enough? Gustavo Dudamel is the music director-designate of the away team.
Alan Gilbert at a recent Philharmonic event, where he explained to subscribers why Schoenberg and Webern are good for them. (The riskiest programming gambit next season is actually the large number of compositions by Magnus Lindberg.)
But wait, there’s more:
The purchaser [of the Dudamel shirt] will receive a Letter of Authenticity signed by the Philharmonic’s President and Executive Director, Zarin Mehta.
A letter of tee-shirt authenticity! Who could possibly resist? Just about everyone, apparently. As Judith Dobrzynski reported on her nascent ArtsJournal blog, Real Clear Arts, “No bidding contest ensued. Just one bid, the minimum $100, was made when the auction ended.” The hundred smackers benefited the orchestra.
Judy, I know what went wrong: Remember when you wrote your series about art fraud on eBay for the NY Times? This tee shirt wasn’t really “autographed.” It was merely initialed! At least they should have come up with a more attractive photo. (Couldn’t Zarin find an iron?):
Maybe I need to hawk the CultureGrrl tee shirt. I’ll even throw in an autographed photo. (In the meantime, many thanks to the faithful reader from Penn State who today clicked my “Donate” button!)