“The very day [in 2013] that Sophie Makariou took over as the director of Paris’s Musée Guimet, she met a young Indian doctor on a train. ‘I would love to see some Indian art while I am here,’ he said. ‘Go to the Guimet,’ responded Makariou, to which he replied: What is that?’ The fact that he had not even heard of the venerable institution, founded in 1889 by Emile Guimet and holding one of the world’s top collections of Asian art, showed Makariou the extent of the task ahead of her.”
Tag: 03.26.18
Choosing The Right Title For A Museum Show Is A Very Tricky Matter
“Depending on the institution, curators will go back-and-forth with artists, colleagues, advisers and, more frequently now, marketing and public relations staff. The case of [the abandoned title] Going Native also signals the stakes involved – the curatorial pitfalls and political landmines that may linger in words. But museums stress that the process is not algorithmic but the occasionally serendipitous pursuit of a magic phrase.” (And is it even possible to title an exhibition without using a colon?)
The World’s Most Visited Museums And Exhibitions, 2017 Edition
The Louvre, as usual, had the highest attendance, although the National Museum of China is a very close second, with the Met a distant third. The two most popular shows – which comes first depends on which way you count – were of Impressionist and Modern paintings in Paris and of late 12th-century Buddhist sculptures in Tokyo.
The Real Reason Negative Reviews Are Necessary
Bill Marx (in a pan of Jesse Green’s New York Times apologia for negative reviews): “Because they reflect an eternal truth: all the blurbs in the universe will not eradicate the fact that much in the arts is mediocre. Pans also provide the means for the reader to evaluate the critic: we learn as much about someone from why they dislike something then why they like something. And negative reviews prove that the critic takes the arts seriously enough to risk defining success and failure, to draw an aesthetic red line, to proclaim to the Parrotheads that the emperor has no clothes.”
The Most Popular Exhibitions In The World This Year
The Art Newspaper compiles a list of shows by category. In top sport was Modern masterpieces from the Shchukin Collection—by Picasso, Matisse and Gauguin, among others—were seen by 1,205,000, a staggering 8,926 visitors a day in Paris.
New Sculpture On Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth Is Rebuke To ISIS’s Destruction Of Ancient Sites
American artist Michael Rakowitz, whose family were Iraqi Jewish refugees, made a replica of the lamassu (a winged bull with a human head) which stood at the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh until ISIS destroyed it in 2015. (The material: thousands of empty cans of date syrup, once a major Iraqi export.)
John Neumeier, Now 79, Will Remain At Helm Of Hamburg Ballet For Four More Years
The city of Hamburg extended has extended the choreographer’s contract for four more years, to 2023. He is already the world’s longest-serving ballet company head, and at the end of this contract extension he’ll have been with Hamburg Ballet for a half-century. (in German; Google Translate version here)
As Artistic Director Leaves, Madison Ballet Contracts By More Than Half
“Facing an uncertain future with the departure of its longtime artistic director” – W. Earle Smith, who’s been at the helm since 1999, leading the company’s transition from community-based to professional and adding a ballet school – “Madison Ballet plans to cut its company of dancers by more than half and drastically trim its season for 2018-19. But its leaders insist the company – part of the city’s artistic landscape for decades – will keep dancing.”
Are Arts Orgs Being Too Profligate With Naming Rights?
With institutions ever more reliant on the big gifts that come with naming rights to fund new facilities or renovations – and especially when, as with the Sacklers or Kochs, controversy gets attached to those names – do cultural organizations need to be more cautious?
Really? A Contemporary Art Theme Park? (One That’s Ripping Off The Artists It’s Riffing Off, No Less)
A new tourist attraction in Bandung, Indonesia, called Rabbit Town features installations that bear extraordinary resemblances to Chris Burden’s Urban Light (at the entrance to LACMA), Yayoi Kusama’s Obliteration Room (where visitors put polka dots on the walls), and the Museum of Ice Cream.