Previous Posts: articles 2018

 "Long, thin figures, and an amorphous, crumbly surface," says Driessen. "It isn't difficult to make Giacomettis." After a while, he says, he "literally had Giacometti in my fingers." According to Driessen, it took him 30 to 40 minutes for the small figures. But they weren't simply recast versions of the originals. Instead, Driessen just added to Giacometti's body of work. He made his own models, had them cast and stamped them with the stamps of the foundries Giacometti had used.

[...] the first exhibition to focus in depth on Elizabethan society. As well as gathering together important portraits of Elizabeth herself, and building on fascinating new research, the exhibition will explore the lives of men and women who lived and worked during her reign from courtiers to country gentry, explorers, bankers, physicians and lawyers, artists and writers.

The exhibition will consist of rarely or previously unseen loans from private collections as well as iconic portraits from historic houses and museum collections.

Museums can take greater risks in the way they use and share collections. Handling and lending rarely cause significant harm.

[...] the physical risks run by works of art every time they are moved; as recently as 2008, at the National Gallery in London, a panel painting was dropped and broken as workers took down the great “Renaissance Siena” show. We also have to worry about the wear and tear that will diminish every well-travelled picture or sculpture. (Conservators wouldn’t fill in condition reports on every loan if there had never been a thing to note on their forms.)

Letter worker, graphic designer, type designer and action calligrapher Timothy Donaldson created a new piece of calligraphy at Bilston Craft Gallery. The piece was commissioned by The Harley Gallery as part of Signs for Sounds. This touring exhibition curated by Jeremy Theophilus explores the contemporary practice of letter-forming from traditional calligraphy to the use of digital technologies and performance. It considers the impact of letter form, an art that we are surrounded by everyday – from traditional calligraphy to hi-tech type design. The event was beautifully captured on video by Anthony Davies for Last Phoenix Films. We witness the creation of a calligraphic work of art, as gesture becomes calligraphic movement becomes word, whose meaning is gradually obfuscated until it becomes meta-text. Timothy eloquently comments.

From the scratch of the quill curling across the page, to letters painstakingly chipped and carved from stone, Signs for Sounds looks at the ways that artists use the age-old shapes of letters to amplify the effect of words. This exhibition examines the traditional skills of letter-forming, along with how we use lettering in the modern world – with artists’ films of graffiti and virtual typography where visitors can experiment with Jason Edward Lewis’ virtual typography to re-shape poetry on touchscreen monitors. Featuring examples of outstanding skill in letter-forming by leading practitioners, the exhibition shows how writing communicates meaning and how this is changing with the use of new media in the digital age. Exhibitors include letter-engraver Tom Perkins, calligrapher Ewan Clayton and performance artist Julien Breton, who dances letter forms using light. There is also a family-friendly activity area, and a display of creative writing by local writers’ groups Bilston Writers and Bilston Scribblers on the theme Sights and Sounds of Bilston.

For more than 40 years Leonard A. Lauder, the philanthropist and cosmetics tycoon, has been diligently and deliberately putting together a world-class collection of Cubist art that rivals those of such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the Pompidou Center in Paris. Consisting of 33 Picassos, 17 Braques, 14 Légers and 14 works by Gris, it has been promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I don’t understand why collectors get the kind of praise and attention they do, unless it’s because of universal sycophantism. Collecting is just shopping, and when you have close to infinite wealth, and the money to pay for the best advice, nothing could be easier. Any decent curator with a few billion dollars in her pocket could build a collection like this with her eyes closed. (Or maybe I should say without breaking a sweat.) And of course it’s worth remembering that Lauder only has his pockets so full because the thousands of people who work for him don’t; give those workers a bigger slice of the American dream, such as they used to have, and Lauder starts hogging less of it – to spend on things like fabulous Cubist art.

The true heroes of yesterday’s announcement are the Met’s curators and their new-ish leader, Thomas Campbell. While managing the tricky courtier’s task of coddling a billionaire donor, they’ve also managed to play aesthetic Robin Hood, getting art from the rich and giving it to the rest of us poor slobs. They redistribute artistic wealth, and the wealthy don’t seem to mind.

