The Bonovitz Collection of Outsider Art at the Philadelphia Museum

Bill Traylor, 1943 (collection of Judy A. Saslow).

By Charles Kessler

You missed your chance to see this heartwarming exhibition – it closed June 9th. But don't fret. Although Roberta Smith and Jerry Saltz have been complaining that museums don't exhibit outsider art, lucky for you the Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of the few museums that does. As a result, some of the work that was in this exhibition – one of the most enthralling I've seen in years – will always be on view. The informative exhibition website is still active, and here's a link to excellent reproductions of almost everything in the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection. Best of all, a beautifully illustrated hardcover exhibition catalog with excellent essays about this exhibition, and outsider art in general, is still available.

Installation view, Felipe Benito Archuleta's carved animals, Philadelphia Museum of Art. To the credit of the PMA, each artist was given the respect of having their own space, often their own room. 

There's some dispute about what outsider art is, but it's safe to say that it's art made by people who are not connected to the fine art world. Outsider artists have no traditional art training (although for some reason, trained artists who become schizophrenic are sometimes considered outsider artists). And outsider artists are not engaged with the business side of the fine arts, at least when they first begin making art. 

To be clear, outsider artists are self-taught, not untaught. Nor are they anti-social – they are isolated from the fine art tradition not by choice, but by poverty, racism, geography or some other reason beyond their control. The artists in this exhibition were driven to work hard, they were prolific, and they got better at what they did. Most of them enjoyed showing their work and were pleased when they got a positive response.  

Most outsider artists that we know about began making art late in life, when they were too old to work. They were usually motivated to create art by some inner compulsion or a sign from God. Most didn't see themselves as artists or their work as art, but rather their work served some functional objective like spreading the gospel, curing illness, or documenting some current or historic event. A great deal of outsider art is inspired by popular culture, but it's stylistically very varied.

Many art professionals say that some outsider art is among the best art made in our lifetimes. I agree. And this isn't a trendy new view. Via Lynne Cooke's essay in the exhibition catalog, I learned in 1942 the legendary Alfred Barr wrote:

Just as [Henri] Rousseau now seems one of the foremost French painters of his generation, certain of our self-taught painters can hold their own in the company of their best professionally trained compatriots. [From They Taught Themselves, one of the first books on outsider art.]

Here are some of my favorite artists in the exhibition:

Felipe Benito Archuleta, born Santa Cruz, New Mexico, 1910; died Tesuque, New Mexico, 1991.

Felipe Benito Archuleta, Mule, 1975, wood, paint, sisal, sawdust and glue, 51 ¼ x 70 x 15 ½ inches (PMA, BST-68).

When he was fifty-five, Archuleta received a vision from God that he should make wood carvings, but he said he didn’t feel worthy enough to make religious art like Santos, so, using traditional Santos carving techniques, he carved animals instead.

I find it interesting that eventually Archuleta was engaged enough in the art world that he was encouraged by collectors and dealers to make larger animals. They even encouraged him to make some exotic animals like the lynx below. Unlike the earlier work of animals he saw everyday, for these he needed to refer to magazines like National Geographic. This "insider" influence didn't seem to effect the quality of his work.

Felipe Benito Archuleta, Lynx, 1977, cottonwood, paint, sisal, sawdust and glue, 37x15x29 inches (PMA, BST-67).

In spite of the stiffness and simplification of his animals, they have a disconcerting aliveness about them, as if they are real animals inside a wooden animal costume. Perhaps it has something to do with Archuleta carefully choosing logs appropriate for carving his animals, like Michelangelo did with marble.

Emery Blagdon, born Callaway, Nebraska, 1907; died Callaway, 1986.

Emery Blagdon inside his Healing Machine, 1979 (Photo copyright Sally and Richard Greenhill).

When his mother and father died of cancer, Blangdon started to construct hundreds of sculptures (more than 600 – he called them "pretties") that, according to him, channeled the electromagnetic energy of the earth and healed anyone who came into the shed where they were installed. Blangdon may have been on to something – even though he too died of cancer, he lived to be almost eighty, much older than his parents.

Installation view of Emery Blagdon's machines for healing the sick.

