Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

Whether by sheer coincidence or deliberate plan, New York City is currently the venue for simultaneous ambitious museums shows featuring works from the collection of one of the two art-collecting sons of late cosmetics magnate Estée Lauder. While both displays (five blocks apart on Fifth Avenue) are well worth a visit, the concept and execution underlying each of them couldn't … [Read more...] about Lauders’ Orders: Sibling Rivalry at Leonard’s & Ronald’s Dueling Shows at Metropolitan Museum & Neue Galerie

Call me "the Covid Coward." For someone whose recent writings have focused chiefly on museums---their missions, their practices, their holdings and the people who manage them and visit them---I've spent regrettably little time inside their galleries again this year (like last year), trying (successfully, so far) not to become another casualty of Tridemic Triage, which has … [Read more...] about The Year in CultureGrrl, 2022 Edition: Cowering, Glowering and Flowering

On this day, when the NY Times has published a compilation of Notable Deaths, one of the artworld's most noteworthy losses---James ("Jamie") Houghton, 86---has been consigned to the classified obits: The long recital (in the above clip) of his interests and accomplishments (including "danc[ing] a mean two-step" and singing "Broadway show tunes") barely mentions his leading … [Read more...] about James (“Jamie”) Houghton, 86, the Metropolitan Museum’s “Exemplary” Board Chairman

Talk about "damning with faint praise"! Philippe de Montebello, after bowing out gracefully, at the end of his long, legendary reign as the Metropolitan Museum's director, has rarely (if ever) allowed himself the latitude to pass judgment on his successors' actions. So hats off to Robin Pogrebin of the NY Times for eliciting a barely veiled (and needed) corrective from … [Read more...] about Philippe de Montebello’s Left-Handed Compliment for the Metropolitan Museum’s Gutsy Guston Gambit

"I’m excited to announce a major show opening in May, which I will say can only happen at the Met," Max Hollein, the Metropolitan Museum's director, said yesterday at a press reveal of plans for upcoming exhibitions. Actually, it was Christie's auction house that made the first (oblique) public announcement about the Met's potential blockbuster---Van Gogh's Cypresses---to … [Read more...] about Annenberg’s Ghost Rises from the Grave (as threatened) to Haunt the Met’s Show of “Van Gogh’s Cypresses”

In the wake of last month's Paul Allen sales at Christie's and William Paley dispersal at Sotheby's, market observers were left to ponder two imponderables: ---What philanthropies will receive the proceeds from the record-smashing sales of Paul Allen's trove at Christie's? The exasperating answer is: Nobody (except the principals) knows for sure. ---Did the Paley … [Read more...] about The Paul Allen & William Paley Dispersals: Questions Raised by the 2 Star Consignments at the Fall Auctions

It's about time. An international list of 94 major museum directors have signed onto a Nov. 9 statement (translated into four languages) deploring "Attacks on Artworks in Museums." The statement and names of signatories were published on the website of the German National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). Welcome (but overdue), this corrective … [Read more...] about 94 ICOM Museum Heads Decry Attacks by Activists on “irreplaceable objects” that “must be preserved”

In a nauseating story that just won't die, the Wall Street Journal today chimed in (to the tune of 1300 words) on climate activists' gloppy food attacks that are besmirching museum masterpieces (which I have roundly debunked---here and here). Like the other journalists who have joined the chorus, WSJ art-market reporter Kelly Crow has given credence to those who have seen fit … [Read more...] about Splat! The Museum Food-Fight, continued: “Wall Street Journal” Weighs In (& so do I)

In my previous post, I promised to transcribe the audio for my un-aired radio interview with NPR's Chloe Veltman regarding the messy (potentially art-harming) climate-change protests in art museums. Mistakenly believing that she had sent the audio to me (at my request) for my own use, I had posted my own audio bar with an excerpt from my NPR-recorded comments. I was then told … [Read more...] about Cannon Fodder: Transcript of My Killed Comments for NPR on “Souped-Up” Art & Climate-Change Protesters

I had planned to refrain from commenting on the tomato soup-flinging and mashed potato-smearing that's recently been creating messes in art museums. To my mind, these are illogical, misdirected attacks, whose intended targets were not van Gogh, Monet and Vermeer (whose perches were besmirched in London, Potsdam and the Hague, respectively), but the fossil-fuel companies that … [Read more...] about Messy Messaging: Conflating Art Vandalism with Activism in the Campaign to Stop Climate Change UPDATED TWICE

I did a doubletake on Tuesday when an email from Sotheby's hit my inbox, grandly promoting "The Greatest Private Collection of Baroque Masterpieces Assembled in Modern Times," as the auction house described its Fisch Davidson offerings---10 selections from the collection assembled by Mark Fisch and Rachel Davidson. Leading off the announcement was a hyperbolic blurb from that … [Read more...] about Donors’ Divorce: Metropolitan Museum’s Loss Is Sotheby’s Gain, as Fisch Davidson Trove is Dispersed

With this week's 11th-hour settlement of a rancorous labor dispute, the Philadelphia Museum of Art was able to host a peaceful opening day (today) for museum visitors "from the region" (does New Jersey qualify?) of its eagerly anticipated Matisse in the 1930s. No longer will art lovers have to worry about dodging protesters, crossing picket lines or enduring insults shouted by … [Read more...] about Philadelphia Flier? Director Hopes to “Move Ahead Together,” from Vitriolic Rhetoric to “Matisse Please!”

It's getting harder to take the Association of Art Museum Directors seriously as an arbiter of professional standards. Long regarded as the definer and defender of art-museum ethics, AAMD has compromised its credibility and its claim to authority by crushing to quicksand its formerly bedrock principle regarding collection management: Having repeatedly maintained that the … [Read more...] about Deaccession Regression: AAMD Smashes Its Bedrock Principle

I was saddened by the recent news that Dimitrios Pandermalis, 82, the guiding spirit behind the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, had died---not only because he had always graciously answered my pesky questions and had been a kind, informative host when I visited Greece as an invited speaker at the 2008 "Athens International Conference on the Return of Cultural Objects to their … [Read more...] about Dimitrios Pandermalis, Acropolis Museum’s Devoted Champion, Dies (but Campaign to Reunite Marbles lives)

Reading Wednesday's announcement from the World Monuments Fund (WMF) of a plan "for the creation of new high-resolution digital documentation of the Cave of Altamira" took be back to one of my favorite journalistic jaunts ever---my firsthand exploration (for a 2001 Wall Street Journal review) of the original cave's famed 14,500-year-old wall paintings, followed by a … [Read more...] about Mirroring Altamira: Plan for High-Res Digital Documentation of Prehistoric Cave (plus: my own visits)