[...] in her belief that public institutions should give value for money and be accountable, but also masters of their own fate, she was indirectly responsible for reforms to Britain’s national museums that helped make them the flexible and creative places they are today. Her reforms in public funding gave them the freedom to manage their own financial affairs, raise money from the private sector and run publishing and merchandising companies.

[...] let' s not forget that the NG and other art institutions refused the Liverpool local authority collections in 1986 to their discredit, so what option was there to preserve them but to make them a national collection. Should that have been done and did it skew other regional collections? Interesting on several historical points.

The People have spoken!  I hope you will open up more exciting debate by announcing the Museum Association's publication of the response to the daft 'Museums 2020' proposals, see here.

In summary, the Great British Public thinks museums are for (in this order):

• Care and preservation of heritage
• Holding collections and mounting displays
• Creating knowledge for, and about, society
• and is extremely doubtful about 'promoting justice and human rights', 'providing a forum for debate' etc etc.

Hurrah!  Maybe I won't have to retrain as a social worker / political activist after all ...

1 - Making a Difference for Individuals

Museums can improve individuals’ lives in ways such as supporting learning, stimulating interaction with friends and family, and building skills and confidence. To do this, museums often work in partnership with other organisations. Museums can expand this work, finding ways to engage with people more deeply.

1a - Wellbeing and Happiness.

Museums are well placed to improve individual wellbeing, improve quality of life and contribute to mental health. 

2 - Making a Difference for Communities

Museums can strengthen communities by bringing people together, validating the experiences of particular groups and supporting community organisations. Most museums have more potential to become truly of their communities.

2a - Participation

Museums are seeking ways to increase community participation in their activities and decision-making. Done with care, and avoiding tokenism, this can improve museums and benefit communities. 

3a - Human Rights, Equality and Social Justice

Museums have the potential to address the issues that matter most to society and to promote public debate and beneficial social change, rather than always assuming a position of neutrality.

3 - Making a Difference For Society

Museums safeguard and develop collections, create knowledge and contribute to cultural life. 

Museums see themselves as serving society. In the MA’s definition of a museum, they “hold collections on behalf of society” and there is a very real (if not strictly legal) understanding that museums and their collections belong to everyone. Museums exercise “stewardship” or “guardianship” rather than acting as private owners of collections. They have been highly successful – perhaps too successful – in preserving things that matter to society (or at least to the more powerful members of society).

Museums could rethink the ways they allocate their space, with less occupied with fixed display and more available for a wider range of activities: for workshops, for short-term pop-up displays, for performances, for discussions, for people and groups to come together.

One of their main functions must be the availability of decent public toilets. Is that in the poll? 

I'm afraid Jerry Saltz is pretty correct.

We no longer see curators / advisors / critics / academics doing the rounds. They'll all turn up for Frieze and hop onto planes to go to Biennales and Documenta-type events, but have lost interest in the small end of things where an artist having a show is like a writer publishing a book or opening a play.

Of course they'll turn up for Zwirner / Hauser & Wirth etc but as Kenny Schachter says it's a big money art-economy for a very very small number of artists.

We try to make ourselves attractive for the 'younger' people with money but there are so many other assaults on their time and they want instant gratification. The CAS [Contemporary Art Society] here in London used to be supportive but now seem to sneer at us. It's a worry and I hate getting bitter and twisted about it.

On Friday, The Washington Post reported that Fuqua’s 84-year-old mother, who operated an art school for decades in Fairfax County under the name Marcia Fouquet, is an artist who specialized in reproducing paintings from Renoir and other masters. The Post said Fouquet had artistic links to Baltimore in the 1950s, when the painting was stolen, and graduated from Goucher College with a fine arts degree in 1952.

A man who identified himself as Fuqua’s brother, Owen M. Fuqua, told the Post that the painting had been in the family for 50 or 60 years and that “all I know is my sister didn’t just go buy it at a flea market.”

The man later retracted his story, and ultimately said it was another person using his name who gave the initial interview.

Efforts by the AP Friday to reach Martha and Owen Fuqua Friday were unsuccessful. Martha Fuqua’s lawyer did not return a call Friday seeking comment.

[...] Renoir’s paintings have fallen out of favour with some art collectors who consider them old fashioned and because questions about the painting’s ownership and possible theft diminish its value to collectors.

Bendor, your supposed' Vuillard' looks like a meeting between the young David Hockey and Barbara Cartland in the Dorchester. I known his standards dropped as he aged & gained popularity, but surely not to that extent.

