Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

In authoring articles for a major newspaper, no journalist---not even a highly regarded veteran like Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page---should be exempt from the exacting scrutiny of fact-checkers, particularly when trying to navigate through territory outside the writer's usual stomping grounds. In venturing outside of politics (and … [Read more...] about Henninger’s Non Sequiturs: Wall Street Journal’s Deputy Editor Blunders Through Clumsy Cultural Commentary

In my review of Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight, which opened in September 2016, I praised the Whitney Museum for organizing it, but I took it to task for waiting too long: Given her centenarian status, I was astonished by the Whitney Museum’s decision to schedule its Carmen Herrera show to open more than a year after the Whitney had unveiled its new facility. I felt the show … [Read more...] about Minimalist Paintings, Maximal Life: Carmen Herrera, Belatedly Appreciated, Dies at 106

Knowledgeable experts must have been more than a little perplexed by the description published in The Art Newspaper (TAN) on Jan. 11 (and republished by CNN Style, an editorial partner of TAN), regarding Botticelli's "The Man of Sorrows," which sold at Sotheby's on Jan.27 for $45.4 million. One veteran conservator of old masters, having read published comments by Christopher … [Read more...] about Material Confusion: Anachronistic Pigments in Botticelli’s “Man of Sorrows” Are Explained as “Restorations”

In Sotheby's recap of its "Masters Week," headlined by the $45.4-million sale on of its much-touted "late masterpiece by Botticelli," the auction house noted that the painting was "previously believed to be produced by the artist’s students [but] in 2009 the Städel Museum in Frankfurt reattributed it to Botticelli, in part due to technical analysis conducted by Sotheby’s … [Read more...] about Questions (& Conflicting Answers) About the $45.4-Million “Reattributed” Botticelli

When I last wrote (here and here) about the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the place was in an unseemly state of administrative disarray: Its internationally respected but locally embattled director, Nathalie Bondil, having been summarily fired on July 13, 2020 from her 13-year position at the helm of the museum, fired back with a lawsuit seeking $2 million (Canadian dollars) in … [Read more...] about Unsettling Settlement: Montreal MFA & Bondil (Museum’s “Profoundly Hurt” Ex-Director) End Their Legal Dispute

As you have probably by now heard, Faith Ringgold's panegyrical painting, titled: "For the Women's House" (short for: "Women's House of Detention"), is now being repurposed from a source of aspiration for female inmates to an attraction for Brooklyn museumgoers. According to Zachary Small's NY Times report (online today), the artist believes that this is "absolutely wonderful. … [Read more...] about Brooklyn Museum Strikes Gold with Ringgold (but misgivings dull the luster)

The Metropolitan Museum's pandemic-related "Emergency Relief Fund" (ERF), parsed by me in this post, was just one of several recent aberrations in that financially challenged museum's erratic money-management maneuvers. In my decades of scrutinizing the Met's annual reports, I've never seen one as anorexic as the Annual Report for Fiscal 2021 (ended June 30). Usually a hefty … [Read more...] about Finagled Finances: A MetMuseum-ologist (me) Fleshes Out Our Premier Museum’s Anorexic Annual Report

Meet the New Year. Same as the Old Year. My riff on "Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss"---the cynical sign-off of The Who's counterculture anthem, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”---is my summation of our situation at the end of 2021, with our lives still on hold at year's end, as they were at the beginning, and with pestilence having taken its grim toll. Those of us who were … [Read more...] about The Year in CultureGrrl, 2021 Edition: Searching for Signs of Intelligent Life in a Covid-Clouded Universe

The chief raison d’ètre for The African Origin of Civilization, the Metropolitan Museum's homage to "cultural diversity" (as its wall text terms it), is that it provides display space for some of the museum's outstanding works of African art that have been displaced by the Rockefeller Wing's temporary status (until 2024) as a construction zone. Opening in conjunction with the … [Read more...] about “African Origin” Show’s Shortfalls at Metropolitan Museum: Facile Face-Offs, Repatriation Equivocations

As a NYC cultural journalist and critic for more than five decades, I've covered many landmark events at the Metropolitan Museum. But my excitement on Monday, when I was on hand for yet another celebratory Met occasion, was tempered by my fear of being infected at what looked likely to be major Covid-spreading event. Double-masked, I hung back from the main crush, which … [Read more...] about Metropolitan Museum’s Rockefeller Wing Keeps Its Name, Refreshes Its Approach

Having already announced the renaming of its Southwest Wing, to the tune of $125 million, the Metropolitan Museum today has bestowed upon itself seven more renaming opportunities. This just in from the Met's press office: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and descendants of the late Dr. Mortimer Sackler and Dr. Raymond Sackler today announced that seven named exhibition … [Read more...] about Sacklers Sacked: Metropolitan Museum Strips Their Names from 7 Exhibition Spaces

At some cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum, naming rights can have expiration dates. That famously happened with the renovation of the former André Meyer Galleries for the Metropolitan Museum's 19th-century European paintings, and it looks like it's about to happen at the Met again: Move over, Lila Acheson Wallace! It seems that the late co-founder and … [Read more...] about Oscar Tang Dynasty: Met Renames Wing for $125-Million Donor & Ups Its “Emergency Relief Fund” to $100 Million

The Brooklyn Museum, which on Monday announced its landmark gift of a whopping $50 million from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (with Brooklynite Mayor Bill de Blasio personally delivering a giant check designated for "Gallery Improvements"), prides itself on the diversity of its audience and programming. But how diverse is its staff? Or, to ask that … [Read more...] about The Brooklyn Museum’s $50-Million Windfall & Its Diversity Deficiency CORRECTED

Prado museum downgrades Leonardo's $450m Salvator Mundi in exhibition catalogue I rubbed my eyes in disbelief at the above headline from Martin Bailey's recent piece in The Art Newspaper (republished Tuesday by CNN Style without a paywall). Since when, I wondered, had Spain's national museum become an arbiter of Leonardo attribution? If nothing else, Bailey's report provided … [Read more...] about “Mundi” Fun Day: The Prado Joins “Salvator’s” Detractors; Modestini, Its Restorer, Again Argues It’s a Leonardo

I paid a belated visit to the Metropolitan Museum's Modern Times: British Prints, 1913–1939 on Monday, having already published a post expressing my skepticism about the advance hype for the museum's "transformative acquisition" of the "renowned collection." What I saw confirmed my conjecture that the size of the acquisition from the Leslie & Johanna Garfield … [Read more...] about Pucker Up: Skittish About the British at Metropolitan Museum’s Prints Stint UPDATED