Blagdon's "healing machine" was made up of wire, scrap metal, beads, aluminum foil – whatever was around, and the whole thing was lit by Christmas lights. Entering the shed must have been quite an experience. Unfortunately, separating out just three of his sculptures from their context saps the magical impact they must have had. In this case, photos of Blagdon's "healing machine" may give you a better idea of what it must have been like.

Emery Blagdon inside his Healing Machine, 1979 (Photo copyright Sally and Richard Greenhill).

James Castle, born Garden Valley, Idaho, 1899; died Boise, Idaho, 1977.

James Castle, Gray Bowl, n.d., dark gray paper (from a Sears shopping bag) tied with cotton string; green wax crayon,
3 ¼ x 7 ¾ inches (PMA, BST-15).

James Castle was born deaf and had no language. He wasn't able to work on the farm like his brothers and sisters, so he spent his time making art from things he salvaged in his everyday life – things such as flattened food cartons and cigarette packs, packaging of all types, shopping bags and envelopes; and he made his ink from soot. He produced an enormous amount of work which he carefully stored in his house. He was particularly fascinated with making books and invented his own secret code of symbolic pictographs.

James Castle, Abstract Construction, n.d., cardboard, string, wiped soot wash, 8 x 6 inches (PMA, BST-11).

I find the exquisite sensitivity of the work and meticulous care he took with it very touching. They remind me of Tantra Paintings in that respect.

Sam Doyle, born St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 1906; died Beaufort, South Carolina, 1985.

Sam Doyle in his yard, c.1983 (photo by Roger Manley).

Sam Doyle dabbled in art his whole life, but in his early sixties he decided he needed to document significant people and events in his Gullah island community, and important African Americans in general, and he went at it with great intensity. In the tradition of African American yard art, these were displayed in his yard – what he called "The St. Helena Out Door Gallery."

Sam Doyle, Dr. Boles Hi Blood, c.1985, reused corrugated and galvanized iron sheet and paint,  26 x 34 1/2  inches
(PMA,  BST-168).

What I believe to be his best painting, Dr. Boles Hi Blood, c.1985, is inexplicably missing from the PMA website, but fortunately I took a pretty good photo of it. I have no idea what's going on in the painting – perhaps it illustrates a Gullah spirit myth or a medical procedure. But the physicality of the work, the aggressive colors, the bold placement of the figures, the reduction down to bare essentials, and of course the lurid subject, result in an astoundingly powerful and dramatic work. 

Martín Ramírez, born Rincón de Velázquez, Mexico, 1895; died Auburn, California, 1963.

Martin Ramírez, Verticle Tunnel with Cars, wax crayon, graphite, water-based paint on papers, 58 x 23 ¾ inches
(PMA, BST-43).

Diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1931, Ramírez was committed to a mental hospital where fortunately they encouraged his drawing. Like many of the other outsider artists, he preferred to draw on found papers pasted together from smaller sheets. His subjects are mostly cars or trains entering or leaving a tunnel, Madonnas, horses and riders, and landscapes, and sometimes he would include images from magazines like the Saturday Evening Post.

Martin Ramírez, Train, Cars, Tunnels, and Windows, 1953, graphite, wax crayon, water-based paint and ink on paper,
23 ¾ x 90 inches (PMA, BST-40).

In 1968, Jim Nutt, one of the Chicago "Hairy Who" artist, discovered Ramírez's work and told Chicago art dealer Phyllis Kind about it. Together they bought hundreds of his drawings, and she exhibited them in her gallery as early as 1973. As a result, Ramírez (along with Traylor, below) is probably the most well-known of these outsider artists, and he became an important influence on the Chicago art scene in the 1970s.

Bill Traylor, born near Benton, Alabama, c. 1853; died Montgomery, Alabama, 1949.

Bill Traylor, Runaway Goat Cart, c. 1939-42, opaque watercolor and graphite on cream card,
14 x 22 inches (PMA, BST-52).

Bill Traylor was born a slave on a plantation and remained on the land as a farmhand for most of his life. In his mid-seventies, when he could no longer farm, he moved to Montgomery where he became essentially homeless. In his mid-eighties, stimulated by the teeming street life and its raucous characters, he suddenly began to make drawings of animals, household objects, and what he called "exciting events." He produced an astounding 1200 drawings in four years. One interesting note: the young artist Charles Shannon tried promoting Traylor's work and occasionally bought him art supplies, but Traylor preferred to work on the rough, irregularly-shaped cardboard he found.

