Clik here to view.
The Shocking Cooper Hewitt, Part Two
Aside from the maltreatment of its beautiful historic building, which I wrote about here nearly three weeks ago, something else is deeply wrong with the new incarnation of the Cooper Hewitt National...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What If Britain Hadn’t Taken the “Lion Hunt Reliefs”?
Hard as it is to believe, many people visit the British Museum and entirely miss the great seventh-century B.C. Assyrian lion hunt reliefs. I know, not only because some people have written that to me...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Something Good To Say About MoMA
You hear so much about museums seeking out young audiences, the audiences of the future. It’s tiresome, actually, and that quest ignores another giant portion of the country’s population–seniors....
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Brooklyn, The Whitney…Oh My! (Or, While I Was Away…)
I didn’t actually post here at RCA that I would be away for about a week around the Memorial Day weekend, so I am sure that it looked as if I was perhaps speechless last week when major announcements...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Museum Pictures To Warm Your Hearts
In the United States, many museum-goers I know are perturbed by the hordes of school children that sometimes descend on museum galleries, talking loudly, paying no attention to others trying to enjoy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Crystal Bridges Makes A Few Announcments
When it come to art purchases, there could be a “Crystal Bridges” watch–it seems to me that the museum in Bentonville built largely with Alice Walton’s and the Walton Family Foundation’s money is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Met’s Coming Rebranding: A Puzzlement
It’s no secret that Thomas P. Campbell has been working overtime to make his Metropolitan Museum* different from the one he inherited from Philippe de Montebello. And the change has been dramatic–some...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Broad Museum Answers Back
Several days ago, I asked here if any other art museums in the U.S. were spending as much money buying art as the Crystal Bridges Museum. I had added up the announced purchases over the past year or so...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Artless” In America: Why?
What irony. And what a contradiction. Here we are in an era when paintings and sculpture regularly make national headlines and television newscasts for selling at sky-high prices and, at the same time,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
When Is A Sanction Not A Sanction?
The answer, it seems, is when one member of the sanctioning organization decides to ignore the punishment meted out to an offending member. I am talking about the Delaware Art Museum, which was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun And Games In Art Museums
There is absolutely no point in saying something isn’t offensive if you’re not a member of the offended class, but let me say right off that I don’t quite understand the uproar over letting visitors...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On The Road: The Maine Art Museum Trail
If you ever have the opportunity, drive the Maine Art Museum Trail. Did you even know there was a MAMT? Or that it includes eight institutions around the state, from the Ogunquit Museum of American Art...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Museum Innovation With Legs–And Twists
Way back in September 2010, I applauded an innovative initiative by the Detroit Institute of Arts, but noted that I thought more could be made of it. Now, I learn these five years later, more has been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Art Review, In Passing, Reveals A Recurring Museum Problem
Aside from what Roberta Smith said in last Friday’s New York Times about The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi, now on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (she called it “superb”), she made a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Now This, For A Big Museum, Would Be Experimental
You rarely hear about a contemporary watercolorist setting the world ablaze with a traffic-stopped gallery show or museum exhibition. Or, for that matter, setting auction records. And let’s face it, in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Softening” The Museum Brand
I couldn’t find a press release on the museum website about this, but a couple of newspapers recently reported that the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is changing its name. And I did find, on the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
WSJ Masterpiece: The Taj Mahal, As I Saw It
Even if you have never been to the Taj Mahal, you have a picture of it in your mind, right? It’s a full frontal view, and it’s unquestionably beautiful. But there is more to this marvelous, yes,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tom Krens: At It Again?
Tom Krens, the museum consultant formerly known as the director of the Guggenheim Foundation and booster of multi-branch museums, has always lived by the philosophy of “Go Big or Go Home.” Now, he is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Common Sense From Gary Vikan
Maybe retirement, if that’s what Gary Vikan–former head of the Walters Art Museum–had entered, loosens inhibitions. Vikan’s editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal may not have been written if he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What I Learned This Summer: Philadelphia
I’ve been visiting a lot of museums this summer, on more than my usual share of travels. Sometimes I’ve picked up ideas worth sharing–for example, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There, Discovering...
View Article
