The Year in CultureGrrl, 2022 Edition: Cowering, Glowering and Flowering

Call me “the Covid Coward.”

For someone whose recent writings have focused chiefly on museums—their missions, their practices, their holdings and the people who manage them and visit them—I’ve spent regrettably little time inside their galleries again this year (like last year), trying (successfully, so far) not to become another casualty of Tridemic Triage, which has disproportionately winnowed the ranks of seniors like me.

As a practical matter, this extreme caution restricted what I could write about to things that could be gleaned without being seen: CultureGrrl this past year has been focused primarily on issues and controversies that have gotten more fraught this year because of the financial, staffing and programming tolls exacted by the virulent viruses. This has imparted a sickly cast to much of my coverage—so much so that one loyal reader—a veteran dealer—asked to be removed from my subscribers’ email blast because I had “managed to see only the negative side of every single effort in the art world.” That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but point taken: I need to get out more!

Counterbalancing this reality check have been the unsolicited expressions of warm appreciation that I’ve received from several notable readers, encouraging me to believe that what I’m doing still has value (at least for some).

I’ve also derived great satisfaction from admiring the work of an emerging artist who paints with intense concentration:

But enough about me and my progeny. Without further ado, here’s the Year in Review: CultureGrrl’s Top 20 Stories for 2022, in chronological order:

Finagled Finances: A MetMuseum-ologist (me) Fleshes Out Our Premier Museum’s Anorexic Annual Report

Minimalist Paintings, Maximal Life: Carmen Herrera, Belatedly Appreciated, Dies at 106

Ukraine’s Pain: How the Artworld Has Responded (and how you might too)

Increased Cultural Isolation of Russia: Hermitage’s International Board of Museum Leaders Is Suspended

Whose Gaze Is It? Dueling Carpeaux Shows at the Met & Cleveland Museum Take Liberties with Black Liberation

Fallout from the Major Spring Sales: Auction Houses Win, Art Museums Lose

It’s Not Over Until Deaccession Diva Sings: How the Major Spring Auctions Went Tone-Deaf for Museums

Manic Depressive: Why the Hyperactive Art Market is Not Cause for Celebration

Philadelphia Museum’s Surprising Transition: From Experienced Leader to One with a Learning Curve

Weiss Flight: The Challenges Confronting the Metropolitan Museum’s Next President

Garish, Gaudy, Goofy: Seeing Double from Metropolitan Museum’s “Chroma” Clones of Ancient Statues

Wholly Hollein’s: The Metropolitan Museum’s Director to Add CEO to His Title

Not a Zero-Sum Game: Protecting Ukrainians While Taking Steps to Preserve Cultural Sites & Property

Paul Allen’s Dicey “Legacy”: From Museum Exposure to Private Ownership?

Repatriation Ruminations: How Can US Museums Stop Hemorrhaging Art?

Impaling Paley: MoMA, “Entrusted” with the Broadcast Mogul’s Collection, Violates His Trust

Deaccession Regression: AAMD Smashes Its Bedrock Principle

Cannon Fodder: Transcript of My Killed Comments for NPR on “Souped-Up” Art & Climate-Change Protesters

The Paul Allen & William Paley Dispersals: Questions Raised by the 2 Star Consignments at the Fall Auctions

Annenberg’s Ghost Rises from the Grave (as threatened) to Haunt the Met’s Show of “Van Gogh’s Cypresses”

A NOTE TO MY READERS: Now that you’ve finished making your tax-deductible donations for 2022, please consider making a non-tax deductible contribution to support CultureGrrl via PayPal, by clicking the “Donate” button in the righthand column of the desktop version or by scrolling down to the “DONATE” link in the mobile version. Contributors of $15 or more are added to my email blast for immediate notification of new posts.

Have a HAPPY, HEALTHY 2023!