Six from Six Hundred
From 600 artists’ submissions, six artists were chosen by the directors of the Mattress Factory (PA) to work in residence at the museum for the months of September and October. The result: their site-specific works will be on display in “Factory Installed” through May 2012.
Book Club Spurs Interest
In the far reaches of Wyoming, the Nicolaysen Art Museum kicked off the first meeting of a new book club with a discussion of author Steven Biel’s American Gothic: A Life of America’s Most Famous Painting. The club, which is free and open to museum members, will meet quarterly. Art and literature will be the focus of give and take sessions.
Other books on the agenda for the rest of the year are:
The Art Spirit, by Robert Henri, in which the author discusses his essential beliefs and theories, the entire system of his teaching together with technical advice and critical comment for students as well as inspirational incentives for art lovers.
The Invisible Dragon, by Dave Hickey who takes aim at the hyper-institutionalism that denies the simple pleasures of art, museum culture, academics, politics, and more, in the service of making his readers rethink the nature of art.
Headlong, by Michael Frayn, an intellectual comedy revolving around a philosophical historian and his discovery of a painting he believes to be a missing Bruegel. The comedy involves English country life, the mustier byways of art history, the art auction business, and the deviousness that lurks within apparently mild-mannered art historians.
TEFAF Redux
The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) Maastricht celebrates its Silver Jubilee at its opening at the Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre (MECC) in southern Netherlands (Mar. 16-25). Some projects that celebrate its 25 year growth and success are:
The TEFAF Museum Restoration Fund. A maximum of 50,000 Euros will be awarded to one or two museums for the restoration of works of art. Awards will be decided by a jury of independent experts. Applying museums must have visited TEFAF in the year of the application; the restored work must be exhibited at TEFAF when complete; it must be on view to the public for at least two years after.
A special Silver Jubilee book to include interviews with museum curators and private collectors who have bought works at the fair.
The Art Market Report will track the progress of the market over the past 25 years.
A worldwide campaign to broaden the range of visitors to the fair: collectors’ and curators’ events in cities around the world.
For Goreyphiles and Others
The University of Hawaii Art Gallery has announced the release of Looking for Edward Gorey, a catalogue produced as a companion to a 2010 exhibition “Musings of Mystery and Alphabets of Agony: The Work of Edward Gorey.” The book casts light on Gorey’s life, works, and artistic legacy, and includes rare and original pieces such as pen and ink drawings from a self-published book he created at age 12.
Art and Golf as Partners
The Phelps Youth Pavilion, a branch of the Waterloo Center for the Arts (IA) has opened a new hands-on exhibit called “Mini-Masters: A Nine Hole Course in Art.” A custom-designed miniature golf course where each hole reflects the work of a 20th-century artist. For example: a Campbell’s soup can is a hazard on the green of the Andy Warhol hole; a suspended paintbrush pendulum swings over the hole representing Jackson Pollack. Other featured artists are: Riley, Pippin, Seurat, Dali, Picasso, Money, and Munch.
Name Change in Utah
The Salt Lake Art Center (UT) is now the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. The name change reflects the quality of exhibitions that have been mounted for many years. It provides transparency to the public about what to expect as they wander through the front doors.
Hoping to match the museums in great cities across the country, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art hopes to contribute to downtown renewal, cultural tourism, national recognition, and economic development, all of which benefit the urban core.
Economic Downturn Hits another Victim
The Iroquois Indian Museum (NY) announced significant staff cutbacks for 2012 due to severe economic conditions coupled with the recent devastating flooding in Schoharie County. The museum will be closed to the public through April 30; a skeleton staff with volunteer help will maintain basic operations such as security and maintenance.
Despite all, exhibitions and programs are planned for the rest of the year: “Birds and Beasts in Beads: 150 Years of Iroquois Beadwork” will open on May 1; the 31st Annual Iroquois Indian Festival, and Dance Saturdays are also starting in the spring.
