Archives for April 2009

Edward de Vere, from an engraving by J. Brown after G.P. Harding, 1575 I know you're all probably expecting a complete and abundantly illustrated report on my recent trip to Iowa. Patience, art-lings! Right now my thoughts stray to Elizabethan England. That's because Saturday's Wall Street Journal featured a front-page article devoted to one of my cherished notions---the … [Read more...] about Who Was Shakespeare? The Supreme Court’s (and my) De Vere Verdict

Yesterday, when I arrived at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, IA, to see the about-to-open installation of highlights (including the monumental 1943 Pollock) from the collection of the flood-shuttered University of Iowa Museum of Art, the television crew for KCRG was on the scene. In the online description of their report about the UIMA exhibition, A Legacy for Iowa, I became … [Read more...] about The Pollock Stops Here: CultureGrrl’s Debut on Iowa TV

In her Mar. 26 NY Times article (scroll down) describing the planned deaccessions by the Montclair (NJ) Art Museum, Carol Vogel reported:Officials at Montclair were quick to say that the proceeds from any sale of art would go ONLY [emphasis added] toward purchasing other works, a practice that is consistent with the Association of Art Museum Directors policy. But James Panero, … [Read more...] about Montclair’s Multi-Tasking Art Endowment: The Guggenheim Did It First

Pamela White, interim director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art, poses in front of her museum's Pollock "Mural" at the Figge Art Museum, with Figge's executive director, Sean O'Harrow I made friends (and probably some enemies) in Iowa with my posts (here, here, here, and here) about the University of Iowa Museum of Art's (thus far) successful effort to prevail over … [Read more...] about I ♥ the Heartland: Speaking Gig at University of Iowa (Pollock Country); Rebuttal to Zaretsky

So what did I think of Younger Than Jesus? I was enjoying a number of artists on the second floor (especially four brief video clips by Romanian artist Ciprian Muresan, including the hilarious "Untitled [Shoe Laces]), when my husband, who knows never to call me in a museum, buzzed me to say that my sister-in-law's mother, of whom I was very fond, had just died.Not a direct hit, … [Read more...] about My Own Bad News at the New Museum

My daughter and her boyfriend on a recent visit to the New Museum---two "millennials," as the new show calls their generationToday is likely to be a non-posting day (except for this hasty entry), because I'm attending the press preview of the New Museum's Younger Than Jesus ("The Generational"). After that, I'm attending my own "generational"---my father's 95th birthday!I'm … [Read more...] about “Younger than Jesus”: A Press Orgy at the New Museum!

Entrance to the inaugural show last September at Christie's Haunch of Venison gallery in New YorkWhile we're on the subject of displays with museum-like pretentions that have mounted by commercial galleries and auction houses (such as Sotheby's current Steve Cohen show), I recently learned about the sudden flight of two former museum professionals from the New York branch of … [Read more...] about More on Nonprofits’ Commercial Imitators: Haunch of Venison Loses Two Ex-Museum Professionals

Two helpful readers advised me to take note of the date (Apr. 1) of David Gill's bus-banner post on his Looting Matters blog (which I highlighted here), making me realize that my decision to stop blogging so feverishly has come none too soon! One of my gentle helpers, a postdoctoral fellow at the Getty Villa, made me feel only slightly less stupid:This is actually the second … [Read more...] about Bus Stop: CultureGrrl Gets April Fooled

Those who think I've been too blatantly self-promoting should get a load of what my British blogging buddy, David Gill, has just done to call attention to Looting Matters, my go-to source for cultural-property news. Do you think I could plaster some CultureGrrl banners on NYC vehicles, as David has done in London?"Stop messing about"?!? I guess my NYC equivalent would have to … [Read more...] about Adventures in Blogdom: “Looting Matters” Takes the Bus; “Art Tribune” Editor Muzzled; the “Exhibitionist” Bares His Knuckles UPDATED

Joachim Pissarro, who is both MoMA's adjunct curator and Steve Cohen's paid advisor, extolling the virtues of the collector and his collection at Sotheby's (David Norman, Sotheby's co-chairman of Impressionist & Modern Art, listens on left.)Are commercial galleries and auction houses the new museums?Lisa Dennison, Sotheby's chairman in North and South America (who, as … [Read more...] about Sotheby’s Steve Cohen Show: Auctioneers and Dealers Become Pretend-Museums

The Deaccession Diva (aka CultureGrrl), warbling at the MANY/UHA conference in TarrytownI'm a strong believer that the time has come for forceful state legislation, enforced by State Attorneys General, to regulate museum disposals from the public's patrimony. The traditional posture of museums has been that they can regulate themselves and that politicians should not interfere. … [Read more...] about Legislating Deaccession Policy: Brodsky Bill Musings at NY Museums Conference

The banner at the defunct Salander O'Reilly GalleriesMeandering yesterday to the Frick Collection's Norton Simon show from the Sotheby's press preview for its Steve Cohen Show, which seemed more a promotion for Sotheby's than for Steve, I passed perchance (I picked up that word from the Cohen catalogue's turgid essay) right by the formerly palatial digs of Larry Salander's … [Read more...] about Salander’s Ruined Art Showplace Becomes Decorators’ Show House

I feared it was only a matter of time before Regina Hackett, a refugee from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (now online only), started sniping at me on my home turf, ArtsJournal, whose roster of bloggers she recently joined. On her now defunct "Art to Go" blog, she delighted in periodically taking personal potshots at me. So it was today (in a post to which I won't link), when … [Read more...] about Hackett’s Hatchet Job: CultureGrrl Gets Nicked

Since I told you that you simply MUST see the Philadelphia Museum's landmark Cézanne and Beyond show, I must let you know that it's just been extended beyond its original May 17 close date. You now have through May 31 (including Memorial Day) to catch curator Joe Rishel's consummate tour de force (or see it a second time). This gives new life to one wag's early title for the … [Read more...] about Cézanne and Beyond (…and beyond…)…and UPDATED

Carmine Branagan (left), director of the National Academy, showing CBS-TV's Martha Teichner an Eakins (top) that her museum still owns, during a recent edition of the "Sunday Morning" showIn my role as Deaccession Diva at this week's NY State museums conference (organized for relatively small-sized institutions), I played to a full house (or, more accurately, crowded room) … [Read more...] about My “Desperation Deaccessions” Performance and Carmine Branagan’s Walk-On Role