Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

Those, like me, who were caught off-guard by the astonishing deal (now awaiting court validation) cut last month by the Berkshire Museum and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey feel justifiably blindsided by the AG's about-face. With scant explanation, she pivoted from a seemingly adversarial stance towards the museum's deaccessions of the cream of its collection to … [Read more...] about Why Did the Attorney General Cave in Berkshire Museum Case? My Q&A with the Rockwells’ Lawyer

While the Berkshire Eagle's Larry Parnass rushes off to file his story on the just concluded court hearing on the Berkshire Museum's art-sale plans, let's interpret what we've learned from Larry's live tweets on how the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court proceedings went. No decision or course of action was proffered today by Justice David Lowy, who could allow the art … [Read more...] about Berkshire Museum in Court: Pointed Questions, No Resolution (plus, a push for a deaccession law)

Coming to a boil this week, the heated controversies over the fate of endangered collections at two small, little-known museums pose a huge potential threat to museums around the country. And there's only one sure way to arrest this downward spiral. Tomorrow (Tuesday) at noon, an hour-long cy près hearing will be held by Justice David Lowy in Massachusetts Supreme Judicial … [Read more...] about Court Hearing/Protest Demonstration: Crucial Week in Berkshire/La Salle Deaccession Deliberations

"He's a giant. We are all basking in the glow of his legacy." So said Kent Kleinman, Cornell University's Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, as quoted in a Cornell Chronicle article about architect Richard Meier's visit to his (and my) alma mater. "For him to come back and share his life as an architect with the next generation of architects is really an … [Read more...] about Fallen Giants: Richard Meier at Cornell University & the Getty Center (and other besmirched luminaries)

In a statement approved unanimously by those attending its Mar. 6 meeting, the Faculty Senate of La Salle University, Philadelphia, blasted the proposed sale through Christie's of 46 highlights of from the collection of the institution's art museum. The proceeds would go towards implementing a five-year strategic plan, "Momentum: 2022," that the university says will "position … [Read more...] about “Plundering the Art Museum”: La Salle University Faculty Senate Blasts Planned Art Sales (full text) UPDATED

My belated visit to the three-month-old Museum of the Bible (MOTB) during my recent Washington sojourn began inauspiciously and went downhill from there: When I asked the woman at the ticket counter where I should begin my journey through the galleries, she advised that I skip the top floor and work my way down from the floor below. I wisely disobeyed those instructions, … [Read more...] about Bible Bumble: Copy Confusion Muddles Museum of the Bible

In a tweet today, Joanne Pillsbury, the Metropolitan Museum's curator of the Arts of the Ancient Americas, called attention to one of two miniature objects that caught my eye (perhaps for the wrong reasons) at yesterday's press preview for Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient America, which received deserved acclaim during its recent run at the Getty … [Read more...] about Far Out! Psychedelia at Metropolitan Museum’s “Golden Kingdoms” (with video)

In case you still have an appetite for more about the Obama portraits unveiling and installation, here's my series of live tweets from the scene: … [Read more...] about My Live Tweets from the Obama Portraits Event: Eclectic Crowd, Controversial Art

In pithy new blurbs, the National Portrait Gallery's revamped and reinterpreted "America's Presidents" installation strives to tell each former officeholder's "unique stories of both triumph and failure" (in the words of the introductory wall text). The individual labels for the portraits of our 44 previous chief executives explore both the heights and depths of their terms in … [Read more...] about “Respect” Not “Hagiography”: How National Portrait Gallery Sizes Up Obama & His Predecessors

More on this here. "It’s kind of amazing to think that [the Obama portraits] will be living next to the other portraits [emphasis added] of all of the other presidents and first ladies," Rujeko Hockley, assistant curator at the Whitney Museum, gushed in an interview with The Nation about the latest presidential commissions by the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait … [Read more...] about Obama Drama: Unveiled, Hung and Exiled (with video)

Read it and weep. The Massachusetts Attorney General has acceded to a plan for the Berkshire Museum to sell as many of its 40 deaccessioned works as necessary to come up with the $55 million that it says it needs for endowment and capital projects.  Already spoken for is the most valuable and beloved of those works, Norman Rockwell's "Shuffleton's Barbershop" (below). … [Read more...] about Berkshire Debacle: The Attorney General Caves

Nobody can have been shocked to learn that the White House had no interest in the Guggenheim Museum's provocative offer to lend Maurizio Cattelan's golden throne, instead of the van Gogh that the museum had requested. The Gugg's goofy gaffe, which Nancy Spector, the museum's artistic director and chief curator, surely knew was a non-starter when she dispatched her written … [Read more...] about The Guggenheim’s Potty Humor: What Art is Flowing to Trump’s White House? UPDATED

It looks like an agreement may be in the works (subject to court approval) between the Berkshire Museum's trustees and the Massachusetts Attorney General, regarding the museum's controversial deaccessions. Details are to be revealed in Massachusetts Supreme Court on Friday "or shortly thereafter." That's when the parties plan to file a joint "petition for judicial relief," … [Read more...] about Berkshire Museum Saga: Proposed Agreement to Resolve Art-Sale Dispute Expected Soon in Court UPDATED

The Metropolitan Museum's just opened Thomas Cole's Journey: Atlantic Crossings (to May 13) is easy on the eyes and a balm to the spirit. But it also sounds a warning that gained new resonance with President Trump's did-he-really-say-that moment in the State of the Union address on Tuesday, when he unexpectedly extolled "beautiful clean coal." Cole's coal is more bane than … [Read more...] about Cole’s Roles at Metropolitan Museum: Hudson River School Progenitor, Environmentalist Precursor

In yesterday's post, I predicted there would be "a lot of thinking about the unabated deaccession crisis at the midwinter meeting of the Association of Art Museum Directors, which begins next Monday in San Antonio"... ...or maybe not. A museum director who is attending the meeting leaked to me the three-day schedule (with speakers' bios) that he has received (a version … [Read more...] about AAMD’s Midwinter Agenda: Auction-House Presentation, but No Deaccession Deliberation? UPDATED