Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

The Cleveland Museum of Art today finds itself near "the room where it happens" (to quote from Broadway's "Hamilton"). Some convention-weary delegates and families will probably migrate there, seeking respite and cultural solace.   While awaiting further developments, the museum posted a mischievous tweet, which sparked this @ClevelandArt/@CultureGrrl exchange: … [Read more...] about GOP Stop? Cleveland Museum’s Convention Intervention

Should museum directors and curators parlay their nonprofit contacts into for-profit pursuits? The latest news in museum-to-market defections---last week's announcement that Eric Shiner, the five-year director of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, will leave Aug. 15 to join Sotheby's---is one of several eyebrow-raising transitions suggesting that the financial incentive and … [Read more...] about Shiner Whiner: Warhol Museum’s Director Joins the Flight from Museum to Market

The Brooklyn Museum dropped this bombshell in my inbox at 5:23 p.m.: Because of an air-conditioning outage, the Brooklyn Museum will be closed tomorrow, Friday, July 8 through Sunday, July 10. Our team is working around the clock to replace the damaged systems during this time. All museum collections are being constantly monitored and sensitive materials are being moved to … [Read more...] about Climate-Control Crisis Closes Brooklyn Museum

Journalists (including me) extracted only minimal information from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's press office about the "minimal" damage suffered by Warhol's celebrated "Triple Elvis [Ferus type]," 1963, on 100-year loan from the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection. But Neal Benezra, the museum's director, was more forthcoming when I caught up with him last week in … [Read more...] about Injured Elvis’ Secret Tryst with Conservators: SFMOMA’s Neal Benezra Tells All

I scooped the Museum of Modern Art on Twitter, regarding its observance of Pride Week. On Thursday, I tweeted about the museum's prominent display (in front of the picture window overlooking its Sculpture Garden) of the iconic "Rainbow Flag," as it is titled on its wall label. (The museum's collection website gives it a different name---"LGBT Flag.") Two days later, … [Read more...] about “Masterpiece of Design”: MoMA Flies Its Copy of “Rainbow Flag” for Pride Week; SFMOMA Marches!

In my post last week spotlighting the lack of transparency about the financial terms (collegial loan or money-making rental?) of the Museum of Modern Art's planned dispatch of some 150 masterworks for temporary display at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, I promised that if I learned more from the NGV, you'd learn more. Here's how a spokesperson from the … [Read more...] about “Commercial in Confidence”: National Gallery of Victoria Upholds MoMA’s Secrecy on Loan (or rental) Fees

This bombshell (in the form of an internal memo) has just been dropped by Thomas Campbell and Daniel Weiss, director and president, respectively, of the Metropolitan Museum. (Photos, text in italics and links are mine, not theirs): We wanted to share the news that Sree Sreenivasan will be leaving his position at the Met after three years serving as the Museum’s first chief … [Read more...] about Broken Link: Sree Sreenivasan, Metropolitan Museum’s Chief Digital Officer, to Depart

A lot of confusion ensued from this artnet post today, in which Brian Boucher reported: Artnews S.A., the Polish company that briefly published the New York-based ARTnews magazine and, even briefer still, Art in America, has filed for bankruptcy and liquidation of its assets, according to the Polish website Investments. Did this mean that ARTnews was going to fold? Not so, … [Read more...] about ARTnews Lives! (former parent company files for bankruptcy)

For museum junkies like me, the video below, produced by the Association of Art Museum Directors in connection with its 100th birthday, is a delight---not only for the contagious enthusiasm and astute insights of museum leaders from around the country, limning the value of the museum experience, but also, in my case, for the chance to reencounter many directors whom I've known … [Read more...] about “What Is an Art Museum?” Some 50 AAMD Members Tell Us (video)

Bye-bye, Joseph Roulin! The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, recently announced that it will be the exclusive venue for a multi-disciplinary installation of some 150 MoMA masterworks, June 8, 2018-Oct. 7, 2018. Fans of the home team are going to miss these heavy-hitters by van Gogh, Dali and Lichtenstein (top to bottom), among many others: If you … [Read more...] about Ruing Roulin: MoMA Lends (or rents?) Some 150 Works to National Gallery of Victoria

"We had an incident," Gary Garrels, SFMOMA's senior curator of painting and sculpture, told me last Friday when I encountered him in the fifth-floor galleries, only minutes after I had interviewed him in his office. He was answering my query as to why, less than three weeks after the expanded museum had opened, this Warhol room was closed to the public... ...while a … [Read more...] about “The King” Gets Dinged: Warhol “Triple Elvis” Roughed Up by SFMOMA Paparazzi

As you've probably guessed if you follow my Twitter feed (@CultureGrrl), I've neglected the blog because I've been traveling in the San Francisco area, where I spent two rewarding, if exhausting, days (Friday and Monday) in the generous, welcoming spaces of the expanded SFMOMA. The advantage of arriving after the scribe tribe has decamped lies in getting to see how the … [Read more...] about Warhol Damaged, von Rydingsvard Caressed: My Live Tweets on Unexpected Encounters at the New SFMOMA

Unlike the 2008 meltdown, there's currently no major economic recession in the U.S. to blame for the recent epidemic of belt-tightening by three major New York City art museums---the Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art and Brooklyn Museum. While the long-term viability of those institutions is not in doubt, a fourth---the National Academy Museum---intends to shut its … [Read more...] about Hard Times at NYC Museums: National Academy Homeless (with video); Staffing Cuts at the Metropolitan Museum, Brooklyn Museum, MoMA

One of my favorite parts of the Frick Collection's controversial expansion plans was the commitment to opening to the public the historic upstairs rooms where the Frick clan lived 100 years ago. Now that I've had the chance to climb those stairs, thanks to a tour that director Ian Wardropper offered to me and two other writers after yesterday's press lunch, my excitement has … [Read more...] about Frick Flick: CultureGrrl Video Tour of Off-Limits Upstairs Living Quarters at Frick Collection

While the annual meeting of the Association of Art Museum Directors (in Cleveland through tomorrow) focuses on ways "to increase diversity throughout the field," Kaywin Feldman, director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and former AAMD president, has noticed a major change among her fellow attendees at the directors' conclave. She tweeted this insight: Majority of … [Read more...] about “Tidal Wave of Change”: The Sudden Turnover of U.S. Art Museum Directors (towards contemporary)