Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

In the process of ‘destroying’ the artwork, a new one was created. So said Sotheby's after the infamous Banksy shredding, trying to ennoble the egg on its face as Eggs Benedict. But the last benedict-ion belonged to the artist himself, in the form of his "Director's Cut" video posted last week on YouTube (and embedded in my post, below), wherein he punctures the red balloon of … [Read more...] about Puncturing Bunkum: The Subtext of Banksy’s Subversive “Director’s Cut” (with video)–Part IV

Parts I & II are here and here. I really wanted to put the Banksy Prank behind me, moving to more substantive matters (like recently opened exhibitions that have engaged or vexed me), but the Sotheby's plot thickened on Friday with a revelation by Jan Dalley, arts editor of the Financial Times (FT), that suggests the likely identity of the seller of "Girl with Balloon" … [Read more...] about Latest Words on the Banksy Caper (& seller)–Part III

Part I is here. In case you thought that Sotheby's BalloonGate couldn't get any crazier, this just in from Sotheby's London: The winning bidder on Banksy’s "Girl with Balloon" offered at Sotheby’s last Friday has confirmed their decision to acquire the new work that was created that night, as part of the canvas passed through a hidden shredder seconds after the hammer fell. The … [Read more...] about Banksy’s Hanky-Panky at Sotheby’s, Part II: Can you Create a New Work by Shredding an Old One?

The Metropolitan Museum had just announced that its next Costume Institute extravaganza will be Camp: Notes on Fashion, May 9-Sept. 8, 2019. (Rest in Peace, Susan Sontag.) The good news is that the show won't usurp the museum's permanent-collection galleries, upstaging the Met's own treasures (as the just closed "Heavenly Bodies" annoyingly did). "Camp" will vamp in the … [Read more...] about Where’s Cher? Is Mackie Too Tacky? Metropolitan Museum Goes “Camp” for Costume Institute Show

Parts II, III and IV are here, here and here. Banksy's elaborately orchestrated send-up of the auction market---contriving to have his $1.4-million "Girl with Balloon" self-mutilate at the fall of the hammer on Friday at Sotheby's London---is the subversive gift that keeps on giving. Here's Sotheby's image of the painting (which might have been more appropriately titled, … [Read more...] about Banksy’s Hanky-Panky at Sotheby’s: Letting the Hot Air Out of Punctured “Balloon”—Part I

In my August 2015 CultureGrrl post that recounted my encounter with Donald Trump (whom I interviewed in 1974 for this article in the NY Times Sunday Real Estate section), I expressed my astonishment at the puff piece about the young mogul-to-be, written by Times reporter Judy Klemesrud and published two years after my piece had appeared. To my even greater astonishment (and … [Read more...] about When CultureGrrl Met Young Donald, Revisited in Light of the NY Times’ Exposé

While Congress and President Trump continue to kick the budgetary can down the road, federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities remains temporarily intact, with its future in doubt. With the federal government's 2019 fiscal year having begun Monday, NEA and NEH are among the many federal programs operating under a … [Read more...] about Termination or Continuation? Parsing the Uncertain Status of Federal Arts & Humanities Appropriations

As an admirer of the late Jack Whitten's paintings, I welcomed the chance to see his little-known, previously unexhibited wood sculptures and mixed-media assemblages now on view in the Met Breuer's Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963–2017. But the considerable pleasures to be derived from this admirable show were partly undermined by its subtle but substantive commercial … [Read more...] about Jack Whitten’s Sculpture Show Uncovers his Secret Strengths (& the Met Breuer’s Hidden Weakness) CORRECTED

My 2011 Museum Musical Chairs post now has an unexpected sequel---the "Frick Breuer." As foreshadowed in my recent interviews with Ian Wardropper and Max Hollein, their respective directors, the Frick Collection and the Metropolitan Museum have just announced (here and here) that the Met hopes to decamp from the Whitney Museum's former flagship building in 2020. The Frick … [Read more...] about Museum Musical Chairs (again): Frick to Sublease Building That the Met Leases from Whitney

In preparing for my recent interview with Max Hollein, the Metropolitan Museum's tech-savvy new director, I decided to revisit the museum's app, much ballyhooed four years ago, but disappointing when I recently app-lied it in the galleries. To my surprise, I discovered that the app's been zapped. (Read the black box at the bottom of my screenshot, below.) In June, … [Read more...] about Technical Corrections: Metropolitan Museum Zaps Its App; SFMOMA Cans App’s Claptrap UPDATED

Max Hollein, the Met's new director, who spoke confidently and compellingly during our informal NYC lunches while he was directing three Frankfurt museums, twice surprised me in the space of one week with his uneasy, hesitant delivery during introductory remarks at two recent press previews (Jack Whitten last Wednesday; Delacroix today). He even seemed tense during a 25-minute, … [Read more...] about Holistic Hollein: A Halting Conversation with the Metropolitan Museum’s New Director

Now you can: On its Facebook page, Rio de Janeiro's Museu Nacional (National Museum) of Brazil (whose plight I have detailed here and here) has posted an "action list" of ways in which concerned museum lovers can participate in what the devastated institution optimistically calls "the reconstruction of the museum." It's not clear when (or even if) that … [Read more...] about Call to Action: Want to Help the Fire-Ravaged National Museum of Brazil?

WARNING: The video below (posted yesterday on Twitter) of the fire-ravaged interior of what was once the National Museum of Brazil (now largely reduced to rubble) may induce nausea and is not for the faint-of-heart: Inside the @MuseuNacional this morning. "The silence is like a thunder", in the words of @umac_icom Secretary Marcus Granato, who sent me the video #RiodeJaneiro … [Read more...] about Reduced to Rubble: Video from Incinerated Interior of National Museum of Brazil (plus: the aftermath)

By now you have probably heard about the after-hours fire that yesterday ripped through the entire Museu Nacional (National Museum) of Brazil. The night guards in that eminent Rio de Janeiro institution reportedly escaped safely; the collections did not. Here is the 200-year-old museum, in better times: An editorial today in O Globo, the Rio-based newspaper, called … [Read more...] about Museum Inferno: Lessons from the Hellish Devastation at National Museum of Brazil

Road Trip! That was my enthusiastic response to the press release and the advance publicity for the Yale Art Gallery's summer exhibition, Leonardo: Discoveries from Verrocchio’s Studio (to Oct. 7). Since another Leonardo "discovery" has been much in the news of late (including this recent twist, questioning its authorship), the show has more topicality than the museum's … [Read more...] about Yale’s Intriguing “Leonardo” Examination Gets a Grade of “Incomplete”: Few Leonardos, Many Photos