Off to Orlando: Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference

I’m about to powwow with my betters at the national conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors. Even Bill Keller, the executive editor of the NY Times (who is soon to step down), is scheduled to be there! (How come his successor, Jill Abramson, hasn’t started tweeting yet?)

Still, among the panelists on Digging Culture: The fine art of investigating the business of museums and collectors (scroll to the 12-1 p.m. sessions), I’m the only one whose primary beat is actually culture. I guess that I’ll bring some useful perspective.

Below are some of the works I’ll be speaking about on Friday, as I discuss my reportorial strategies for getting to the bottom of dubious deaccessions, desperation deaccessions, and that old standby, deplorable deaccessions.

If you’ve been a devoted CultureGrrl reader, you’ll know what these paintings are, and the stories behind them (but perhaps not the details of my reportorial strategies in uncovering information about them, which is the focus of my talk and accompanying tipsheet).

How many of these can you identify? (Relative sizes below do not conform to the relative sizes of the actual paintings.) If I get the chance, I’ll give you the answers in a subsequent post from the brutally hot Sunshine State.

FYI, I’m still $25 short in my “Send CultureGrrl to Orlando” challenge. I suppose, art-lings, that I’ll just have to shell out two tens and a five of my own money to pay for my two-night hotel stay and my chance to sit at the “Digging Culture” table with Ralph Frammolino and the LA Times‘ Jason Felch (both of Chasing Aphrodite fame), as well as the Washington Post‘s Smithsonian sleuth, James Grimaldi.

Or you could still pleasantly surprise me, by tickling my “Donate” button before I depart.

Let’s see: 91° and muggy. That sounds like today in New York!