[...] contends that the world famous museum, which receives six million visitors a year, uses misleading marketing and cashier training to deceive unwary visitors.

Lawyers say the signs in the lobby listing the price of admission with the word "recommended" below in smaller type violate a 1893 law mandating the public be admitted free of charge at least five days and two evenings per week in exchange for monetary grants and rent-free use of city-owned land.

The suit, which lawyers hope will eventually represent a broad class of people who have visited the museum in recent years, seeks a change in the admissions policy and reimbursement for those who they say were misled.

In recent weeks, you may have read about a lawsuit filed by one of the Metropolitan Museum's Fifth Avenue neighbors. It inaccurately alleges that the Met deceives the public by not making its long-standing pay-what-you-wish admission policy clear enough, and asserts that we are violating a nineteenth-century New York State law that once mandated that we be free to the public. This was followed by a second legal action, filed by the same law firm, seeking monetary damages.

We have explained to the press the genesis and legality of our recommended admission policy and intend to defend it vigorously. But the legal process takes time—so I wanted to communicate directly with you, our audience, about our admission policy, and to clarify its origin and importance.

First and most crucially, a recommended or suggested admission structure was instituted only after the Museum received approval from New York City's Administrator of Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Affairs more than four decades ago. No current State legislation requires the Museum to be free to the public.

Second, the recommended admission policy is clearly posted at all entry points to the Museum's Main Building and The Cloisters, on all printed materials, and on our website. Should a visitor ask a cashier about the admission policy, the message is always equally clear: the amount is voluntary; please pay what you wish.

If you read the blurb on the website the so called exhibition in Puerto Rico is not an exhibition at all but it is the permanent collection of British Art. However they are calling it an exhibition as they are doing a scholarly catalogue of their Victorian paintings, which is good news. Perhaps you might alert your readers to this. (Try turning on the English language button on the website and all will be revealed) It is a collaboration with the Tate - encouraging to hear of some good things the Tate is doing even if they are thousands of miles from London.

You ask: who knew? Well, anyone seriously in to the Pre-Raphaelites knew of this collection and I am surprised a seventeenth century enthusiast such as yourself doesn't know the museum. Julius Held was one of the advisers to Luis Ferrer in forming the collection and it has fantastic European baroque holdings.

When I went there I was shown round by Ferrer himself, alas now no longer with us, but then in a wheelchair. He had lots of anecdotes about his bargain hunting, for example his advisers told him not to buy Leighton’s Flaming June, but he did so anyway, for £2000 (1963). Victorian painting and baroque painting were both cheap then and he got some great things. 

Next time you are in the USA go there, it is not that difficult, you fly to San Juan and then change to a small plane to Ponce a rather charming but sleepy town, with one really good restaurant that Ferrer took me to. The waiters all bowed when we arrived.

The Ponce Museum of Art is unforgettable.  I was there 30 years ago, and aside from Flaming June by Frederic, Lord Leighton, and other British Masters, it has an extremely large and important collection of Russian 19th century artists.

Don Luis Ferre was a former Governor of Puerto Rico, and he told me that he had an engineering degree from M.I.T., before going into the family business of concrete and cement construction.

He was, of course, a dedicated art collector, advised by Oscar and Jan Klein, of The Central Picture Gallery in NYC, and by Professor Julius Held ( Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck) of Columbia University.  When I was there there were galleries dedicated to Oscar and Jan Klein, and to Julius Held ( all gone, as is Don Luis ).

Don Luis told me that every year he would get higher and higher offers from British Dealers to buy Flaming June. 

He and Julius Held both told me that when he started to collect, he went to Professor Held for advice, and ever after, he would pick out paintings, and vet them by Professor Held, to see if they were museum quality.  Don Ferre showed me around his home and personal collection - I remember that he had several impressive paintings, and an important Antonio Gaudi window grill.  But the best things went to the museum.  ( see Wikipedia ).

Aside from this, Ponce is fun.  It houses one of the most charming Victorian buildings in the whole world - the Ponce Fire House.

[...] not sure about the London one though, it's far too cold at the moment…

I think we should all calm down about Titianesque flash-mobbing possibilities in respect of any British institution. Far more likely to be Frith’s Derby Day, surely?