Bill Traylor, Men Drinking, Boys Tormenting, Dogs Barking, c. 1939-42, opaque watercolor on card with dark gray prepared surface, 14 ¼ x 21 ¾ inches (PMA, BST-48).

He was a master story-teller, getting down to the bare essentials of his subjects and animating his zany vignettes in a direct and visceral way.

***

The breathtaking quality of the work in this exhibition gives pause. How can such great art be made without art training? Are art schools useless or, worse, can they be harmful?  Can art training extinguish the drive to express oneself and substitute instead a necessity to make work that's tired, super-refined and empty, the way the Academy did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? I suppose it depends. Some people some time do well in some art schools; others are destroyed by them. Some people are helped by schooling; others are gifted enough to not need it. 

Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes

By Charles Kessler

In the last few weeks I saw two great shows that sadly will not be traveling to New York or anywhere else. Unfortunately, one closed last week (you were warned): Great and Mighty Things: Outsider Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; but the other, Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929: When Art Danced with Music at the National Gallery in Washington, you can see until September 2nd. I'll report on the Diaghilev show now because there's obviously no rush on the Outsider Art show.

Serge Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky, Spain, 1921. (Photo: Victoria & Albert Museum, London.)

A case can be made that the great Russian ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev (1872-1929) has had a longer-lasting influence than Picasso. Cubism isn't a factor in the art world any more, and neither is its progeny, Greenbergian reduction of each art form to its innate essence. But, for better or worse, Diaghilev's multi-media, collaborative approach prevails more than ever in today's art world, particularly with performance, conceptual and installation art.

And no one has ever been as great at discovering, choosing and guiding collaborators as Diaghilev: Picasso, Matisse, de Chirico and Leon Bakst all made sets and costumes for his dances; Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Satie wrote scores; and his choreographers were among the greatest ever – Mikhail Fokine, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léonide Massine, Bronislava Nijinska, and George Balanchine.

Dancers from the Ballets Russes in costume for the first ever production of The Rite of Spring in 1913. Choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky, score by Igor Stravinsky. (From the Guardian.)

While he produced unorthodox dances in Paris earlier (The Firebird in 1910 and Petrushka in 1911 – both with a score by the young Igor Stravinsky), Diaghilev's real revolution in dance began in Paris in 1913 with his Rite of Spring, a dance that combined dissonant, rhythmically complicated music by Stravinsky; colorful, exotic stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich; and strange, jerky, jumping up and down choreography by the greatest dancer of his time, Vaslav Nijinski – movement so radically different from the prevailing tutu/toe-shoe ballet that people were scandalized and, feeling insulted, actually rioted. Rupert Christiansen in the London Telegraph describes the impact well when he writes: For a generation struggling under the inherited weight of Victorian mahogany and gilt, the sensuality, brilliance and physicality of the Ballets Russes was seen as a liberation, always sensational and often scandalous, suggesting a new code of erotic possibilities (with Nijinsky’s bisexual appeal at its heart) and establishing the avant-garde as exuberantly glamorous rather than seedily bohemian.

Here is a video of the Joffrey Ballet 1989 Rite of Spring. Imagine what it was like 100 years ago.

(To put in a plug for the under-recognized Isadora Duncan as a precursor, Diaghilev saw her dance in St. Petersburg in 1902 and was impressed by her natural, fluid movements – so different from the moribund imperial court ballet of the time.)

The exhibition at the National Gallery (adapted from the original 2010 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum) is impressively inclusive, containing 130 original costumes,

Henri Matisse, costume for a mourner from The Song of the Nightingale, 1920. Wool felt and velvet. (Photos: Victoria and Albert Museum, London.)

Costume for the Buffoon in Larionov and Slavinsky's ballet Chout, designed by Mikhail Larionov, Diaghilev Ballet, 1921.

Pablo Picasso, costume for the Chinese Conjuror from Parade, c. 1917; and Sonia Delaunay, costume for title role from Cleopatra, 1918.

many original and replicas of the stage sets, and also paintings, sculptures and archival photographs. (The NGA provides an invaluable free "digital companion" to the exhibition here.)

The installations are marvels of color, animation and invention, but unfortunately the NGA doesn't allow photographing the exhibition and I couldn't find anything on the web; but I did manage to sneak a photo (below) that somewhat captures what the installations are like.