Grand Canyon Reveals Secrets
It took three years (2006-2009) for the National Park Service and the Museum of Northern Arizona to complete the largest excavation and research project in 40 years of Grand Canyon history. Nine sites along the Colorado River at the canyon bottom were investigated revealing stories about the lives of the prehistoric peoples who inhabited the site. The resulting discoveries are being exhibited at the museum in Flagstaff in “Grand Archaeology: Excavation and Discovery along the Colorado River” (Aug. 5). Pots, metates, bowls, jars, stone tools, small projectile points, beads, pendants, gaming pieces, and other artifacts are on view as well as a video and photographs.
About a Festival: Setting a Good Example
Since 2005, DesignPhiladelphia, in partnership with the University of the Arts, has developed a unique, open participation festival program that offers the region’s residents and out-of-town visitors a view into Philadelphia’s creative industries at work. Lectures, symposia, and round table discussions create opportunities for people to connect across design categories. Through open studios, networking among students and professionals becomes possible. Street happenings, exhibitions, and public installations expand general awareness of the power design has in everyday living. And the festival makes it possible to meet more than 450 national and international designers at the heart of the region’s creative economy.
In partnership with the University of the Arts, DesignPhiladelphia unites the creative disciplines, from architecture to interior design, fashion, product design, multi-media, and graphic design.
IMLS Announces Medal Winners
Ten institutions received the National Medal for Museum and Library Service recognizing innovative approaches to public service and community outreach. Said Institute of Museum and Library Services Director Susan Hildreth, “Our winners are preserving endangered manuscripts from around the world, providing internet access to the residents of a small remote town, training African immigrants to be child care providers while at the same time helping to preserve their native cultures, helping teens and young adults discover career paths, and much more. The recipients of the National Medal for Museum and Library Service have wonderful stories to tell that demonstrate how libraries and museums build strong communities and transform lives.”
The 2011 museum winners are: Brooklyn Museum (NY), EdVenture Children’s Museum (SC), Erie Art Museum (PA), Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (MN), Madison Children’s Museum (WI). Library winners are: Alachua County Library District (FL), Columbus Metropolitan Library (OH), Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden (VA), San José Public Library (CA), and Weippe Public Library & Discovery Center (ID).
New App for Museum Visitors
The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (MO) announced the launch of an iPhone app, custom designed to help visitors navigate their way through exhibitions by means of self guided digital tours. Users can also watch a video tour and listen to the director, the chief curator, and artists talk about specific works. If launched outside the museum, the app, through its GPS capability, can estimate the viewer’s location and send directions leading to the front door.
New Association Planned
There are nearly 190 homes of authors in the United States, but until now, the curators and executives responsible for them had no means to connect with one another. The American Writers Museum, while still in the throes of birthing, is spearheading an effort to create a formal national association for this special group of literary caretakers. “This is a concept that has tremendous merit and is long overdue,” said Donna Carcaci Rhodes, curator of the Pearl S. Buck home in Perkasie, PA. “I foresee significant synergies and economic benefits to this initiative.”
“Hoofbeats and Heartbeats” Wins Award
“Hoofbeats and Heartbeats: The Horse in American Art,” hosted by the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky, was awarded “best exhibition over $100,000” by the Curators Committee of the Southeastern Museums Conference, which represents museums in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Puerto Rico, and U.S Virgin Islands.
Boss Prize 2012
The biennial Hugo Boss Prize, established in 1996, recognizes significant achievement in contemporary art. The Guggenheim Museum recently announced the short list of finalists for the 2012 award: Trisha Donnelly (b. 1974, San Francisco), Rashid Johnson (b. 1977, Chicago), Qiu Zhijie (b. 1969, Zhangzhou, China), Monika Sosnowska (b. 1972, Ryki, Poland), Danh Vo (b. 1975, Bà Ria, Vietnam), Tris Vonna-Michell (b. Southend-on-Sea, United Kingdom).
