Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

This is not how amicable resignations usually happen: The Dallas Museum of Art today announced that its director of less than four years, Maxwell Anderson, "has stepped down [emphasis added] as director of the DMA to take on the position of director of grant programs at the [Paris-based] New Cities Foundation in New York." In other words, he has already left, with no … [Read more...] about Sudden Departure: Max Anderson Precipitously Leaves Dallas Museum Directorship

The Museum of Modern Art's use of technology (including its Audio+ museum tours and its hyperactive, frustrating-to-navigate website) could certainly use improvement. But promoting from within may not be the best way to achieve that. MoMA today announced the appointment of Diana Pan, its director of technology and applications since 2009, to be its chief technology officer, … [Read more...] about Tech Trauma: MoMA’s New Chief Tech Officer, Plus More on Museums’ Digital Disasters

Part I is here. We interrupt our two-part interview with Salvador Salort-Pons, the Detroit Institute of Arts' new director (effective Oct. 15) to bring a news bulletin regarding his predecessor, Graham Beal: Michigan State University announced last week that Beal will remain in-state for this academic year, as MSU's visiting Hannah Distinguished Professor, "the most … [Read more...] about Rethinking Displays: My Q&A with Salort-Pons, Detroit Institute’s New Director—Part II

Part II is here. In an appointment reminiscent of the Art Institute of Chicago's elevation to its directorship of Douglas Druick and the Metropolitan Museum's appointment of Tom Campbell to its top spot, the Detroit Institute of Arts today named an inside candidate with solid art credentials, Salvador Salort-Pons, 45, to become its 11th director, effective Oct. 15. He succeeds … [Read more...] about $600-Million Endowment?!? My Q&A with Salort-Pons, Detroit Institute’s New Director—Part I

No good deed goes unpunished. That adage seems sadly apt when it comes to collector/philanthropist Eli Broad, whose eponymous downtown Los Angeles museum, opening Sept. 20, has already sustained potshots from leading art critics, giving new symbolic meaning to the signature dent in its Diller Scofidio + Refro-designed façade: Beginning with a display of some 250 selections … [Read more...] about The Broad Broadsided: Critics Take Aim

In the annals of art auction guarantees for a single consignor, this one may well set a record. In its Form 8-K SEC filing yesterday, Sotheby's reported this about its upcoming sales of more than 500 works from the estate of its former chairman, A. Alfred Taubman: On Sept. 2, 2015, Sotheby’s entered into an arrangement with the Estate of A. Alfred Taubman (“the Estate”) … [Read more...] about Whopping Risk for Sotheby’s: Some $500 Million Guaranteed to Taubman Estate

I know that I saw a landmark show of wit and whimsy yesterday, but I'm not entirely clear on exactly what was there: To be sure, there were lots of things that I recognized (and many others that I was glad to discover) in the Museum of Modern Art's sweeping Picasso Sculpture (Sept. 14-Feb. 7). But making sense of it all was something of a chore, because this sprawling … [Read more...] about MoMA’s “Picasso Sculpture” Blunder: Mr. Lowry, Put Up Those Labels!

In my recent travels to art museums, I've spent far too much time gazing at digital screens instead of the art. That's because I've been researching an article for tomorrow's Wall Street Journal (online now) analyzing museums' use of technology to enhance the gallery experience. My article's unsung hero is Stephanie Cunningham, one of the Brooklyn Museum's group of educators … [Read more...] about “Inadequately Explained, Exasperatingly Dysfunctional”: My WSJ Piece on Tech in Museums

I had a did-he-really-say-that moment early last month, when listening to Sotheby's CEO Tad Smith woo stock analysts during the auction house's second-quarter conference call: Smith, new to Sotheby's, glowingly cited the late A. Alfred Taubman, the auction house's criminally convicted former chairman, as a role model. Taubman had done jail time for his role in the darkest … [Read more...] about Trumpeting a Strumpet; Slammer to Glamor: Modigliani & Taubman Faceoff in Auction Wars

Belatedly, because I just got there on Saturday, I'm joining the "Hamilton" chorus. One of the many mind-blowing strengths of Lin-Manuel Miranda's explosive rap opera is that it resonates on so many levels for so many different theatergoers. It certainly strikes a chord with the young: Every actor's rap aria was followed by loud, appreciative "woo-hoos!"---not your … [Read more...] about “Hamilton’s” Universal Appeal: A Writer’s Writer, Immigrant’s Immigrant (& a Christie’s Market Tie-In)

Could architect David Adjaye be in play to design the planned Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side? He was, after all, the choice of Thelma Golden to design the new home (on the old site) for the Studio Museum of Harlem, which she directs. Golden is a recent addition to the board of the Obama Foundation, which is responsible for all aspects of the plans for the … [Read more...] about Adjaye in Play? What’s Behind Worldwide Search for Obama Center’s Architect?

The lionization of the late dealer in dicey antiquities, Robert Hecht, on the occasion of the publication of his memoir, apparently struck a nerve with the Getty Museum's ex-curator of antiquities, Marion True: In her recent interview with Washington Post reporter Geoff Edgers, True again vented her bitterness about how she had been left to twist slowly in the wind by her … [Read more...] about True-isms: Marion True, the Getty’s Sacrificial Ex-Curator, Vents Again

Memo to Philip Kennicott and Kriston Capps: Get over it! These two estimable Washington, DC-based art writers have gotten bent out of shape over the decision by Melissa Chiu, director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden since September, to hold a 40th-anniversary gala in New York, where she had directed the Asia Society Museum from 2004 until her Hirshhorn … [Read more...] about Chewing Up Chiu: Thin-Skinned DC Critics Feel Snubbed by Hirshhorn’s NYC Fundraising Gala

Trying to interpret the underlying meaning of Ai Weiwei's enigmatic and sometimes contradictory pronouncements since he traveled to Germany from China is like trying to decipher the cryptic pronouncement inside a fortune cookie. The more Ai Weiwei speaks to Western media, the more people struggle to interpret his ambiguous words. Today he told Noah Barkin of Reuters that … [Read more...] about Reading the Tea Leaves: What is Ai Weiwei Thinking? UPDATED

UPDATE: Ai Weiwei retweeted and favorited my tweet that links to the post below. Does that constitute an endorsement? In what many will see as an excess of empathy for those who harshly punished him, Ai Weiwei, who promptly flew to reunite with his son and his son's mother in Germany, after being reunited with his passport, gave a revealing interview with Joerg Haentzschel, … [Read more...] about Ai Weiwei Watch: International Travel Plans, Sympathy for His Tormentors UPDATED TWICE