Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Does the DIA's "trust doctrine" Trump the Rights of Creditors?
The Connecticut Law Tribune on whether the Detroit Institute of Art's "trust doctrine" will trump the rights of the creditors and whether Detroit's predicament will influence
the generosity of potential donors of art to museums.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Some Good News: Museum Buys Art Work
Among all the latest chatter, gossip, opining, and opinionated meanderings, we have some good news from the museum world. The Cincinnati Art Museum has just bought its first Georgia O'Keeffe. Yes, bought, not deaccessioned.
The museum paid more than $1.8 million for its first O’Keeffe. It will go on exhibit in time for Labor Day Weekend, in a small, second-floor gallery.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Schjeldahl Flip-Flops, Says DIA Art Should Stay
I wonder what made Mr. Schjeldahl change course? Or rather, I wonder how much time he actually spent thinking through his first opinion where he championed selling the Detroit Institute of Art's collection to help save moribund pensions. What changed?
Mr. Schjeldahl claims to now have a "sounder grasp" of the issues involved. No offense to Mr. Schjeldahl, but these issues don't seem that complex to me. Mr. Schjeldahl claims that selling the art would not bring "dollar-for-dollar" relief to Detroit's pensioners, but that was evident from the start. He also claims sentimentality when he gives a vivid description--from his friend--of countless individuals who no longer would be able to view their favorite artworks; presumably individuals in no need of an ambulance, police car or fire truck.
I respect a person's decision to switch sides; I do it all the time. What's of import, however, are the reasons for the flip-flopping or, rather, the sound reasons. Mr. Schjeldahl argument that selling of DIA's collection would "stagger even today's inflated [art] market" serves only to uphold my initial argument that those arguing, sentimentally, against the sale of the artworks are "those who read the New Yorker and those who blog about art simply to create cultural capital." In other words, those that have an investment in the so-called art market and its ideologies.
I'm friends with Hrag Vartanian, who I believe accused Mr. Schjeldahl of suggesting that Greece sell the Parthenon to pay its crippling national debt. Apples to oranges? Perhaps. But more interestingly it's how "culture" is pre-defined as "Culture." Where is the cultural-elite's cry when a sports team decamps from one city to a more profitable metropolis (see the Los Angeles Raiders and the St. Louis Rams, to name only two)? What aggravates me most about this position is that it completely obliterates Detroit's existing culture(s). It's as if Detroit would be left cultureless should the DIA sell off its collection. In the words of theorist, Raymond Williams, culture is ordinary.
Lastly, I'm getting very tired of hearing cultural elitescry demand that someone--usually a writer--be fired every time that writers pens an opinion contrary to the politically correct ideologies of the leftist intelligentsia. I say this not as a lawyer in favor of the First Amendment; I say this as an artist invested in free speech and robust debate. Let's end the calls and petitions for the firing of writers and artist, for we all very well know where that road leads. As Mr. Vartanian aptly showed with his Hyperallergic article, the laptop is mightier than the sword.
Mr. Schjeldahl claims to now have a "sounder grasp" of the issues involved. No offense to Mr. Schjeldahl, but these issues don't seem that complex to me. Mr. Schjeldahl claims that selling the art would not bring "dollar-for-dollar" relief to Detroit's pensioners, but that was evident from the start. He also claims sentimentality when he gives a vivid description--from his friend--of countless individuals who no longer would be able to view their favorite artworks; presumably individuals in no need of an ambulance, police car or fire truck.
I respect a person's decision to switch sides; I do it all the time. What's of import, however, are the reasons for the flip-flopping or, rather, the sound reasons. Mr. Schjeldahl argument that selling of DIA's collection would "stagger even today's inflated [art] market" serves only to uphold my initial argument that those arguing, sentimentally, against the sale of the artworks are "those who read the New Yorker and those who blog about art simply to create cultural capital." In other words, those that have an investment in the so-called art market and its ideologies.
