museums

On the other side of the coin, following that last post about hard times, we have the opposite over at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art who have announced that everything's fine and dandy with them again on the financial end. Just a few short months ago, you'll recall that the museum was only a few steps from an untimely death, forcing billionaire Eli Broad to step in and throw down $30 million to keep it afloat. Now the museum has said, on top of Broad's massive contribution, they've also raised nearly that same amount from other donors (mostly members of their board), bringing their total haul to $56.9 million and thus making everything good again for them. We're thinking, after seeing a turnaround this quick, it's probably always a good idea to get in friendly with Eli Broad and his rolodex if you ever find yourself running a museum. Also couldn't hurt to be in Los Angeles either, given the types of people who live in the area and their inflated pocketbooks -- just take a look at some of the members of their new board (which replaces those who left in protest earlier this year):

In other MOCA board business Thursday, trustees re-elected Jeffrey Soros as president, and Fred Sands, who recently donated $2 million, was chosen as vice president. Three new trustees were elected: writer-producer Darren Star, whose credits include "Sex and the City," "Melrose Place" and "Beverly Hills, 90210"; Carolyn Clark Powers, who also is on the collectors' committee at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Music Center's dance association; and Marc I. Stern, an investment executive who chairs Los Angeles Opera and is a board member of the Music Center, California Science Center and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

"It's the right size. It's sufficiently impressive. And it has a romantic, quasi-sexual feel to it."

-Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong on the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed museum

Staying in the museum world for a bit longer, Art Info has the goods on a bit of heated discussion at the hands of New York's art critic, Jerry Saltz. At the start of the month, the critic posted to his Facebook account that he wanted to know why MoMA's collection, on the 4th and 5th floors of their building, only featured 19 pieces by women, roughly 4% of the total. This led to lots of high-profile people in the industry, including MoMA employees, chiming in to give their two cents. Since then, Saltz has moved beyond Facebook, sending a letter to curator Ann Temkin asking for a response, with some very strong words: "...if we can try to close Gitmo, we can try to close this sad gap at MoMA." Makes for some good reading and thinking all around.

While the debate continues over whether or not the Orange County Museum of Art handled themselves properly with their recent sale of a batch of paintings, the deaccessioning conversation has flared up again on the other coast, finding New York-based museums attempting to fight back a bill making its way through the state government that would regulate art sales used to help make ends meet. The passing of the bill would make it much more difficult sell off pieces of collections to anyone other than other museums or organizations who would keep the art available to the public. Museums in the state, like everywhere else across the county, are suffering from decreased endowments and massive cost-cutting efforts including the Guggenheim's layoffs and the Met's recent announcement that they've just finished their latest round of pink slips and closures, and they aren't keen to see one of their options to keep the doors open getting more difficult and are thus scrambling to keep the bill at bay while trying to avoid coming across as having a lack of concern for the public good. We'll keep you up to date of the bill's progress as it moves forward.

Just in time for the release of Gloria Vanderbilt's steamy novel about the widow of a Frank Lloyd Wright-like architect (warning: it involves a discovered cache of letters wrapped with a magenta ribbon), the Guggenheim today launched an online forum that will address the subject of how design can enhance or detract from everyday life. "Between the Over- and Underdesigned," which runs through July 2 on the museum's website, is the first in a series of moderated online discussions on the arts, architecture, and design. Leading the inaugural forum is journalist and critic Aric Chen, who is virtually joined by panelists Sarah Herda, executive director of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; Arjo Klamer, professor of the economics of art and culture at Erasmus University in Rotterdam; Ellen Lupton, curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; and David van der Leer, assistant curator of architecture and design at the Guggenheim. The forum encourages visitors from around the world to submit comments and questions for consideration by the panelists and to participate in two live chat sessions scheduled for this Thursday (with Chen) and next Tuesday (with van der Leer). Lupton has already gotten things off to a rousing start:

Imagine walking into a brand-new public building—let's say it's a museum, a campus student center, or a mental-health clinic. Every detail has been designed, from the drop ceiling to the polished floors. But taped to the security desk is a paper sign, printed out in all-caps Times Roman, that says Restrooms Are Downstairs in the Basement Behind the Boiler Room or Don't Even Think About Asking Me Where the Elevator Is. These homemade signs boil over with irritation, directed at a clueless public who don't know how the building works. What's happening here is not a failure of the public, however, but a failure of design.

Some further developments on the Orange County Museum of Art scandal that's been the talk in museum circles these past few days. After secretly selling a handful of paintings to a private collector without first mentioning their desire to sell to other museums in the area, thus potentially keeping the pieces accessible, the OCMA's director, Dennis Szakacs has said that he is more than happy to tell other museums who they sold the paintings to, but they plan to keep it a secret from everyone else:

"The person's identity is going to be known within the museum community," even though OCMA has promised not to divulge it to the general public, said Szakacs, who called the Times from Venice, Italy, on Thursday. If another museum asks, he added, "I would absolutely direct them to the collector, and I would make that introduction, and help facilitate that loan...or give any other museum an opportunity to cultivate this person, build a relationship with them, invite them to be on their board. All these opportunities are available to anyone in the [museum] community."