The winner will be selected and announced in fall 2012, followed by an exhibition in 2013 at the Guggenheim Museum.
The prize is given to an artist whose work represents a significant development in contemporary art. It sets no restrictions of age, gender, nationality, or medium. It carries an award of $100,000. The jury consists of an international panel of museum directors, curators, and critics.
DeCordova Board Approves 5-Year Plan
In its newly formulated five-year Strategic Plan, the board of the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (MA) stated certain goals:
1. To lead its programming with sculpture, focusing on the park, which has been the driver of visitor engagement, especially in the warmer months. To take a new approach to the Sculpture Park, programming it as a new media gallery, with rapid turnover, site-specific projects, and experimentation.
2. To take on the responsibility of presenting both global and community perspectives to the public, underscoring the importance of aligning the museum’s support of regional art with its larger mission and focus on sculpture.
3. To make contemporary art broadly accessible in the belief that broad accessibility and challenging content are not mutually exclusive; to deepen education offerings.
4. To “pull back the curtain” on how art is made, how artists think and work, and what museums do; hosting professional artists provides a constant flow of talent which can be used to further connect visitors to artists through installation tours, talks, demonstrations, and creative programs.
5. To lay groundwork for long-term growth and sustain financial health, prune strategically by re-focusing efforts to support the new strategic goals.
Wisconsin Museum Accepts Wisconsin Art
The Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum (WI) announced a gift from BMO Harris Bank of 43 paintings by Wisconsin artist Owen J. Gromme (1895-1991). Gromme has been called the “Father of Birds in Art,” having curated the museum’s inaugural exhibition “Birds of the Lakes, Fields, and Forests” in 1976. Throughout the ensuing years, Gromme’s original exhibition evolved into the museum’s annual flagship exhibition “Bird in Art.”
Plans are in place for the debut of the Gromme gift, to be presented in tandem with the 2012 “Birds in Art” exhibition (Sept. 8-Nov. 11).
Mona Lisa Study in Japan
The Hyde Collection (NY) is being represented in Japan by its Study of the Mona Lisa, c. 1503, after Leonardo da Vinci. It is part of a traveling exhibition entitled “Leonardo da Vinci and His Idea of Beauty.” The charcoal and graphite image will be on loan until June of this year. It appeared at Shizuoka City Museum of Art through December 2011. It is now at Fukoaka Art Museum (Mar. 4) and will be on view at Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo (Mar. 31-June 10).
Pollock Painting Figures in Dispute
[The following was reported in The New York Times in an article by Patricia Cohen, dated 12.17.11]
A London art collector, Pierre Lagrange, is asking for the return of his $17 million payment for Jackson Pollock’s Untitled 1950. In a federal law suit against the Knoedler Gallery and its former president Ann Freedman, Lagrange claims that a forensic examination of the painting recently declared it a fake. Some years before, the Knoedler refunded $2 million to a client who had questioned the authenticity of another work by Pollock. Concurrently with the present dispute, the 165-year-old gallery closed.
In addition to the controversial Pollocks, 18 other paintings handled by Knoedler came from a Long Island dealer, Glafira Rosales, who is now under investigation by the federal government. At the center of the investigation is the cache of paintings supplied by Ms. Rosales, who insisted, after repeated questioning by Freedman, that the works were acquired in the 1950s directly from artists such as Rothko, de Kooning, Still, Kline, Newman, and Motherwell, by an unidentified collector in Mexico who then hid them away for the next 50 years.
Having shown the works to a dozen scholars, none of whom questioned their authenticity, Freedman states, “I have every reason to believe these works are authentic.” Regarding Untitled 1950, she dismissed the forensic report which stated that two of the paints on the canvas were not invented until after Pollock’s death in 1956. According to her analysis, it was common practice for manufacturers to give artists experimental pigments to use before they were generally available.
Openings, Expansions, etc.
