Artoon

by Pablo Helguera | Artworld Salon

Occupy the museums … or, simply don’t

by Edward Winkleman | ArtWorld Salon

I have been watching and, in spirit, am all for the Occupy Wall Street protests because I feel the issues being raised need to be discussed. I truly wish the banks would get involved, to help balance out the conversation, but apparently they’re too busy raking in record profits.

That said, I find the Occupy the Museums notion a bit too misguided (and more than a bit ironic) to let it go without comment.

In a nutshell the message of the Occupy the Museums effort is :

Museums, open your mind and your heart! Art is for everyone! The people are
at your door!

Let’s begin with the fact that despite $20 and $25 dollar entry fees, the people seem more than happy to keep passing through the doors of New York’s museums :

* Met Hits 40-Year Attendance Record
* MoMA Attendance Hits Record High
* Guggenheim Museum Sees Record Attendance

What’s more, they offer alternatives for people who can’t afford those fees. So there’s apparently NOT a serious “access for the people” issue here.

More specifically, Occupy the Museum’s rallying cry is:

For the last few decades, voices of dissent have been silenced by a fearful survivalist atmosphere and the hush hush of BIG money. To really critique institutions, to raise one’s voice about the disgusting excessive parties and spectacularly out of touch auctions of the art world while the rest of the country suffers and tightens its belt was widely considered to be bitter, angry, uncool.

Er…uh…the critique of institutions is alive (*cough* #class) and well (*cough* #rank) by artists like William Powhida (whose new show opens Saturday) and Jennifer Dalton (whose current show ends this Saturday. (Full disclosure, I represent Dalton, but that’s why I find the notion that institutional critique is being discouraged so out of touch, it’s also why I can report that BIG money seems to get and does indeed buy such art as well).

So there really is no “hushing” going on here.

So if it’s not that “the people” are being denied access to the museums, and it’s not that artists are afraid to critique the institutions, what is it really that this protest can accomplish?

Their stated goals continue:

The members of museum boards mount shows by living or dead artists whom they collect like bundles of packaged debt. Shows mounted by museums are meant to inflate these markets. They are playing with the fire of the art historical cannon while seeing only dancing dollar signs. The wide acceptance of cultural authority of leading museums have made these beloved institutions into corrupt ratings agencies or investment banking houses- stamping their authority and approval on flimsy corporate art and fraudulent deals.

This strikes me as a gross oversimplification of what motivates curators and museum boards to mount shows. Although there is a popular sense that inflating certain markets does occur to certain decision makers at times, most museum curator I know are indeed passionate about the artists they work with, and the persuasion going on is, generally speaking, from them to the board members, not the other way around. Furthermore, the correlation between museum shows inflating the value of individual collections has never been shown. That’s a red herring that does a disservice to board members who could spend their money on far less altruistic things than supporting art and museums.

But I think this text jumps the shark with claims of “stamping their authority and approval on flimsy corporate art and fraudulent deals.” What is or isn’t “flimsy” is a matter of opinion, and the history of art is nothing if not a shifting of opinions. As for “fraudulent” deals, I think I’d consult a good libel attorney before throwing that accusation around so casually and indirectly.

Ultimately, though, I find this an opportunistic and somewhat ahistorical argument. Take this line:

For the past decade and more, artists and art lovers have been the victims of
the intense commercialization and co-optation or art.

That’s only true if by “past decade” you mean “past few centuries.” And it’s only wholly true if you acknowledge that the victimizers (i.e., those responsible for the “intense commercialization”) include many, many artists as well.

Mind you, I think the protest should move forward and I’ll be very curious to see how the museums respond. I suspect they’ll accommodate the protesters as best they can.

I just don’t think the motivation as outlined in the official text is even remotely accurate and probably won’t be very productive. Moreover, I think a better way to get the museums to change (if that’s your goal) is to encourage people NOT to occupy them…but that’s just me.

