The View from the Edge of the Universe

Thanks Renzo.

I love the new High Museum. I LOVE THE NEW HIGH MUSEUM!

I'm sorry for everything nasty I have said about the museum (well maybe not for this). Renzo Piano has created a museum and a public space that is perfect for Atlanta.  My sense of belonging to a community of art lovers has never been stronger than today while standing in the piazza that the addition surrounds.  Piano's village for the arts will allow the museum to grow as its holdings improve and at the same time provide Atlantans with a cultural heart so inviting that I believe it will create the one space in Atlanta to bring together our very separate communities.  This was evident today.

The museum is full of contemporary photography. Struth! Wall! Muniz! Dicorcia!Misrach! Mann! Another Wall! And none of these are even in the photography galleries whose space sadly feels like a footnote to the rest of the addition.  None the less, our whining paid off: the High listened.  With Julian Cox at the helm of the photography department, I believe that his influence will also rectify the short-changed photo galleries.

The museum is full of local artists as well: Angela West, Orien Catelidge, Lucinda Bunnen, Annette Cone Skelton (who must have slept with someone to get placed between Agnes Martin and Donald Judd), Radcliffe Bailey...the list goes on. I'd like the High to identify these artists as being Georgia based with a special symbol like they do at the NOMA (Send them some money by the way. I am.)

The best surprise (to me...its been installed for quite a while now) is in the original museum.  The High has devoted a significant amount of space to southern vernacular (i.e. folk) art which the museum has deep and excellent holdings.  If anyone questions the validity of folk art as a complex and compelling genre, go look at the little Howard Finster glass house sculpture.  It's an absolute treasure.

I'm not an architecture critic, but the new spaces are perfect for art.  The lighting on the fourth floor (northern natural light) is a revelation.  As an aside, I want to defend Richard Meier's small spaces in the original building in that when that building was designed, the High's collection was largely decorative arts and pre-contemporary art.  And none of it was all that big.  Why design massive spaces for a piece of Newcomb pottery?  Meier must have considered the then very thin holdings of the museum and designed appropriately.

One oddity of the addition are the many trapezoid shaped spaces that seem to be designed to display video art (one does screen a William Kentridge video).  The others though have photos and paintings on display. I'll take more art on display any day, but these spaces are a little quirky to hang pictures in.  They are sort of like entering a "mystery vortex" room.

One last suggestion:  move the Alfredo Jaar installation out of the gallery its in where is takes up way too much space and move it to the lobby.  It's a powerful piece visually and will not be lost in any room regardless how big.

I'm splitting hairs here though.  I'm in love with the space and with the potential that the addition brings. I think it marks an important change in the High's collective mentality: it can no longer simply defer to the special interests of its wealthy patrons.  This is a museum for Atlanta, all of Atlanta, and the High has proved that it's vision recognizes this.

All that art made me hungry. I went to Popeyes and promised this guy that I'd split the money with him if this photo ever became worth a million dollars (His figure! Perhaps he collects.)  Any takers?

 

I Visited Another City's Art Museum & You Know What That Means.....

......it's High Museum bashin' time!

Yes folks, I trolleyed it up to City Park to visit the New Orleans Museum of Art and once again was reminded why the High Museum is so very irritating on so many levels. 
In the Museum's contemporary galleries, along side works by Chuck Close, Shirin Neshat and Jackson Pollack were a number of artworks, many of them recent acquisitions, by Louisiana artists.  The museum even has a special symbol noting them as such.  NOMA recognizes that it is a regional museum (as is the High) and (unlike the High) celebrates this fact.  The High instead rents artwork from the Louvre in a futile effort to present a world class collection which it will never have.  Further, NOMA presented a retrospective by living New Orleans artist John Scott.  Here is a museum that is completely committed to recognizing and celebrating artists of the region.

Also on view was a photography exhibit (in its entirety on-line) entitled "64 Degrees of Separation".  The exhibit, meant to be viewed sequentially, contained sixty-four photographs. Each photograph was tied thematically to the one next to it and snaked through three galleries so the viewer ended he began with the last photograph tied thematically to the first one as well.  This was not heady stuff, but it was a joy to walk through and discover connections between very different photographs and to see how the theme changed during the exhibition.  It was really a clever way to display many of the museums strongest photographic holdings in a way that was very accessible.  The exhibition took up about 1750 sq. ft. (I measured) of space which is  about 45% more than the High will be devoting to photography once the expansion opens.  NOMA had a number of other photographs on display as well including many by a New Orleans photographer whose name I forgot to note.