…in New York
The New-York Historical Society Museum and Library opened its widened doors in November. Some additions and improvements include: a new admissions area incorporating the ceiling from Keith Haring’s original “Pop Shop”; a multi-media film telling the history of New York; a multi-media installation, “New York Rising,” drawn from the museum’s collections; a new auditorium; a children’s history museum and library; a special exhibition “Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn” that explores the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions; “Making American Taste: Narrative Art for a New Democracy,” a look at the 19th-century paintings and sculpture from the museum’s collection; an Italian-themed restaurant.
…also in New York
A new installation in the Contemporary Galleries at the Museum of Modern Art will hold a chronological presentation of works from the collection made during the past 30 years. Periodic reinstallations will feature the variety of art produced during the period.
…in Pennsylvania
The Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley (PA) reopened in October 2011 after closing renovations and expansions almost a year ago. The inaugural exhibition “Shared Treasure: The Legacy of Samuel H. Kress” celebrated the 50th anniversary of the gifting of the Kress collection of Early European Art.
...in Oklahoma
The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma has opened its new Stuart Wing providing some 18,000 square feet of space to house collections acquired in the past 15 years. Most importantly, the new wing will house a portion of the Adkins Collection of Taos and Native American artists—paintings, pottery, and jewelry. The Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa houses the balance of the collection.
In addition to the new wing, construction included renovations to the original 1971 building, a new photography gallery, and new administrative offices.
…in Maine
The Portland Museum of Art (ME) will open the Winslow Homer Studio to the public in September 2012. Homer lived and painted here in Prouts Neck, Maine, from 1883 until his death in 1910. A National Historic Landmark, the renovated studio celebrates the artist’s life, encourages scholarship on the artists and his work, and educates the public.
Located on the rocky coast of Maine, the studio was purchased by the museum in 2006 from Charles Homer Willauer, the great grand-nephew of Homer. Says museum Director Mark H.C. Bessire, “The opening of the Winslow Homer Studio will be a pivotal moment in American art history. For the first time, visitors will be able to experience the studio as it was during Homer’s time and discover the actual location where he created his best known paintings. This cultural treasure is truly a gift to the American people.”
…in Massachusetts
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has opened two new galleries: one celebrates rare sculptural works from India and neighboring countries in South and Southeast Asia; the other showcases rotations of paintings from India, Korea, the Himalayas, and Persia, beginning with a collection of Indian works in “Gems of Rajput Painting.” The galleries reflect a broad range of cultures from Iran to the west and Indonesia to the east, and from the Himalayas to the north and Sri Lanka to the south.
…inArkansas
The Crystal Museum of American Art, endowed by the Walton Family foundation and funded by Alice Walton, heir to the Walmart retail empire, opened in November 2011. The museum is set on 12 acres of family owned property near the center of Bentonville (AR). It was designed by Moshe Safdie—201,000 square feet of space divided among nine pavilions surrounding two ponds. The buildings, full of light from windows and skylights, are constructed of reinforced concrete banded with western red cedar strips and topped with shiny copper roofs.
The collection—some 1,000 works—spans the centuries from the colonial period to the present. Walton, on a buying spree, acquired many works during the recession—important works becoming available from owners whose finances dictated selling. Colonial and modern art are the strong points of the museum at present. “There’s a curious break with abstract expressionism and pop,” says New York dealer Frederick Hill.
…in Denver
The 30,000-square-foot Clyfford Still Museum opened its doors, like the Crystal Museum, in November 2011. “My work in its entirety is like a symphony in which each painting has its part,” said the artist. Therefore, according to his wishes that his museum show only his work, the museum holds nearly 95 percent of his oeuvre. They are drawn from the estates of Still and his wife Patricia, the entire collection having been stored since the artist’s death in 1980, and for the most part never exhibited before.
The museum grew out of a demand by Still in his will that his estate should remain in storage until a U.S. city agreed to build a museum exclusively for his art. In addition, he demanded that none of the works “be sold, given or exchanged,” and that they should be preserved “in perpetuity for exhibition and study.” Patricia rejected offers from many cities before she accepted Denver as the site for her husband’s legacy.