We're guessing it's just a matter of time until the name gets leaked, but until then, and likely even after, Szakacs and his museum won't be the most popular people in the area for the foreseeable future.

If you were anxiously awaiting your trip to see all the sights and sounds of Hollywood, it looks like your trip to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee might not be worth it after all. Actress Debbie Reynolds' non-profit that was busy building the Hollywood Motion Picture and Television Museum to house her massive collection of pieces of movie memorabilia has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, having run into a snag when a lender sued the company over the more than a million dollars they say they are still owed. This has brought everything to a halt, with the building only half done (this continuously updated web cam of the structure's progress is apt of be slightly awkward if the bankruptcy keeps things shuttered for long). But fear not, as you could always either a) go to California to see the actual place movies are made, b) travel to one of the few remaining Planet Hollywoods, or c) keep your plans to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, because after all, Dollywood is still there.

Just give the giant green rabbit your garbage and nobody gets hurt. The five-foot-tall bunnies stationed through September at London's Covent Garden and Holland Park actually come in peace, bearing trash bags. Toss in your garbage and their ears light up. The bunny bins were designed by the multitalented Paul Smith as one of 15 projects commissioned for London by the city's Design Museum. "I tried to keep my idea simple and hopefully interesting. I am always amazed how bad people are about litter and how they are so thoughtless," said Smith. "My exhibit is hopefully a tiny step towards making people be better with their rubbish."

While Smith injected his trademark whimsy into rubbish bins, David Adjaye smartened up London's bus shelters, Thomas Heatherwick gathered up quotidian lampposts into a "chandelier" bouquet, and Zaha Hadid, well, she whipped up an entire vision for the city of London. Other top designers who answered the museum's call to give something back to London include Tom Dixon, Neville Brody, and Ron Arad. All 15 projects are on view through October 4 in the Design Museum's "Super Contemporary" exhibition, which is co-sponsored by Beefeater gin. You'll need to remember that last part when the guards give you trouble for drinking gin—make that Beefeater 24 "luxury gin"—in the museum. Just tell them the green bunnies made you do it.

Speaking of hard times in the museum industry, the Orange County Museum of Art has found itself being marred by criticism over their recent sale of nearly all of their California Impressionist paintings to a private art collector. All of this was done on the quiet and quick back in March, but was discovered due to a tip to the LA Times's Culture Monster blog. Now that the information has been released, it's brought the debate over deaccessioning back to the table, particularly if the Orange County Museum followed the guidelines set forth by museum organizations (e.g. it's okay if you're selling work to buy more work, but it's not okay to sell work just to pay the bills, and it's also important that you try and get the pieces to other museums, instead of into the hands of collectors who plan to squirrel them away). So now the museum is playing on the defense, trying to smooth the situation over with their critics and explaining the sales. But they've certainly yet to soothe everyone, with or without the full story:

What OCMA says it did is not a clear-cut ethical breach, said Janet Landay, executive director of the Assn. of Art Museum Directors. "Frequently these things are less than black and white," she said, and a private sale to a collector "isn't in that level of egregious behavior" and "could easily be a very legitimate decision."

That doesn't wash with Bolton Colburn, director of the Laguna Art Museum, and Jean Stern, director of the Irvine Museum. Both say that if they'd known the California Impressionists were for sale, they would have sought donors to bankroll bids. The genre, often called "plein air painting," is important to both museums.

The Guggenheim is the latest museum foundation to publicly suffer this rocky economic climate, having just announced that they will be laying off eight percent of their workforce, or twenty-five people in total. In addition, as has become par for the course since things took a turn toward the grim last year, they will be cutting back on any and all expenses in an attempt to hopefully keep everything afloat for a bit longer. All of this, of course, is due to the Guggenheim losing a healthy chunk of their regular endowments, like what's happening all across the board in the industry. Though, for now, it appears that there won't be any cutbacks in what's being displayed in their museums around the world, despite its history not discounting that that might also happen around the corner:

Still, [director Richard Armstrong] emphasized, no exhibitions have been canceled and the museum's hours will remain the same. Attendance stands at an all-time high of 1.1 million visitors a year. "The shows will go on a bit longer, but our commitments remain intact," he said.

Tough times have affected the Guggenheim before. In 1994, during another economic downturn, nearly 10 percent of its staff was dismissed, operating hours were reduced and its library was temporarily closed. After 9/11, when the institution was crippled by a drop in tourism, admissions plunged almost 60 percent and revenue ran about half of projections. As a result, about 80 employees, or roughly a fifth of the staff, received pink slips.