Surreptitious photo of the installation of Mikhail Larionov's costumes for the ballet Buffoons Wife (Chout) from The Tale of the Buffoon, 1921, music by Sergei Prokofiev. 

Installing Picasso's front cloth for The Blue Train, 1924 (with a story by Jean Cocteau and costumes by Coco Chanel). 

As exciting as the costumes and sets are, I found them kind of static. For a better understanding of how everything worked together, the NGA provides film clips of many of the dances, most of them shown in their theatrical context.

Don't miss this enchanting exhibition.

Taking a break!

Back to work in mid-June. 

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Jersey City Art News

By Charles Kessler

Mana Contemporary Art Center had one of its mammoth open houses last weekend – a combination of art openings, concerts and open studios.

Google street view of the Mana complex. 

Mana Contemporary is one of the largest private art institutions in the metropolitan area – 125,000 square feet and growing! Like Home Depot or Best Buy, Mana is what in retail is known as a “category killer.” They focus on one category and offer a wide range of services within that category. Mana's main for-profit activity is art storage, and, in that capacity, they provide storage for almost every museum in the area and for private collectors as well. But they also provide: art transportation, crating, framing, viewing galleries, studio space (they say for 70 artists),

Eugene Lemay's studio and viewing space, Mana Contemporary.

dance rehearsal space,

Shen Wei Dance Arts' rehearsal studio, Mana Contemporary.

office/exhibition and storage space for art foundations, foundry services, conservation and restoration labs and even what they call a "beer garden."

"Beer Garden" at Mana Contemporary – 200 plywood panels by Michael Zansky line the walls.

Mana, or something like it, should have been in the Powerhouse Arts District — ten-blocks of historic warehouses in Downtown Jersey City that was supposed to become an arts and entertainment district. Inexcusably the city not only allowed the demolition of 111 First Street (and 110 First Street – see blog logo photo), one of the most historic warehouses which, at one time, housed more than 200 artist studios, but they encouraged it by rezoning the area for 60 stories. Subsequently other parts of the district were re-zoned for high-rise, and other buildings were demolished, in effect destroying any possibility of a viable warehouse district.

This pile of rubble was the site of the historic Lorillard tobacco warehouses at 110 and 111 First Street in the so-called “Powerhouse Arts District.”

Victory Hall Drawing Rooms, a former convent turned exhibition space in Downtown Jersey City, has  happily re-opened after a six-month recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. Their return show, Night & Day, is a beauty. Seven local artists (Tim Daly, Steve Singer, Michael DiFeo, Kay Kenny, Tomomi Ono, Heidi Curko and Sandy DeSando) were each given their own room to display work on the theme of, uh, night and day.

White Eagle Hall

A couple of weeks ago, developer Ben LoPiccolo presented plans for the restoration of a once-beautiful 1910 theater in the Italian Village neighborhood of Downtown Jersey City. The plan calls for the redevelopment of the theater into a black box theater with a seating capacity of 400 (or 800 standing), lounges, offices and two restaurants on the ground level. 

White Eagle Hall, 337-339 Newark Avenue, Jersey City, as it looks today. 

Unless they can divide the space with movable walls (which they are considering), it will be too big and too expensive for any of the local performing arts groups. Popular rock groups would probably be the only ones that could fill it. 

The Laugh Tour

The stand-up comedy show hosted by Rich Kiamco at Art House Productions is getting better and better. The headliner on April 27th was Mike Britt and he was hilarious – they all were. The next one won't be in Jersey City until September 28th – don't miss it. 

New Jersey City University's Big Band Concert Featuring Kurt Elling

Kurt Elling may be the best jazz singer around today, and this concert was as good as anything you could see in New York. NJCU, it turns out, is one of the best jazz schools in the country. Who knew? Their concerts are usually held in this classy 1000-seat theater, the Margaret Williams Theatre, which is worth the trip in itself. 

Margaret Williams Theatre, New Jersey City University. 

And finally, my favorite kind of performance art: a chili cook-off. The weather was dazzling this weekend, and the vibes were mellow at this amiable neighborhood event. Good food, cheap booze and free live music — it doesn't get better than this!