Denver, says Director Dean Sobel of the Clyfford Still Museum, is an appropriate setting for Still’s work as “the doorway to the west, at the edge of the Rocky Mountains.” His abstract expressionist peers in New York were influenced by the city; Still, on the other hand, spent half his life on the West coast. “Turner painted the sea,” Still mused, “but the prairie to me was just as grand.” He moved East eventually, but his allegiance to the “vast landscapes” of the West endured.
From the January issue:
Remembering 9/11
Several exhibits in New York City are indicators of the infinite variety that remembrances of 9/11 have taken: raw and explicit, documentary-like, serene and detached. Three exhibitions, at the School of Visual Art, the International Center of Photography, and MoMA PS1, are examples in point.
“Here is New York: Revisited” at the School of Visual Arts, is a 10-year-old presentation of a collection of harrowing photographs taken by both amateurs and professionals at the scene recording the attack and the aftermath. They were gathered together at two storefronts in SoHo, clipped to wires like laundry on a clothesline, and shown in their excruciating reality. The present showing is a selection of 300 of the 6,500 images that were finally submitted, hung in the same clothesline fashion, and evincing the same raw, devastating effect.
“Remembering 9/11” at the International Center of Photography turns viewers toward the aftermath and recovery, the twisted steel, the thousands of workers, the mementoes collected by observers, aerial views of the site, the collections of wreckage preserved for later display in a National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
“September 11” at MoMA PS1 eschews documentation and relies on the connection between art and the human condition. Some two-thirds of the works on exhibit were made before the event. In contrast to the explicit images that were made after 9/11, they intimate the presence of death and destruction through more subtle means.
2011 Infinity Award Winners Announced
The International Center of Photography (NY) announced the recipients of the 27th Annual Infinity Awards, which are widely recognized as a leading honor for excellence in the field of photography. “Infinity Award recipients are dedicated to exploring photography’s cultural influence and how it opens new opportunities for communication and personal expression,” states ICP Director Willis E. Hartshorn. “This year’s recipients capture the importance of how photography shapes our sense of history in an ever more image-conscious world.”
This year’s winners are: For Lifetime Achievement: Elliot Erwitt; Cornell Capa Award: Ruth Gruber; ICP Trustee Award: The Durst Family; Young Photographer: Peter van Agtmail; Writing: Gerry Badger, The Pleasures of Good Photographs, and Alec Soth, From Here to There: Alec Soth’s America; Art: Abelardo Morell; Photojournalism: Adrees Latif; Applied/Fashion/Advertising Photography: Viviane Sassen; Erwitt’s and Gruber’s work are featured in two exhibitions at ICP beginning at the end of May.
Young Architects Program Goes International
For the first time the Museum of Modern Art (NY) and MoMA PS1 (NY) are partnering with another institution in Rome to create the first international edition of the Young Architects Program, which has been in place for 12 years.
The Museum of Modern Art, PS1, and the National Museum of XXI Century Arts of Rome announce a young firm called Interboro Partners of Brooklyn, NY, as winner of the 12th annual Young Architects Program (YAP) in New York, and stARTT, of Rome, as the winner of the first annual YAP_MAXXI Young Architects Program in Rome.
For these many years, the program has been committed to offering emerging architectural talent the opportunity to design and present innovative projects for a temporary, outdoor installation at MoMA PS1 that provides shade, seating, and water, is sustainable, and recyclable. Interboro Partners designed a temporary urban landscape for the 2011 Warm Up summer music series in MoMA PS1’s courtyard. stARTT was chosen to create an innovative event space in the MAXXI piazza. Both installations opened in June.
Pixel Perfect
A microscopic device that fits on the head of a pin containing no lenses or moving parts and costing pennies to make—a digital age Brownie camera—has been developed in the lab of an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University. The devise could revolutionize an array of science from surgery to robotics.
