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MoMA Gets a Free Pass

June 2, 2017 by Marion Maneker

MoMA slipped a major announcement about its central mission into yesterday’s press preview for the museum’s new $50m renovations and the unveiling of the final $400m expansion. What’s so interesting about the announcement isn’t really the museum’s new but vaguely described mission but the fact that the museum and its leadership has received very little scrutiny at a time when the city’s other major cultural institutions have been through significant upheaval.

It’s true that the New York Times didn’t go after Met director Tom Campbell’s scalp until after the museum admitted it was unable to fund its aggressive expansion ambitions and was running a deficit. That gave the newspaper the opening to question the museum’s leadership first the director—though the newspaper missed and had to double back upon the most eye-catching example of Campbell’s management failure—and then the board.

MoMA may be getting a free pass on scrutiny because the museum’s finances seem to rock solid. Though the press announcement would have been a good moment to examine how MoMA has financed its expansion. The museum says it has already raised the money for the $450m expansion.

The New York Times says that fundraising was helped along by David Geffen’s $100m gift to the museum. But its own report in 2016 said that Geffen’s gift would mean that his name would go on the galleries being built in the super-tall Jean Nouvel condo tower that is part of the expanded complex (and surely contributed substantially to the museum’s ability to quickly meet the fundraising objectives.) The  Times, which usually abhors any suggestion that commercial interests might benefit from cultural institutions, was silent on this aspect of the story. (Though this residential tower is not the first time that MoMA has funded its expansion through the luxury real estate market.)

Having said that, there are two other important questions about MoMA, its future and leadership, raised by the announcement that are worth exploring further.Continue Reading

MoMA Makes Major Break with Its Past, Quietly

June 1, 2017 by Marion Maneker

MoMA seems to feel stung by the criticism launched at the museum when its expansion plans (and demolition of the adjacent Folk Art Museum) created controversy. The museum has launched a PR assault by coopting the New York Times with an early release of the next set of plans which seem to include a massive re-orientation of the museum’s philosophy and approach to the idea of whatis “modern.”

Both the museum and the Times are downplaying the shift in favor of playing up the idea of inclusiveness:Continue Reading

How Robert Scull (then MoMA) Landed Rosenquist’s F-111

April 5, 2017 by Marion Maneker

f111

The Master, Judd Tully, reminds us of his tenure in the art market with this post on his personal website recalling the sale of James Rosenquist’s F-111 during the second Scull sale in 1986. There he spoke with Rosenquist’s dealer, Leo Castelli who gave some of the details of the original sale:

“I didn’t expect it to get that much. It is a very cumbersome painting.” Recalling his showing of the work in 1965, he said, “It went all around the gallery. Sixty thousand was the asking price, but Scull paid $ 45,000 [with a discount]. It was a very brave thing for Scull to do. He almost deserved to have it for nothing.”

If you’re wondering why Scull got a discount, Tully has some answers:Continue Reading

Page Six: MoMA Wants New Trustee to Guide Expansion

January 20, 2014 by Marion Maneker

08-moma-rendering-2.jpg.r.nocrop.w610.h610

Page Six stirs the pot on the controversy surrounding MoMA’s proposed expansion. After the ruckus caused by the unveiling of the museum’s new plans, the New York Post’s gossip page suggests there’s a new heavy-hitter joining the board:

According to sources close to the museum, MoMA’s board — which already includes heavy hitters Ronald S. Lauder, Agnes Gund, Ron Perelman, Michael Ovitz, Richard Parsons and Sid Bass — will name at the meeting a new trustee to help guide them through the controversy.

Sources told us the possible new addition could be Michael Bloomberg, but a MoMA rep said, “The information you heard is incorrect.”

Is MOMA naming new trustee to board? (Page Six)

MoMA Tells a Story but the New Expansion Doesn’t Give Any More Room to Do That with the Permanent Collection

January 8, 2014 by Marion Maneker

08-moma-rendering-2.jpg.r.nocrop.w610.h610Forget the demise of the American Folk Art Museum building or the new performance spaces or even the high-end real estate development, Jerry Saltz says. MoMA’s expansion revealed today has a fundamental problem for a museum that has the unique mission of telling a specific story about Modern art:

All this avoids MoMA’s basic problem, which I’ve written about before: that the museum needs to triple the amount of space for showing its permanent collection of art made before 1980. It didn’t in 2004, and it isn’t now.

Saltz: The New MoMA Expansion Is a Mess (NY Mag)

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