Museums
Marion Maneker0May 01, 2012

Centre Pompidou Expands in Another Direction

After stalled attempts to expand to China and Saudi Arabia, the Centre Pompidou has announced a new initiative, according to The Art Newspaper:

The Centre Pompidou is looking to expand abroad with a chain of galleries that will carry the flagship French institution’s brand. Alain Seban, the president of the Centre Pompidou, says that museums, universities and even shopping malls could host exhibitions of items drawn from the Paris-based institution’s 72,000-strong collection of modern and contemporary art. Seban plans to establish a network of sites, each measuring around 2,000 sq. m to 3,000 sq. m, for periods of between three and five years.

Pompidou plans to go global: focus is Brazil, India, China (The Art Newspaper)

Museums
Marion Maneker0April 29, 2012

Does MoMA’s $51m in Acquisitions Make it Untouchable?

The Financial Times is full of tidbits this weekend, including this paragraph in their story about Sheena Wagstaff’s role at the Met where the writer happens to mention the size of MoMA’s acquisitions last year. What’s interesting to ponder is how MoMA’s $51m stacks up against Francois Pinault or Laurence Graff’s annual acquisitions budget:

Wagstaff has stressed that she would not seek to rival or duplicate the collections of MoMA, the Whitney and the Guggenheim. According to its financial statements, MoMA spent $51m on acquisitions in 2011. Veteran curator Robert Storr, dean of the Yale School of Art, says:“There is no way that any museum in the world can ever catch up with MoMA in terms of its encyclopedic holdings of classic modern and contemporary art, although some rival it in particular areas, like the Pop Art collections in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.

New Kid on the Block (Financial Times)

Museums
Marion Maneker0April 24, 2012

LACMA Crowd Sources $2.5m Worth of Rauschenberg, Sullivan & Others

Jori Finkel covers LACMA’s annual art-buying clambake where donors show their taste and commitment by voting for works and then putting their money where their convictions lie:

the L.A. County Museum of Art bought $2.5-million worth of artwork to add to its permanent collection, including two larger-than-life works: a 60-foot-long Robert Rauschenberg screenprint that shows a collage of newspaper articles from 1970, bought for $775,000, and a nearly 10-foot-tall elevator surround that Louis Sullivan designed around 1892 for the Chicago Stock Exchange Building, bought for $177,500. [...] At the gala, the 79 committee “members” — typically couples who bought tickets for the event  starting at $15,000 —got to vote on which artworks the museum would purchase, using a fund created by their ticket fees.

This year’s acquisition pool was $1.1 million, with $384,000 more raised Saturday night by an auction. As has increasingly been the case with this annual collecting event, individuals donors also stepped forward to pledge more money — about $1 million in all — for particular works they liked.

LACMA buys seven works, led by Rauschenberg and Sullivan (Culture Monster/LA Times)

Museums
Marion Maneker0April 23, 2012

Nasher Museum “Cooked” Under Reflection of Nearby Tower

D Magazine has an extensive story on the building of Dallas’s Museum Tower which is skinned in reflective glass that has begun to dramatically effect the Nasher Museum and its gardens:

As Museum Tower’s glass facade expanded, its reflections began to cook plants in the Nasher’s garden. A study commissioned by the Nasher shows that reflected light is affecting not just the Nasher but also the Dallas Museum of Art, Hunt Oil Tower, and the soon-to-open Klyde Warren Park over Woodall Rodgers. The first two have dealt with the assault by drawing blinds; it remains to be seen how the park, which is closer to Museum Tower, will fare. [...] The Nasher’s computer modeling found that the reflectivity of the glass creates patches of radiation that are 150 percent more intense than normal direct sunlight. Imagine the Sun growing to two and a half times its size. Direct measurements taken on a cloudless, 78-degree March day showed that the reflected light raised the lawn’s temperature to 103 degrees. For most plants, 115 degrees is lethal. Even at much lower temperatures, they can sustain damage if temperatures fluctuate too quickly for them to adjust. The direct measurements were taken after the March 7 meeting, but the Nasher’s report based just on computer modeling was clear: the year-round reflections posed a threat to both the galleries and the garden. To a lesser extent, they affect other parts of the Arts District. And, given the size of the garden and the special nature of Piano’s roof, there was no viable solution at the Nasher for the problem.

The Towering Inferno (D Magazine)

Museums
Marion Maneker0April 09, 2012

Israel Museum Joins Art Project as Google Expands

Bloomberg has an interesting story on the expansion of Google’s Art Project. Some museums, like the Israel Museum, have grasped the program as an opportunity to expand awareness of their collection and promote familiarity with the institution. They even see it as bit of marketing:

The Israel Museum has already put the Dead Sea Scrolls online and they were seen by 1 million visitors from more than 200 countries in about three days. The next step in collaboration was “almost a marriage of the moment,” James Snyder, director of Israel Museum, said in an interview.