All in all, NOMA is a perfect fit for New Orleans: a special museum in a unique city that is not trying to be anything more than it is.  Oddly enough it has made me realize how well the High fits Atlanta: a city that is striving to be a major international city with a museum that is futilely striving for the same.

High Museum to Atlanta: "Photography is Dead"

In recent months the powers that be at our beloved High Museum have been whetting photo lovers' appetites with talk of the new space devoted to photography  when the museum's addition opens later this year.

Well really, they've been talking about the "works on paper" space of which photography will be a part.  To be exact, when the High addition opens there will be exactly one 2400 sq. ft. gallery devoted to works on paper AND photography.  Lets say half is for photography.  That amounts to a whopping 1200 sq. ft. (or 0.6% of the High's total expansion of 177,000 square feet).  And since the High thinks only dead artists matter, at best 20% of that space will probably be devoted to post-1970 works.  So I cant wait to see the three freakin' contemporary photos on display in the new works on paper gallery.  And if they display the Jeff Wall that they recently acquired (at least they are making some good albeit financially questionable decisions) in that space, I doubt there will be room for much more.  I'm sure the High can kiss sir Elton's collection bye bye as well as many of the other very good photo collections in town.

What makes this even worse is that the High is closing its downtown Folk Art and Photography galleries which were probably about 4,000 or 5,000 square feet and had consistently good photography exhibitions that were a nice mix older and newer works.

So the High's commitment to exhibiting photography will actually drop once the new space opens.  This is so short sighted, because I still believe that museums build great collections through collector donations (they don't call the Guggenheim the Guggenheim for nothing) and there are far more serious photography collectors in Atlanta than there are of any other artistic discipline. The High is going to alienate them all.  As it sits now, I'd rather have my collection sit in storage somewhere than give it to the High.

One bright note:
The High has indicated that it will have a study room in the new space and will make available for viewing any photo from its collection upon request. 

In sort of a reverse boycott, I PROMISE TO PAY ANYONE $10 if they actually go to the High and take advantage of the museum's private viewing offer. 
In order to collect your $10 from me you must:
1. Attend the High within one year of the addition's opening
2. Request and actually view a photo or photos in storage that were taken after 1970
3. Have the High employee sign your admission receipt and indicate what you looked at and
4. Send me the receipt via email or fax.
I'll re-post this once a month for the first year the High is open.

I want to drive the High crazy with requests so they will actually put more work on display.

Enough barfing for one day.  See you Sunday.

High Museum Financial Analysis

Last Sunday the Atlanta Journal & Constitution ran a mega feature story on who makes what in the Atlanta arts community.  Its nice to see that Michael Shapiro, director of the High Museum, has managed to receive raises in excess of 20% per year in the midst of continuous staff cuts at the museum.  I don't know one person in the Atlanta arts community that actually likes what's going on at the High yet there are long lines every weekend to see the museum's latest dead artist show "from Van Gogh to Mondrian".

I have done my own highly scientific analysis of the High's 2004 finances.  I don't recommend this for everyone, after all I am a highly trained CPA and am uniquely qualified to undertake these tasks:

The Prize is High

Saw this bit on artnet:
The High Museum of Art has announced a new national award to recognize and support exceptional African American artists. The $25,000 David C. Driskell Prize, named after the African American artist, is slated to be awarded on Mar. 7, 2005.

I love to bash the High, but there is nothing to bash here.  I'll have to wait until they actually start awarding the prize.

Photo Forum party

The High Museum's annual Photo Forum party was held at Pam Alexander's home this Sunday.  Lots of Atlanta art world insiders attended, from collectors Joe Massey and Eric & Bonnie Fishman to Atlanta artist Scott Ingram as well as gallery owners Brian Holcombe (Saltworks) and Marilyn Kiang (Kiang Gallery).  Its my first event shoot and my pix were lousy, but here are a few:

The Louvre in ATL

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.....