One-half millimeter on each side and 100th of a millimeter thick, the camera resolves images about 20 pixels across—not portrait studio quality, but enough to shed light on previously hard-to-see things.
100 Beaux-Arts Years
The New York Public Library opened in it’s now landmark building (now called—by some—the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building) one hundred years ago. To celebrate: “Celebrating 100 Years,” a major exhibition of 250 of its more thought-provoking objects from the collection, including the first Gutenberg Bible acquired in the Americas. Also on view: dance cards, dime novels, and John Coltrane’s handwritten score of Lover Man. To highlight the changes in the way information has been recorded over time are samples of the library’s collection of Sumerian cuneiform tablets (c. 2300 BCE, and selections from the 740,000-item Digital Gallery.
Re-Openings
The New-York Historical Society, closed since February of this year for major renovations, re-opens in November with new exhibitions, permanent installations, and galleries. Together with the ongoing “New York: A Portrait of the City,” which offers visitors historic images of the city and its inhabitants, the society will reintroduce part of its collection of John James Audubon’s 435 water-colors that later appeared in The Birds of America. In addition, “Making American Taste: Narrative Art for A New Democracy” (Aug.19, 2012) casts new light on the history of American art and the formation of American Cultural ideals from the 1830s to the late 1860s,
After a year of major expansion and renovation that added 7,900 square feet to the museum, the Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley (PA) re-opens to the public. Within the new and modernized façade that incorporates the portico of a 1901 church building, the inaugural exhibition “Shared Treasure: The Legacy of Samuel H. Kress” (Jan. 15, 2012) offers to all comers selections from the museum’s permanent collection and other borrowed works.
New Museum in California
Saint Mary’s College of California announced a new home for the college’s Hearst Art Gallery and the William Keith Gallery with the establishment of the Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art. To mark the opening the new museum unveils a major exhibition by California’s 19th-cemtury landscape painter William Keith. “The Comprehensive Keith: A Centennial Tribute” (Dec. 18) features part of the college’s extensive collection of Keith paintings.
Locals Only
A Locals Only Gallery at the Salt Lake Art Center (UT) is the center’s newest initiative to promote local artists as they engage the contemporary art world. “Bild: Jared Lindsay Clark” (Dec. 17) is the inaugural exhibition that features a monumental site-specific installation made from scavenged materials.
Inventory Reaps Benefits
A collections inventory, conducted as the result of a $144,578 Museums for America grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), will allow the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts (MD) to provide better access to its collections. The project includes collections planning, collections security and safety, database conversation, photography, and documentation. Only five Maryland organizations received an award this year. At the Goldstein Museum of Design (MN), a similar grant from the IMLS is enabling the museum to implement phase two of its ongoing project “Design for Everyone: Increasing Access to Collections,” which provides detailed visual access to collection items that otherwise would be damaged by handling and exposure.
Says IMLS Director Susan Hildreth: “We are pleased to support museums through investments in high-priority, high value activities that benefit communities throughout the U.S. These museums, small and large, will help to educate and inspire the public for years to come.”
Museums for America is the IMLS’s largest grant program for museums, supporting projects and ongoing activities that build museums’ capacity to serve their communities.
Museums for America grants strengthen a museum’s ability to serve the public more effectively by supporting high-priority activities that advance the institution’s mission and strategic goals. The grants are designed to be flexible: funds can be used for a wide variety of new or ongoing museum activities and programs such as improvement of institutional infrastructure, planning, management of collections, public access, professional development, purchase of equipment of services, research and scholarship, public programming and exhibitions, development and/or implementation of education programs, or efforts by museums to upgrade and integrate new technologies into their overall institutional effectiveness.
The IMLS is the primary source of federal support of the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. Its mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. It works at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support professional development.
[For more about the IMLS, go to www.imls.gov.]
