Jerry Saltz gets his oar in with the New York Times and The New Museum:
I like that the art world isn’t regulated. I have seen Joannou’s collection and it is incredible. Still, when you add in Koons as the curator here the whole thing just breaks down. If only the museum would have either curated the collection itself or gotten someone else to do it … (Right now at the UCLA Hammer Museum, artist Robert Gober has organized a show of visionary painter Charles Burchfield which is fantastic and totally untainted.)
It is a joke, by the way, to think that Joannou’s collection will increase in value after being shown here. If anything, using three floors of the New Museum will overexpose the art and decrease its value.
I love that we have an institution that is essentially saying, “Damn the rules. Other museums aren’t putting enough great contemporary art on view, so we’ll do it any way we can!”
And a commenter–George W–points to the real answer to this quandary:
Tyler Greene writes a terrific blog, but every now and then he flips out about money. For some reason his hysteria is contagious. Not long ago Christian Viveros-Faune lost his job writing about art for the Village Voice as a result of Greene’s blogging about a conflict of interest. There aren’t many people writing about art with minds of their own. […] It’s intelligent criticism that will save the New Museum. (Intelligent criticism will save the world!)