More "Occupy Wall Street Movement Declares War on NYC Museums as “Temples of Cultural Elitism”

Museums & Mission Statements

Our own András Szántó has just written an interesting article for the Art Newspaper on the purpose of museums; at least as proclaimed by those museums’ own mission statements. (You can watch a video of a related discussion, hosted by András at Art Basel Miami Beach here.) The article covers an analysis done by András and fellow Art world analyser Adam Levine of the mission statements of 60 museums around the US (you can see the accompanying Wordle graphic above) and seeks to draw conclusions about the state of strategic thinking at these grand institutions based on the words they did, or did not, use.

I think it is a fun premise and I like the comparison of the “refreshingly short” and eloquent statement from Akron Art Museum: “to enrich lives through modern art” with the tomes of MOMA, The National Gallery and Boston’s MFA. The latter three of course were developed and approved by large Boards; and you know what they say about anything done by committee. (Though to be fair, both MOMA and the National could have stopped at the end of their first sentences and done OK; while the MFA does a decent job with its last…) András then goes on to draw parallels with the ongoing transition of Museums trying to more proactively respond to their market places and suggests that woolly mission statements are a symptom of woolly thinking about the role of Museums in the modern world.

It is a reasonable inference but may be too harsh. Some people are just bad at being concise. And the bigger the board the less concise they will be. I do always admire any organisation (corporate or non-profit) that can encapsulate something important in a few words (so kudos to Akron) but just because they cannot explain simply what they do, doesn’t always mean they cannot do it. Take a look for yourself (the links are above) and then visit your local grand institution over the holidays and make-up your own minds. And if you feel so inclined do come back here and offer a comment. In the meantime: happy festivities to all from everyone here at ArtWorld Salon.

Art Basel Conversations | Public/Private | The Evolution of Museum Missions from Art Basel Miami Beach on Vimeo.

Artist-on-Artist Insults

Andy Warhol on Jasper Johns:
“Oh, I think he’s great. He makes such great lunches.”

Willem de Kooning to Andy Warhol (at a party):
“You’re a killer of art, you’re a killer of beauty, you’re even a killer of laughter. I can’t bear your work!”




read more

Enjoy

Gerhard Richter Painting

A New Film Captures the German Impasto Master at Work with His Squeegee

The notoriously secretive creative process of reclusive German artist Gerhard Richter is exposed in filmmaker Corinna Belz’s new fly-on-the-wall documentary, Gerhard Richter Painting. Belz spent three years as an observer in Richter’s Cologne studio capturing mesmerizing footage of the artist producing his radical abstract works. As we witness him mixing layer upon layer of bold primary colors, smearing the wet paint with a giant squeegee and scraping at the surfaces of the canvases, Richter’s masterpieces appear before our eyes. “You get the feeling the paintings are staring at you,” says Belz, who met the painter while filming his vibrant pixelated stained glass window for the Cologne Cathedral. “There’s a physicality to Richter’s paintings. I wanted the viewer to become immersed in the subtly suspenseful cycle of the process.” Belz’s poetic film coincides with Richter’s 80th birthday and a major retrospective at London’s Tate Modern spanning five decades of his varied work.

Gerhard Richter Painting on Nowness.com.

Artoon Saturday October 9, 2010 by Pablo Helguera

History reloaded and remixed

A review of The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

by Ezra Winton on April 30, 2011

The mixed tape is a cultural phenomenon that, thankfully, refuses to die. From the time of the earliest printed booklets through to the ubiquitous mixing of audio cassette tapes in the 80s to the sampling and remixing of the 90s and 2000s, people have taken existing media and sculpted into their own assemblages. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Directed by Göran Olsson), which is screening at this year’s Hot Docs in Toronto continues that tradition and does so with a passion and perfection in form and spirit that awakens, inspires and provokes.