I'm friends with Hrag Vartanian, who I believe accused Mr. Schjeldahl of suggesting that Greece sell the Parthenon to pay its crippling national debt. Apples to oranges? Perhaps. But more interestingly it's how "culture" is pre-defined as "Culture." Where is the cultural-elite's cry when a sports team decamps from one city to a more profitable metropolis (see the Los Angeles Raiders and the St. Louis Rams, to name only two)? What aggravates me most about this position is that it completely obliterates Detroit's existing culture(s). It's as if Detroit would be left cultureless should the DIA sell off its collection. In the words of theorist, Raymond Williams, culture is ordinary.
Lastly, I'm getting very tired of hearing cultural elites
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Should Detroit Sell Its Musty Art?
It's rare when a respected art critic takes a position "against" art. I put "against" in quotes because in this case Peter Schjeldahl isn't really taking a position against art per se, but rather a position that I have endorsed before: why do we continue to romanticize art and its function? Why do we continue to inject an aura into the art object?
In Schjeldahl's view, art-is-art, or better yet, the Detroit Institute of Art's collection is plop art--art whose meaning remains the same regardless of context.
Hirschhorn's monument takes place on the grounds of Forest Houses, a New York City Housing Authority development in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx, New York. Here's an edited description of the project via The DIA Art Foundation website.
However, I do part ways with Schjeldahl in his belief that museums bestow a sense of identity and self-esteem "even on people who never visit them." In this regard, Schjeldahl continues to romanticize and idealize the so-called "power" of art institutions while perpetuating archaic and pernicious ideologies of Western culture.
In the end, not everyone "gets"museum art, art criticism or art history. As Mike Kelley once said, you can't foist art on people. If the people of Detroit don't care about art, don't want access to it, don't want to live down the street from it, or simply don't get it, then what's the loss?
In Schjeldahl's view, art-is-art, or better yet, the Detroit Institute of Art's collection is plop art--art whose meaning remains the same regardless of context.
At any rate, they are hardly altered by inhabiting one building rather than another. The relationship of art to the institutions that house and display it is a marriage of convenience, with self-interest on both sides, and not an ineluctable romance.In other words the DIA collection isn't site-specific art. We're not talking about the Spiral Jetty or Thomas Hirschhorn's Gramsci Monument. In fact, Hirschhorn's Gramsci Monument is a perfect example of why the DIA should sell its collection: there's a difference between having access to art making and culture and having an art collection that attracts tourists (if that) yet ignores the local citizenry.
Hirschhorn's monument takes place on the grounds of Forest Houses, a New York City Housing Authority development in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx, New York. Here's an edited description of the project via The DIA Art Foundation website.
Constructed by residents of Forest Houses, the artwork takes the form of an outdoor structure comprised of numerous pavilions. Gramsci Monument will offer a daily program of lectures by philosopher Marcus Steinweg, a children's workshop run by artist Lex Brown, a radio station, happy hour, and a daily newspaper. Weekly programs include a play titled Gramsci Theater, Gramsci Seminars led by international scholars, Poetry Lectures and Workshops led by poets and writers, Art Workshops led by Hirschhorn, open microphone events coordinated by the community, and field trips organized by the project’s “ambassador[.]”Similar to Hirschhorn's project, I believe that what the city of Detroit needs is hands-on culture-making; not hand wringing. No, not every person should have the chance to see art or to live down the street from it. Rather, they should have the chance to create their own version of art and culture and not one dictated by those who read the New Yorker or those who blog about art simply to create cultural capital.
However, I do part ways with Schjeldahl in his belief that museums bestow a sense of identity and self-esteem "even on people who never visit them." In this regard, Schjeldahl continues to romanticize and idealize the so-called "power" of art institutions while perpetuating archaic and pernicious ideologies of Western culture.
In the end, not everyone "gets"museum art, art criticism or art history. As Mike Kelley once said, you can't foist art on people. If the people of Detroit don't care about art, don't want access to it, don't want to live down the street from it, or simply don't get it, then what's the loss?
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Monday, July 22, 2013
Detroit, Should We Keep Art "that the well to do like to oooh and aaah at?"
Forbes contributor Tim Worstall says..."What is it that we’re supposed to care about? A few pieces of canvas or real lives as they are actually lived?"
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