I’ve Been Doing a Lot of Reading Over The Holidays:

By Charles Kessler

Two good (i.e., I agree with them) articles came out today. Roberta Smith criticizes MoMA’s disastrous new space and discusses how it influences the kind of art they can show. (Last year I posted my own criticism of MoMA’s space here.) I don’t, however, agree with her take on the what she refers to as the “glamorously digitalized screen tests by Andy Warhol, minimally organized by the museum’s curator at large, Klaus Biesenbach” -- I’ll be writing about this show soon. And Kyle Chayka on the Hyperallergic blog suggests some “New Year’s Resolutions for the Art World.”

Several articles came out in response to The Courtauld Gallery’s “Cezanne’s Card Players” — an exhibition fortunately coming to the Met on February 9th. The always brilliant T. J. Clark has a Marxist interpretation of the work here; and the Telegraph and Guardian weigh in here and here.

Cezanne, The St Petersburg ‘Smoker’ (c.1890-92).

Two posts discuss the use of phone apps in museums. The Brooklyn Museum, in their excellent blog, has a post by the Museum’s Chief of Technology, Shelley Bernstein, explaining what they’re trying to do with their app; and Arianna Huffington writes more generally about the use of technology in museums in The Huffington Post.

The Los Angeles Times has a good critique of plans for a new football stadium in downtown Los Angeles. To their criticisms I'd add that sports stadiums are street life killers and are never a good idea in downtowns. That’s why the area around stadiums are almost always depressed. (Take that, Atlantic Yards.) Another Times article is about an attempt to start an “Art Weekend” downtown as a counter to the popular “party-centric” Art Walk. Good luck.

Finally, don’t miss browsing the Museum of the City of New York’s collection of period New York photographs newly installed on their website.

Jacob A. Riis, Men in a Crowd in a Black and Tan Dive Bar, ca.1890