Update and correction:
The New York Times has an article on them today. The Times put Mana's total space at a more credible 1.5 million square feet on 35 acres, as opposed to my 125,000 square. I don't know where I got that number but it is obviously way off.

On the other hand, the Times accepted Mana's figures for the number of studio spaces they have: "About 120 painters, sculptors and photographers now have studios at Mana." But the literature they handed out for their open house claimed to have 70 artist studios, and I only saw about a dozen studios that were open, and only possibly another twenty or so other ones. So unless there are a lot of artist studios hidden on another floor, or in another building somewhere, something is wrong.

The Mega-Galleries of Chelsea

 David Zwirner's new five-story, 30,000 square-foot exhibition and project space at 537 West 20th Street. 

By Charles Kessler

I have mixed feelings about the enormous gallery spaces being built in Chelsea lately. On the one hand, they do some great shows. Gagosian (11 spaces worldwide, two large ones in Chelsea) just closed Helen Frankenthaler from 1950 to 1959, an exhibition any museum would be proud of; David Zwirner (30,000 square feet added to its already enormous space) is currently showing Richard Serra, Early Work; Hauser & Wirth (their new space is a former roller rink, and they've included a bar that overlooks the High Line) recently had an enormous Dieter Roth exhibition.

Hauser & Wirth’s new 24,700 square-foot venue at 511 West 18th Street – former home to the Roxy roller rink.

Bar over the entry ramp to the Hauser & Wirth Gallery – architect Annabelle Selldorf.

And there’s Pace Gallery with three spaces in Chelsea, two in London and one and Beijing; and even Sean Kelly, a mid-sized gallery, moved to a 22,000 square-foot space at 475 10th Avenue.

What’s happening, I think, is the top galleries are making so much money that not only can they afford these huge spaces, but it’s also an absolute business necessity if they want to compete for the billionaire market. It’s no big deal for billionaires to pay millions of dollars for an ordinary Gerhart Richter painting, but they're not doing it because they’re committed collectors who are knowledgeable and passionate about art. What they’re really buying is prestige, and this kind of conspicuous size and luxury is necessary to convince them that they’re getting it.

I know the art world has always been like that, but these mega-galleries flaunt it so much that, in spite of the high quality of some of their shows, I feel dirty even going into them.

Museum News

 By Charles Kessler

Ed Ruscha, The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1968, oil on canvas, 53 ½ x 133 ½ inches (collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC).

Art museums have been in the news quite a bit in the last month, much of it about the turmoil at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). First the Los Angeles Times reported that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (which has its own problems) proposed a merger with MOCA. (A botched article by Carol Vogel about it in the New York Times resulted in one of the longest and funniest corrections ever.) Then MOCA board member and biggest donor, the billionaire Eli Broad, who opposed the partnership, announced a possible partnership with the National Gallery of Art (which turned out to be merely a possible sharing of programming) or with the University of Southern California. Ultimately the MOCA trustees decided to remain independent and, finally showing some responsibility, promised to raise the money needed to stay open. The Los Angeles Times has just reported that happily MOCA already raised $75-million toward their $100-million endowment goal.

I don’t think this particular fiasco should be blamed on Jeffery Dietch, MOCA’s controversial new director. Roberta Smith called it correctly when she wrote: “From the start, the Los Angeles art world and news media have heaped abuse on Mr. Deitch, who has certainly made some missteps. But his main mistake was to be the only person optimistic or naïve enough to take the job in the first place.” Stay tuned!

MOCA isn’t the only California museum in turmoil; the Fine Art Museum of San Francesco is also having problems, also due to an irresponsible board of trustees. You can read a good summary here.

For an object lesson on how a great museum can be destroyed, read “Pasadena's Collapse and the Simon Takeover: Diary of a Disaster,” John Coplan’s February 1975 article in Artforum now reproduced in PDF form here and republished here. It’s a well-written, extensively researched, very long and informative article by someone in the know.

The beloved old Pasadena Art Museum, located at 46 N. Los Robles Avenue, 1960s (courtesy of the Archives, Pasadena Museum of History).

Here are some highlights:

... Los Angeles is a highly urbanized but nonetheless diffused area. Unlike New York, common meeting grounds are virtually nonexistent. Consequently firsthand contacts across generations and professions are extremely rare. The museum’s openings were more than social events. They brought together a large array of people from all over Southern California who normally had little contact with one another, but a strong common interest. The openings engendered a rare intimacy, which broke down, if only for a single night, the sense of isolation that the L.A. art community felt.