Art Project is still in its infancy. It still lacks the necessary density to be a visual reference tool along the lines of Wikipedia. Fears of Google’s submerging an museum’s identity may be one reason benchmark institutions like the Louvre have not joined. Nonetheless, don’t expect to see too much Contemporary art on the service any time soon. Amit Sood, the creator of the Art Project, puts forward a dubious idea that has already gotten Google into trouble in the publishing world where the company went to libraries to digitize the works of authors who still held copyright.

“Out of pure coincidence we’ve reunited the three versions of Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘The Bedroom’ in one place,” said Sood, who came up with the idea for Art Project two-and-a-half years ago and now heads a team of seven people in London, including former employees of the Met and the Tate.

By striking deals only with the museums, and not with artists, their heirs nor foundations, Google avoids having to deal with copyright issues, Sood said. The company has included image security technology in the database to protect the photos, he also said.

Collectors, Museums
Marion Maneker1March 19, 2012

When Nicholas Met Michael . . .

The incomparable Jori Finkel profiles the media-genic Nicholas Berggruen (he’s turned this ascetic Billionaire schtick into a serious “branding” statement.) She explains that Berggruen has embarked on a long-term relationship with LACMA and Michael Govan. However, Berggruen doesn’t want to be Govan’s only beau, so he’s playing hard to get:

“I’ve been doing this very cooperatively with LACMA, so the artists are artists that Michael likes and the works are ones he likes,” said Berggruen, who became a museum trustee in 2008 with encouragement from friends like Broad and video game mogul Bobby Kotick. “I want to give this all to LACMA.”

The list consists of Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelley, Charles Ray, Chris Burden, Bruce Nauman, Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Martin Kippenberger and Thomas Schütte. Apart from Nauman, who now lives in New Mexico, all are either Californian or German; most are on the edgier end of the contemporary art spectrum. Five are represented by the Gagosian Gallery.

[...] Asked about his contribution to the acquisition list, Govan described it a bit differently than Berggruen did. “Just to be clear, this is not my list of artists, it’s Nicolas’ list,” he said. “It’s very much his personal sensibility.” [...] But as Berggruen readily volunteers, he has not actually given any of the works he has bought to LACMA. Nor have any pledges been signed. [...]  ”I’ve been very upfront with Michael. I’ve been very, very transparent. I want this to end up with LACMA, but LACMA should not be one person’s efforts; there should be four or five people who really contribute to give it the depth and critical mass and texture it needs to be really vibrant. If that happens, my donation makes sense. If it never gets there, it won’t,” he calmly explained that day at LACMA.

Nicolas Berggruen explains why he intends to give art to LACMA (Los Angeles Times)

Museums
Marion Maneker0March 15, 2012

Getty Buys a Little-Seen & Sometimes-Doubted Watteau

The Getty sent out this press release today:

The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today the acquisition of The Italian Comedians (ca. 1720) by Jean-Antoine Watteau (French, 1684–1721). The large oil painting (50 7/8” x 36 ¾“) was painted at the height of Watteau’s fame, shortly before his early death at age 36.

“This major, little-known painting is extraordinary. It shows Watteau at the height of his creative genius,” said James Cuno, President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust. “Not only will it enhance our paintings collection, but it complements the Museum’s collection of French decorative arts, which is amongst the finest in the world.”

The Italian Comedians joins 18th century French paintings already in the Getty Museum’s collection by artists such as Nicolas Lancret (1690 –1743), Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699–1779), and Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714–1789), all of which have been acquired in the last decade.

The Italian Comedians has been in private collections since the 18th century and has not been publicly exhibited since 1929. Over the last three centuries, its attribution has fluctuated. Until the late 19th century, the painting was attributed to Watteau. It was then assigned to Watteau’s pupil Jean-Baptiste Pater and subsequently to an anonymous painter in the circle of Watteau. Although the attribution has changed over time, the artwork has always been praised for its brilliant composition and emotional power and associated with Watteau’s psychologically profound depictions of the Italian Comedians.

“Although not all scholars agree about the attribution, they are all in accord that the canvas is brilliantly conceived, emotionally compelling, beautifully painted, and by an artist at the top of his form,” adds Schaefer. “We believe that the only artist able to rise to this level of accomplishment was Antoine Watteau, and that he executed the entire painting.”

No price was given for the acquisition. But the Los Angeles Times’s Mike Boehm did a little background work:

“The Italian Comedians” was last displayed publicly at a Paris museum in 1929. It resurfaced last April, in a major sale by heirs of Paul-Louis Weiller. [. . .] Experts for the auction house Gros & Delettrez billed “The Italian Comedians” as a work from around 1720 by the “French school … circle of Antoine Watteau.” Reporting on the auction last April, the International Herald Tribune said it had sold for 1.56 million euros — about $2 million — a price 20 times the auctioneer’s top estimate.