Serra Travels to California
As a precursor to the inaugural installation in 2016 of the Fisher Collection in the expanded San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Richard Serra’s Sequence has established residence at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University (CA). It will remain on view, outdoors for the first time since its creation in 2006, for the five years until the SFMoMA opens.
Transporting the piece (it measures 67 feet long, 42 feet wide, and 13 feet high, is composed of contoured steel, and weighs more than 200 tons) from Los Angeles, where it has been on exhibit since 2008, to Stanford required a dozen wide-body flatbed trucks and specialists in the rigging of objects on this massive scale.
Michelle Obama Initiative
The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (MA) announced its link to first Lady Michell Obama’s initiative “Let’s Move! Museums & Gardens,” a partnership with the Institute of Museums and Libraries. “Let’s Move” is a comprehensive plan dedicated to solving the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation by encouraging activity and healthy eating. The “Museums & Gardens” concept was launched a year later, this year, to provide opportunities for millions of museum and garden visitors to participate in physical activity through interactive exhibitions and programs. Its aim: to sign up 2,000 museums and gardens and reach over 200 million visitors in the next year.
DeCordova’s programs such as “Yoga in the Park,” and classes like “Moving through Art” are steps in the right direction. In addition, its 35-acre park encourages walking, running, and playing.
Grants from NEA Change Communities
Our Town grants from the National Endowment for the Arts are awarded nationwide to museums involved in creative “placemaking” projects in which partners from both public and private sectors come together to strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, city, or region around arts and cultural activities.
The Nicolayson Art Museum (WY) announced that it will receive $50,000 for the program “Housing the Art of Possibility in Casper,” a partnership between the museum, the city of Casper, the Wyoming Community Development Authority, and the private developer of a housing project that will feature 26 on-bedroom units and another 16-unit development. The grant is one of 51 offered by the NEA.
Chairman of the NEA Landesman says, “Communities across our country are using smart design and leveraging the arts to enhance quality of life and promote their distinctive identities. In this time of great economic upheaval, Our Town provides communities an opportunity to reignite their economies.”
“We are excited to be partnering with these organizations to bring public art to the community for everyone to experience and enjoy,” says Nicolayson Executive Director Connie Gibbons.
“As a partner with the museum, the Wyoming Community Development Authority, and a local developer, we are supportive of the installation of public art at the location described n the grant application,” says Casper Mayor Paul Bertoglio.
Rose Art Museum Settles Dispute
The Art Newspaper has reported that the saga of Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum (MA)—the 2009 decision by university trustees to sell the collection and the succeeding controversy and legal maneuvering—ended when the university announced the settlement of a lawsuit filed by museum supporters and the promise to keep the museums open without putting any of its art up for sale.
Brandeis University President Fred Lawrence was quoted: “The Rose remains open, and it has an important role to play in the life of Brandeis. There are no plans to sell art.” Lawrence, however, could not rule out other options being considered, among them that the museum might raise money by renting out part of its collection.
Performing Artists Back in NYC
Performa, the non-profit performing arts organization, announced the coming of artists to New York City during its fall biennial (Nov. 1-21). Twelve commissioned performances by emerging and established artists will take place in venues across the city: a multi-part theatrical performance, a work that combines video and sculpture, and other performance pieces. More than 100 artists are scheduled to participate in the offerings during the organization’s three week run.
International Liaisons
The Walters Art Museum (MD) has signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany. Lengthy talks between the leaders of the two institutions resulted in an agreement that includes exhibition exchanges, professional development opportunities for museum employees including staff exchanges, long-term loans of art, and discussions of museum best practices.
“This agreement will benefit our two museums and give visitors the chance to see wonderful art that they would not otherwise have the chance to experience,” said Walters’ Director Gary Vikan.
Of the shared exhibitions, “Secrets of the Universe: The Egyptian Book of the Faiyum” will be on view at both the Walters and the Roemer and Pelizaeus museums. In it, ancient Egyptian art and artifacts illustrate how the universe was created, how it functions, and what the Egyptians did to sustain it.
