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Seeing the Barnes Foundation’s Limitations

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Barnes FoundationEdward Soznaski dares to utter the obvious about the new Barnes Collection in the center of Philadelphia. The move to the center city wasn’t a radical enough change for the collection:

Moving to Center City might have made the collection more accessible, but it also has made the collection’s quirks, and especially its deficiencies, more obvious.

Barnes-Merion was a completely integrated experience involving architecture, horticulture, and the presentation of the art. On the Parkway, the collection presents itself more as a historical artifact in an artificial, and not especially resonant, environment.

Consequently, Barnes’ eccentric method of displaying his collection, and even the philosophy behind it, make less sense on the Parkway than in Merion. Equally to the point, now visitors more readily notice that much of the art in this storied collection is mediocre.

Even at Merion, it seemed obvious that the founder placed himself and his dubious theories above the achievement of individual artists and the flow of art history. His wall “ensembles” are arbitrary conceits that blend the great, the good, and the ordinary into an indiscriminate, aesthetic jumble.

Higher-quality paintings are usually given prominence in the ensembles by being placed in the center, but not always. For instance, in one gallery a Van Gogh portrait of postmaster Joseph Roulin, one of the artist’s iconic images, is jammed into a corner by a covey of Cezannes, serving neither artist adequately. […]

In transforming the foundation from a 1920s private gallery to a 21st-century public museum, the art, the artists, the public, and even Barnes would have been better served by a radical rethinking of how to present the higher-quality portions of the collection.

Art: Back at the Barnes, A Second Look (Philly.com)

Here’s Something Else for Barnes Defenders to Freak Out About

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The New York Times profiles the museum architects Billie Tsieh and Todd Williams fingering their decision to re-create, not replicate, the interior of the Barnes Foundation in Merion. For those who consider it a crime that the foundation is being moved to a more accessible location, the idea that Barnes’s vision might be altered in any way ought to provoke storms of outrage.

Why they’re not outraged that the art is imprisoned in Barnes’s matrix is another matter entirely. Here’s the Times on the changes Tsieh and Williams made:

In Merion, the galleries flow from one to another, meaning visitors can see not only items in the room they are in, but items in adjacent spaces.

Mr. Williams and Ms. Tsien had no problem installing the new galleries in the same sequence. But they decided to “open up” the new building, by inserting a reading room, a classroom and a sunken garden court into the procession of small spaces. That means that, in some cases, the rooms won’t open directly into one another, as in the existing museum.

During a recent interview, Ms. Tsien said they worked to make sure those new rooms wouldn’t be jarring to visitors. “They were meant to be a gentle breath; we don’t want them to be a hurricane,” she said.

As for the galleries themselves, Mr. Williams said that they considered trying to enlarge them, even by just a few inches, to make them feel more spacious.

But the paintings can’t change size, Mr. Williams noted. “So if we enlarged the rooms, the relationships between the paintings” — the relationship that Albert Barnes was focused on — “would start to fall apart,” he said.

For the New Barnes, Everything Old is Old Again (New York Times)

Ming-style Qianlong Vase = $1.38m in Philly

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On Saturday before Asia Week in New York, Freeman’s auction house in Philadelphia held its own Asian sale including this Ming-style Qianlong vase that was match to one that sold at Sotheby’s in 2008 for $750,000.

Freeman’s vase nearly doubled that. All the action took place in the room, according to Zoe Hillenmeyer speaking for Freeman’s to the Philadelphia Enquirer:

She declined to identify the buyer but said he had been in the room at the time of the sale. The auction house was packed beyond its 60 seats, Hillenmeyer said, with 20 or more individuals standing, all 15 phone lines busy and an additional 70 or 80 people bidding via the web.

Ming-style Vase is Auctioned for $1.38m (Philly.com)

Philadelphia's Rosenbach De-Accessions 13 Paintings

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Another local Philadelphia Museum is selling minor works:

The Rosenbach Museum and Library has decided to dispose of 13 paintings by the British painter Walter Greaves, a friend of James McNeill Whistler’s, according to Derick Dreher, the museum’s director. The Rosenbach will sell 12 through Christie’s auction house in New York starting next month, and is in talks to place the remaining painting, a portrait of Whistler, with a local museum. Money from the sales will go into the Rosenbach’s acquisitions fund, Dreher said.

Rosenbach_Museum_announces_plans_to_part_with_13_paintings (Philadelphia.com)

Freeman's Impressionists

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New York, London and Paris are not the only places where art–even Impressionist art–is auctioned in the six figures. Freeman’s in Philadelphia–along with two other local auction houses–is hold its June sales of European and American art:

The 100 lots of American works that will be offered next are where the main interest will probably lie, since many are by well-known local artists. They include a large landscape by the early Pennsylvania impressionist Daniel Garber that has the auction’s top presale estimate, $200,000 to $300,000.

According to the catalog description, the 36-inch-square oil on canvas, titled Old Farm in the Hills, was painted in 1946, by which time Garber was more and more interested in the upper reaches of the Delaware River.Continue Reading

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