“La Surprise,” a Watteau painting of lovers embracing while a musician prepares to serenade them, fetched $24.4 million at a London auction in 2008, setting a record for an 18th century French artist.

Getty Buys What It Believes to Be a Watteau Painting (Los Angeles Times)

Museums
Marion Maneker0March 15, 2012

Here’s Something Else for Barnes Defenders to Freak Out About

The New York Times profiles the museum architects Billie Tsieh and Todd Williams fingering their decision to re-create, not replicate, the interior of the Barnes Foundation in Merion. For those who consider it a crime that the foundation is being moved to a more accessible location, the idea that Barnes’s vision might be altered in any way ought to provoke storms of outrage.

Why they’re not outraged that the art is imprisoned in Barnes’s matrix is another matter entirely. Here’s the Times on the changes Tsieh and Williams made:

In Merion, the galleries flow from one to another, meaning visitors can see not only items in the room they are in, but items in adjacent spaces.

Mr. Williams and Ms. Tsien had no problem installing the new galleries in the same sequence. But they decided to “open up” the new building, by inserting a reading room, a classroom and a sunken garden court into the procession of small spaces. That means that, in some cases, the rooms won’t open directly into one another, as in the existing museum.

During a recent interview, Ms. Tsien said they worked to make sure those new rooms wouldn’t be jarring to visitors. “They were meant to be a gentle breath; we don’t want them to be a hurricane,” she said.

As for the galleries themselves, Mr. Williams said that they considered trying to enlarge them, even by just a few inches, to make them feel more spacious.

But the paintings can’t change size, Mr. Williams noted. “So if we enlarged the rooms, the relationships between the paintings” — the relationship that Albert Barnes was focused on — “would start to fall apart,” he said.

For the New Barnes, Everything Old is Old Again (New York Times)

Featured, Museums
Marion Maneker0March 12, 2012

LACMA’s Levitated Mass Is Bigger Than the Rock

At times it seems like LACMA’s installation of the sculptor Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass is the work of art itself. Each twist and turn of the 340-ton stone’s delivery has become a public event.

But the estimable William Poundstone has the foresight to explain that we’ve hardly begun to appreciate the size and impact of this work of art. He has pictures of the trench that will hold the rock:

The Rock has been getting all the attention, but there’s another, larger component of Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass. It’s the so-called Slot, the 456-foot long trench that will run beneath theRock. The Slot has been all but invisible during its construction, cordoned behind netting and chain-link fence. [...] It appears that Heizer is leveraging the “haunted shack” principle in the Slot. We tend to experience the angles of human constructions as right and true even when they’re not. [...] The downward journey through the Slot will likely be experienced as approximately horizontal. This misperception may help “levitate” the Rock, perceptually speaking. The bottom of the Slot will be a great room with maybe ten feet of air between your head and the Rock. Worried about it collapsing in the Big One? It will have 10 feet to accelerate before it crushes you. I know, the engineers swear it can’t happen. The Sublime isn’t about what happens, it’s about what you think might happen.

The New York Times deemed the delivery worthy of a local color piece:

Tom LaBonge, a Los Angeles City Council member, turned to the museum director, Michael Govan, and patted him on the arm. “Good job,” he said.

Mr. LaBonge said the installation was worth the considerable effort and expense that have raised some eyebrows at a time of such austerity. “Look around you, look how this brings out people,” he said. “This will be a big magnet here at L.A.C.M.A.”

The scene on Miracle Mile was reminiscent of the excited and diverse crowd that has come out at night to watch the convoy as it zigged and zagged through the region. There were cameras, baby strollers, folding chairs, politicians and other people of every race and economic class. The was also a surfeit of rock puns: Someone was even playing “We Will Rock You” as the truck passed La Brea Tar Pits.

In Long Beach the other night, people lined the streets and waited for hours to be rewarded by what Alexis Dragony praised as the “extraordinary and flawless maneuver of the rock” making a turn. “We cheered as it negotiated the corner,” she said. “It was truly performance art.”

Heizer Slot Unveiled (Los Angeles County Museum on Fire)

Lights! Cameras! (and Cheers) for a Rock Weighing 340 Tons (New York Times)

Museums
Elena Soboleva0March 06, 2012

‘iennial’ Guide to New York

As Armory week is upon us and art loving visitors flock to the city from all over the globe, a rare cosmic alignment is occurring;  there are three collective ‘iennals’ simultaneously on view in New York.

For those who have limited time and wish to grasp what’s going on in the art scene, here is a guide which summarizes everything you need to know what to expect of each and to decide which ‘iennial’ is right for you.

(Handy downloadable pdf of the guide is available below.)

Iennials Guide

 

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