... In spring of 1966, the plan and model for the new building was to be presented by the director and the president of the board of trustees at the museum’s annual general meeting. Hopps, exhausted, in the midst of a split with his wife, felt unable to face the membership and explain why the plan was a disaster. He had flown from New York for the meeting, but when he arrived at the L.A. International Airport, he wandered aimlessly, suitcase in hand. He felt himself about to have a nervous breakdown from the accumulated pressures and the difficulty of his relationship with Rowan. Phoning a psychiatrist friend, he had himself admitted to a hospital, and rested up for a couple of weeks. The new building was enthusiastically received at the meeting. Not long afterwards, Rowan told Hopps he doubted his capacity to handle the directorship, and fired the man who had virtually single-handedly lifted the little museum into international prominence.

... The history of the ambitions, and the decline and fall of the Pasadena Art Museum, reveals many of the problems that have retarded the development of effective museums in California. It is a history of compromises, conflicting goals, egomania, and private greed that has acted against the common good, and has ended finally in a violation of the public trust. This chronicle of pathology reflects more diffuse, hidden, and complex workings in larger institutions. But what has happened to the Pasadena is only an extreme instance of the outcome of predicaments that afflict museums from one end of the country to the other.

And one other bit of California Museum news: The Getty Museum, as part of its Pacific Standard
Time survey of Los Angeles art, has organized a massive exhibition called “Overdrive," a survey of Los Angeles modern architecture from 1940 to 1990.

Michael Light, Highways 5, 10, 60, and 101 Looking West, L.A. River and Downtown Beyond, 2004, archival pigment print, 40 x 50 inches (collection of and © Michael Light, courtesy of Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica).

In other museum news, philanthropist Leonard A. Lauder gave the Metropolitan Museum of Art one of the best collections of Cubist art in the world, thereby single-handedly filling a major hole in the Met’s collection.

George Braque, Trees at L'Estaque, 1908 – one of Leonard A. Lauder's gifts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The donation includes 33 Picassos, 17 Braques, 14 Légers and 14 works by Gris — in total worth an estimated $1-billion. Lauder’s gift was made without restrictions so curators can display it however they think best. Compare the philanthropy of a mench like Lauder with that of say … Eli Broad.

And there's more good news from the Met: beginning July 1st, they will stay open seven days a week — the first time since 1971. Not to be outdone, the Museum of Modern Art, beginning May 1st, will also open every day. Staying open an extra day is comparable to increasing their capacity by more than 14%. Given how crowded theses museums have become, it’s a wonder it’s taken this long. Can we look forward to more late nights?

And speaking of MoMA, they bought the adjacent American Folk Art Museum building which the Folk Art Museum couldn’t afford. The building was designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien and got rave reviews when it opened just 12 years ago. MoMA intends to demolish the building to make room for yet another expansion.

Interior of the American Folk Art Museum.

Needless to say this demolition is controversial, but I never thought the building was a good place to display art anyway. It was too narrow, too dark, and it had too many distracting architectural conceits.

The biggest museum news world-wide is the re-opening of the Rijksmuseum after a ten-year (not a typo) renovation costing almost half a billion dollars.

The fireworks and smoke bombs go off to celebrated the re-opening of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands (photo: Getty Images).

Originally built in 1885 to handle an estimated 200,000 annual visitors, they now expect two million visitors – double the number they had before the renovation. The renovation mainly restored the building back to its original Gothic-Renaissance state, doing away with the modern "improvements" that had accumulated over the years. They of course updated the lighting and climate control, but they didn't add much space. There’s a good article about it here, and you can see a good collection of photos here.

This isn’t really news, but I thought I’d stick it in anyway since I went there yesterday for the first time in years. The American Museum of Natural History, right off of Central Park West at 81st Street, has an excellent collection of Northwest Coast Native American art – some of the best, most dramatic art ever made – but it's displayed in shamefully poor, shockingly old-fashion, conditions.

Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, first floor, American Museum of Natural History. It really is this dark!

The High Line

SPRING!!!!

