Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

Taking a page from the problematic playbooks of the Berkshire, Everson and Baltimore museums, the Greenville County Museum of Art (GCMA), South Carolina, has become the latest poster child for deplorable deaccessions. Below is the "poster"---a painting by the vibrant colorist, Alma Thomas, sold privately by the GCMA to an anonymous buyer for $2.8 million (as reported last week … [Read more...] about Doubting Thomas: Greenville County Museum Sells “Alma’s Flower Garden” in a Non-Transparent Transaction

In my previous report on Syracuse University's Deaccessioning After 2020 virtual symposium, I highlighted a few eyebrow-raising comments by a new crop of museum directors and curators [and their attorney-enabler], "who have embraced social and political progressiveness..., even if that means sacrificing important artworks acquired by distinguished predecessors in order to … [Read more...] about Syracuse Musings: Words of Wisdom (or not) from Panelists at the Deaccession Symposium

Although last week's Syracuse Symposium was nominally about Deaccessioning After 2020, it was mostly focused on the new museum imperative---advancing DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Access) by any means possible, even at the cost of dismantling, monetizing and redefining the "permanent" collection to further those sociopolitical goals. So what's wrong with that? For … [Read more...] about Obtuse in Syracuse: How the University’s Deaccession Symposium Got Compromised by Conflicts of Interest

What this week's Deaccessioning After 2020 symposium, on Zoom from Syracuse University, should ponder (but probably won't) is a proposal that art disposals by museums be formally regulated. Museum professionals have instinctively recoiled at the thought of government interference in their activities, insisting that they can police themselves. But from the National Academy in … [Read more...] about What Should Be on the Syracuse Symposium’s Agenda: The Urgent Need for Museum Deaccession Regulations

Is the "slippery slope" on the verge of becoming even more treacherous? In conversations with its members this week, the Association of Art Museum Directors discussed whether the organization should consider (not immediately enact) an indefinite extension of the two-year relaxation of its time-honored deaccession guidelines, which had prohibited the use of art proceeds for … [Read more...] about AAMD’s Deaccession Dilemma (& the Met’s Equivocations)

The Metropolitan Museum's controversial consideration of adopting the Association of Art Museum Directors' relaxed deaccession standards has now become a fait accompli: As the Met's spokesperson confirmed to me yesterday, the museum's board at its meeting this week "updated [its] guidelines to align with the temporary AAMD policy." That policy allows proceeds from art sales to … [Read more...] about Cue the Regulators! Met’s Deaccession Regression Attracts the Critical Eye of NYS Attorney General’s Office CORRECTED

The Metropolitan Museum's premature revelation that it might take advantage of the Association of Art Museum Directors' relaxed deaccession standards, by selling art to help pay for "care of the collection," was an object lesson in how not to roll out a controversial, temporary policy change. The predictable chorus of condemnation that ensued caught the attention of NPR's … [Read more...] about Pandemic Polemics: Metropolitan Museum’s Off-Key NPR Message vs. Cleveland’s Harmonious Storage Show UPDATED

We haven't reached the promised land. We've got a long way to go. The above marching orders, alluding to the words of Martin Luther King Jr.'s last speech, are the last words of the widely praised HBO documentary, Black Art: In the Absence of Light. They were spoken by the late art historian and artist David Driskell, whose landmark 1976 exhibition, Two Centuries of Black … [Read more...] about “Black Art’s” Blackout: Who’s Absent from HBO’s Survey of “Today’s Top African American Artists”?

I once impetuously declared that Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art since 2006, was "worth a million bucks." But the shocking images of the demolition of four buildings from a museum that I've admired and enjoyed during my visits to LA over several decades jolted me out of the trance that had kept me under the influence of LACMA's charismatic … [Read more...] about Can a New LACMA Rise from the Rubble? Quaffing Michael Govan’s Kool-Aid

LACMA has now fleshed out its cryptic response to my questions sent last weekend about the possible impact of the nearby tar pits on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's sweeping capital project. Consulting with its building team to provide more detailed answers to my follow-up questions, Jessica Youn, the museum’s interim communications director, sent me this: ROSENBAUM: … [Read more...] about Another Dip into the Viscous Pit: My Q&A Follow-Up on LACMA’s Crane Drain

In decades of covering new, expanded and renovated museum buildings, I've mostly refrained from "reviewing" a building that hasn't gone up yet. That's why I've hung back from weighing in on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's self-destructive (literally) capital project-in-progress, which has now leveled most of the museum's longstanding buildings (designed by William … [Read more...] about Govan’s Folly? Stuck in the LACMA Quagmire

Laura Baptiste, the Smithsonian American Art Museum's (SAAM's) always helpful chief of communications and public affairs, found herself fielding misinformation disseminated in a number of news reports after Wednesday's Presidential Inauguration festivities. She scrambled to set the record straight about Robert Duncanson's suddenly famous “Landscape with Rainbow,” after several … [Read more...] about Looking for a Fugitive Rainbow—a Very Transient “Gift” to the Bidens

In a jolting inauguration installation, marred by unintentionally dark symbolism that, hopefully, wasn't discerned by the Bidens, this afternoon's celebration after the joyful swearing-in of the new President and Vice President included a brief walk through the Capitol rotunda led by Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Am I the … [Read more...] about Ominous Juxtaposition? Biden Flanked by Duncanson’s “Rainbow” & Statue of a Murdered President

Throwing caution to the winds, the Metropolitan Museum today went beyond the more measured words of a few other museums in its angry call to "bring to justice those responsible" for the "criminal actions" at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The Met's official Statement on Capitol Desecration, signed by Daniel Weiss, president and CEO, and Max Hollein, director, began with this … [Read more...] about Capitol Offense: Metropolitan Museum Blasts “Domestic Terrorism” by “Treasonous Rioters”

This was a week when blogging-as-usual struck me as irredeemably frivolous. Trying to promulgate commentary about art and the artworld seemed fatuous, at a time when our nation's adherence to the rule of law, reason and humane values (and even its very existence) seemed at stake. Shell shocked and blocked, I found unexpected inspiration to continue my life as CultureGrrl … [Read more...] about The Architect of the Capitol Assesses the Damage: Our Nation’s Art & Architecture (if we can keep it)