The feature length documentary is entirely comprised of 16mm footage filmed by Swedish journalists between 1967 and 1975, covering the “race wars” and black power activism in the USA at that time. Beautifully shot and composed, the source material is a rich treasure trove of intimate interviews, streeters, and verité looking at racism in America from the perspective of those in Black communities fighting against oppression with guns and words.

Priceless footage of Stokely Carmichael and Angela Davis delivering powerful monologues about racism had the audience cheering – as if we were catapulted back in time and were right there with them. Of course access to a mountain of amazing source material never guarantees outstanding results, but much like A Film Unfinished, the contemporary filmmakers have stitched together footage that is as compelling and fascinating as any film using modern-day footage.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is a masterpiece of archival cinema and resurrects one of the most important historical moments in the trajectory of American politics and race. Never-seen footage of radical leaders like Carmichael and Davis (and many more) helps paint an intimate picture that goes deeper than the much-seen footage of riots and public speeches. With expert editing and a fabulous soundtrack, the film thumps along with a vitality that matches the exciting politics of those tumultuous years.

One of the best decisions the Swedish filmmaking team made was to eschew the standard doc talking head, and instead the film is layered with voice over from contemporary Black artists, academics and activists whose voices are heard over archival footage but whose faces we never see. This visual-audio conversation between the historic giants of social change and contemporary fighters is cinematic magic and should be seen in every classroom in America.

The fight for equality and against race oppression is far from over in the USA and The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 resurrects incredible historic moments and personalities from the Swedish archives to connect the passion of the past with the present in a way no other documentary has accomplished before.

This is one mixtape that needs to be shared – don’t miss your chance to experience it.

Broadway Grosses on the Eve of the Tony Nominations

In a week when many Broadway productions had relatively modest ticket sales, three shows — the musicals “The Book of Mormon” and “Sister Act,” and the new play “War Horse” — demonstrated strength at the box office, according to the weekly grosses and other data released by the productions on Monday.

The critically acclaimed “The Book of Mormon,” which opened on March 24 and earned more than $1 million in a week for the first time two weeks ago, was again in the million-dollar club. The production earned $1.12 million, making it the third top-grossing show on Broadway last week behind “The Lion King” and “Wicked.” (Last week was the second week in a row that “The Lion King” ($1.754 million), which opened in 1997 under the direction of Julie Taymor, edged out “Wicked” ($1.736 million), which opened in 2003 and usually holds the top spot.)

“Sister Act,” meanwhile, earned $799,322 last week, an increase of 15 percent over the previous week. That increase came as most other musicals saw week-to-week declines in ticket sales; the previous week was a particularly tourist-heavy period when many children were on vacation from school. Even without the flood of tourists, “Sister Act” sold nearly all of its seats at the Broadway Theater, one of New York’s largest theaters. (“The Book of Mormon” sold a bit beyond its seated capacity last week when you account for standing-room-only patrons.)

“War Horse,” too, has been climbing at the box office: The play grossed $881,950 last week, up roughly 10 percent. Total attendance at “War Horse” was 100 percent last week, and a sizable portion of that audience was Lincoln Center Theater members, who pay only $50 for tickets. In other words, the total gross for “War Horse” has the potential to rise higher as fewer members and more general theater-goers buy tickets. The nonprofit Lincoln Center Theater does not sell premium priced tickets, unlike the commercial producers of “Mormon” and “Sister Act.”

At the other end of the spectrum, the relatively long-running play “Lombardi” had the lowest gross of the week, $155,898, just 21 percent of its maximum possible gross. The new production of Larry Kramer’s play “The Normal Heart” and the new musical “People in the Picture,” which both opened last week, tied for the lowest average paid admission, $32.93, reflecting discounts in ticket prices. “The Normal Heart” grossed $184,396 and Roundabout Theater Company’s “People in the Picture” grossed $209,872, both roughly one-quarter of their maximum possible grosses.

Overall, Broadway shows earned $23.5 million last week, compared to $28.8 million the week before and $20.7 million for the equivalent week during the 2009-10 Broadway season.