Regine Schulz, current Walters' curator of ancient art and director of international curatorial relations, is the new director of the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum. Schulz was elected to the Executive Council of the International Council of Museums at the triennial meeting in Shanghai last November and was formerly the chairperson of the International Committee of Egyptology.
And, for the first time ever, a selection of paintings and tapestries from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy, is coming to the United States for a national tour. Venues for the exhibition “Il Pane degli Angeli (Offering of the Angels)” are the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, FL (Nov. 20-Apr. 8, 2012); the James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA (Apr. 21, 2012-Aug. 11, 2012); the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI (Aug. 18, 2012-Nov. 12, 2012); and the Telfair Museum, Savannah, GA (Dec. 15, 2012-Apr. 1, 2013).
All 40 works—paintings and tapestries—in the exhibition are related to two subjects: angels and the Eucharist. All are joined together by the theme of forgiveness.
Getty Supports Southern Cal Arts
For six months, from now through April 2012, due to support from the Getty initiative “Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980,” some 60 art institutions are highlighting the rich history of contemporary arts in southern California through exhibitions, performances, and educational programs. “Peace Press Graphics 1967-1987” at the University Art Museum at California State University, Long Beach, is one of those exhibitions, which is also being held in conjunction with the B-Word Project (Banned-Blacklisted-Boycotted: Censorship and the Response to it), a CSULB campus-wide series of programs exploring censorship.
Museum Moves in Iowa
The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library, Cedar Rapids, IA, began its weighty journey in June. A structural moving company pivoted the 1500-ton flood-damaged building so that the façade facing the river became the front side and vice versa. Once thus relocated, the building was elevated to its final height 11 feet above where it sat before, and 3 feet above the level of the 2008 flood. It was then rolled on to the new foundation and finally set down and secured in place.
CEO/President Gail Naughton said, “Live webcams on www.NCSML.org allows viewing around the clock for the many people around the world interested in viewing all the activity. We are excited that this exceptional moment in the museum’s history is finally coming to fruition. The expansion and renovation of this museum and library is a major milestone in flood recovery and an historic event for the city and the state of Iowa.”
Public Programming Awarded
The Woodson Art Museum (WI) received the Association of Midwest Museums’2011 Best Practices Award for public programming. The award praised the museum for developing programs for all ages and stages of life—from Art Babies for the youngest visitors to SPARK! For older adults with memory loss and their care partners.
Struggle for Survival
Frank Gehry’s quirky little structure, the Ohr O’Keefe Museum of Art, Biloxi, MS, opened to a bemused local population. Some loved it. Some hated it. Some wondered if it would succeed in the Gulf Coast environment.
The little museum went through natural disaster (Hurricane Katrina) and man-made disasters (the Gulf oil spill and the failing economy), and now is almost out of cash. The waning tourist trade, higher operating costs than initially expected, and less city support than it had counted on have contributed to its present emergency status. Crippling expenses are another factor: simply keeping the galleries below 30 percent humidity in a climate where the humidity can reach 90 percent costs record amounts every month.
An emergency infusion by the museum’s namesake, local businessman Jerry O’Keefe, requests to several possible donors, and a major fund-raiser planned for this fall could help. But the museum is only partially finished; three of five buildings are open, and another is scheduled for early spring. Rotating exhibitions contribute to the interest of the museum, the central collection of which is glazed ceramics by George Ohr, the “mad potter of Biloxi.”
Larry Clark, president of the museum’s board says: “The sad part is we have the money in the bank to finish the campus. We are hoping that tourism in our area rebounds and we can get assistance from the city.” But the city is broke, says Mayor A.J. Holloway. “We help them as much as we can, but the financial condition of the city is real tough right now. We don’t have any surplus.”
Civic leaders and others hope for what they are calling the “Bilbao effect”: the arrival of thousands of art tourists to help revive the town.
