The Louvre has announced that it is to open an outpost at the High Museum in September 2006. The two museums have been in discussions since spring and expect to sign an agreement in November. Under the terms of the collaboration, the French museum is to lend hundreds of its works to the High Museum for an indefinite period in return for an undisclosed sum, estimated at $10 million for the first three years by The Atlanta-Journal Constitution. Read the Art Newpaper article here.
For those of you who know me, you can imagine my excitement over the High's renewed commitment to avoid showing contemporary art at any cost...in this case $10 million.
Nearly every major U.S. museum collection has been built by collectors donating (or acquiring on the museum's behalf) art made during the collectors' lifetime. By avoiding showing contemporary art, one wonders how many would-be collectors are not being created whose collection could eventually contribute to the High's contemporary holdings.....
I just learned about this blog from Creative Loafing, so I just read this post. Is the writer not aware that perhaps the prime real estate in the High's expansion -the entire top floor of the Weiland Pavillion - will be for contemporary art? The new curator, Jeffrey Grove, would not have come to Atlanta if he had not thought the High was ready to make a significant committment to contemporary art. The museum has made some excellent recent acquisitions, ranging from works by Anselm Kiefer, Ellsworth Kelly, William Kentridge, and Chuck Close, to local artists such as Annette Cone-Skelton, Benjamin Jones, and Susan Cofer. And when the "dead artists" whose work is being aquired includes Tony Smith and Roy Lichtenstein, maybe the outlook for contemporary art at the High is rather good.
As for the Louvre project, it's great that Atlantans will get to see the quality of work that the Louvre offers those who live in Paris. Perhaps it will stimulate a taste for excellence in all forms of visual art. (I've never understood these people who like only "traditional" or only "contemporary" - what a narrow way to go through life!)And when it comes to European art before (let's say) 1850, obviously the great museum collections in this country were not built by collectors donating (or helping to acquire) art made during the collectors' lifetime. Rather, great patrons with names such as Morgan, Rockefeller, Mellon, etc. provided the funds for smart curators to buy with.
Posted by: Baxter Jones | May 09, 2005 at 05:34 PM