Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

In my Friday post about those said to have "acquired" the $450.3-million Leonardo da Vinci, I suggested that the convoluted "Salvator Mundi" story was still developing and hard to predict. Sure enough, a mere two hours after my post appeared, Kelly Crow and Summer Said of the Wall Street Journal added a new twist: The Leonardo da Vinci painting acquired for $450.3 million … [Read more...] about More “Mundi” Conundrums: Exactly Who Paid the Leonardo’s Princely Price (and why)?

In a court filing today that made public previously impounded documents, the Berkshire Museum provided an inside look at auction-house/consignor dealings that are usually confidential. The filing includes the text of the agreement wherein the museum consigned for auction 40 works from its collection that were to be sold in a series of (now postponed) sales. (The consignment … [Read more...] about Deal Revealed: Berkshire Museum Makes Public Its Consignment Agreement with Sotheby’s UPDATED

Another bizarre twist has been added the convoluted tale of the modern odyssey of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi," bought anonymously at Christie's on Nov. 15 for $450.3 million. The latest news, posted today on Christie's website, is this: And here's this morning's tweet from the Louvre Abu Dhabi: Louvre Abu Dhabi is looking forward to displaying the Salvator … [Read more...] about “Mundi” Conundrum: Latest Head-Spinning Chapter in Tangled Trajectory of Leonardo’s “Salvator Mundi”

The legal jousting in the Berkshire Museum case continues: The State Attorney General's Office has filed a new motion in Massachusetts Appeals Court, seeking "to extend the current injunction and stay until Jan. 29, 2018." The AGO says it is still waiting for a complete response to its request for a wide variety of documents that are listed in two letters to the museum's … [Read more...] about Attorney General Asks to Extend Preliminary Injunction Preventing Berkshire Museum Sales

With the area's surrounding streets and nearby freeway closed to traffic due to rapidly spreading wildfires that are approaching (but so far have not reached) the Getty Center, the Getty today is staffed by only "essential personnel"---mainly its security staff. But Ron Hartwig, the J. Paul Getty Trust's veteran vice president for communications, intrepidly reported for duty … [Read more...] about “Essential Personnel”: My Q&A with Getty’s Communications VP on the Approaching Wildfires UPDATED

I sometimes worry about housing some of the world's greatest cultural treasures (including those from major loan shows) in a building that's located on a fault line (prompting special precautions in how objects are installed), and in an area that has been prone to wildfires. Speaking of which, this just in from the Getty Museum's Twitter feed: Due to continuing smoke from … [Read more...] about Playing with Wildfire: Getty Museum Closed Due to Smoke in the Region

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems obvious that the Metropolitan Museum, under Tom Campbell's directorship, got way ahead of itself in making ambitious plans to undertake a $600-million makeover of its Southwest Wing for modern and contemporary art and to assume (for at least eight years) the operation and programming of a large additional facility---the former home of the … [Read more...] about Unsettled at the Met: Breuer Building, Southwest Wing, Director’s Search

UPDATE 11/30: For some reason, my "Donate" button stopped working earlier today, which I discovered after wondering why last night's flood of responses (thanks so much!) had stopped cold today. ArtsJournal's tech gurus have now vanquished the gremlins. If your attempt contribute was thwarted, please try again (after reloading my blog page). Since losing my decades-long Wall … [Read more...] about Beggar Blogger: Please Support CultureGrrl UPDATED

In her recent NY Times piece, Robin Pogrebin provided an upbeat assessment of the Metropolitan Museum's financial progress, as conveyed to her by president and CEO Daniel Weiss in a wide-ranging interview. Arriving as president in July 2015 with a mandate to clean up the Met Mess, Weiss expanded his portfolio after the departure of director Tom Campbell, who had left the place … [Read more...] about Dan’s Plans, Redrafted: Revelations in Metropolitan Museum’s FY17 Annual Report CLARIFIED & CORRECTED

With surprising disregard for the facts, the Boston Globe's editorial writers yesterday flatly (and wrongly) asserted that the Berkshire Museum needs to sell "40 of the museum’s most valuable works" in order to "remain viable." There's no excuse for this ill-informed take on the controversy over the museum's deplorable deaccessions, given the exhaustive examination of the … [Read more...] about False Dichotomy: Boston Globe’s Deaccession-or-Die Editorial on the Berkshire Museum UPDATED

Last night's Contemporary Art sale at Christie's, headlined by a certain very non-contemporary religious painting, was a hard act for Sotheby's to follow. It did interpose its own anomalous lot to jazz things up---a red Ferrari. For the most part, though, the offerings tonight were less than spectacular and the bidding was mostly slow. The action was more lively for the … [Read more...] about “Sotheby’s Drudgery”: My Live Tweets on a Contemporary Art Sale Short on Excitement

While we're all still coming to terms with the fact that a damaged 26" x 18" oil-on-walnut painted panel has just sold for $450.3 million, here's a potential scoop that is based on some data, intuition, circumstantial evidence and my attempt to get confirmation: I have reason to believe that Kenneth Griffin, the Chicago hedge fund mogul, may have bankrolled yesterday's … [Read more...] about Did Ken Griffin Buy the Leonardo (or provide $$$ for Art Institute of Chicago to acquire it)? UPDATED

That surely wasn't the Getty or any other public (as opposed to single-collector) museum who plunked down a jaw-dropping $450-million after a dramatic 19-minute bidding war, the likes of which I've never seen, to acquire Leonardo da Vinci's damaged but still mesmerizing "Salvator Mundi." The bidding lurched from steady, small increments to vertiginous jumps, as the vying … [Read more...] about “Ballsy Bidding”: My Live Tweets on Leonardo’s (& Christie’s) $450-Million Jesus Superstar

"It belongs in a museum, with all the other Leonardos." So said conservator Dianne Dwyer Modestini at the end of a Wall Street Journal video posted early this morning, in connection with tonight's much-anticipated and highly hyped auction at Christie's of "Salvator Mundi." Here's Christ at Christie's, as seen by me at the Nov. 3 press preview: The WSJ's video of … [Read more...] about Apparition’s Condition: Will a Museum Buy Leonardo da Vinci’s Unsettling “Salvator Mundi”?

I was as surprised as you probably are that Al Jazeera, with its focus on international news (particularly as it relates to the Arab world), was interested in talking to me for a segment about the Berkshire Museum's deaccession controversy. But a camera crew journeyed to my New Jersey apartment to get my views for their broadcast that aired yesterday---"U.S. Judge Halts … [Read more...] about Strange Interlude: Al Jazeera Interviews Me About the Berkshire Museum (with video)