Billboard on the right right: Ryan McGinley, Blue Falling, print on vinyl, 25 x 75 feet (courtesy of the artist and the Team Gallery – until April 30th). 

Progress on the new High Line headquarters and the new Whitney Museum, obscured by spring in bloom. 

The Brooklyn Museum

The Brooklyn Museum's 2004 new entrance.

By Charles Kessler

If it were in any other American city besides New York, the Brooklyn Museum would be recognized as the great encyclopedic museum it is. It's one of the oldest art museums in the country (McKim, Mead & White designed the Beaux-Arts building in 1893) and, at 560,00 square-feet, and with about one million objects in the collection, it's one of the biggest. Best of all, the Brooklyn Museum takes its educational mission seriously, and it’s a truly welcoming community institution that tries to make a diverse population feel comfortable.

One of the many seating areas – Luce Center for American Art, fifth floor.

And like Brooklyn, the museum has been getting better and better.

In 1993, they renovated 30,000 square feet of gallery space on the third, fourth and fifth floors of the west wing – the Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing – where they house special exhibitions and their great collection of Egyptian art. They redesigned the galleries to be flowing, gracious and colorful.

Ancient Egyptian Art, Late Eighteenth Dynasty (beginning with Tutankhamun) – third floor.

Ancient Egyptian Art – third floor.

The very substantial space devoted to changing exhibitions on the fourth and fifth floors of the Schapiro Wing are various sizes — each evenly lit and pleasantly proportioned.

I saw several excellent shows this visit — two of the solo shows in particular impressed me, but in very different ways. I found the huge show of the African artist El Anatsui, Gravity and Grace, surprisingly powerful. I didn't care for his work when I saw it a few months ago at the Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea. I thought, materials aside, it was boring academic abstraction. But those were all relatively flat wall works, while these are transparent, undulating, enormous hanging sculptures and reliefs, and are thrilling to see.

Installation view, El Anatsui, Gli (Wall), 2010, aluminum and copper wire (courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery) – fifth floor.

The other exhibition, LaToya Ruby Frazier/ A Haunted Capital, is much smaller but more poignant; it moved me almost to tears sometimes. Don't miss it. Here's a sensitive review by Karen Rosenberg that includes reproductions of some of Frazier's photographs.

LaToya Ruby Frazier / A Haunted Capital – second floor.

In 2001 the Museum refurbished their 10,000-square-foot Beaux-Arts Court (replacing the floor in 2007). Unfortunately European paintings from their collection are installed around the perimeter of the Court and are overwhelmed by it. I hope they find a better place for the paintings and a better use for the Court — maybe sculpture would work here.

Beaux-Arts Court with European paintings installed along the perimeter. 

With money from the Henry Luce Foundation, they beautifully renovated and re-installed their American art galleries,

The Colonial Period Galleries – fifth floor.

and, in 2004, they built the adjoining Visible Storage and Study Center, a 5,000-square-foot glass open-storage area providing public access to some 1,200 items from their American collection.

Luce Center for American Art, Visible Storage Study Center – fifth floor.

Also in 2004 the Museum redesigned its forbidding front entrance and added a new public plaza (see photo at the top). The new entrance is much more inviting and more in keeping with the Museum's mission: ... the Museum aims to serve its diverse public as a dynamic, innovative, and welcoming center for learning through the visual arts.

Another thing that distinguishes the Brooklyn Museum from other New York museums is the myriad ways they go about educating people about the art on view: videos, free brochures (I picked up six of them), an informative and fast website, a blog, and even a free app; and of course wall labels — each enlivened with graphics. (One of my favorites explains why the noses of Egyptian sculptures are frequently broken — it's not just accidents. Go to the Museum and learn why.)

One of many video areas — this for the exhibition African Innovations: Art That Moves – first floor.

And many of the installations of their permanent collection are instructive. The one photographed below, for example, demonstrates the variety of ways people were depicted in various times and places.

Installation view,  Connecting Cultures - Connecting People – first floor.

All is not perfection; some of the changes are disappointing. I was really looking forward to seeing Life Death and Transformations in the Americas, the new long-term exhibition of their renown collection of Northwest Coast Indian art and other art of the Americas. It was favorably reviewed by Holland Cotter ("The stuff is hypnotic, one spellbinding fever dream after another."), but the installation is so antiseptic  — white walls, rectangular glass display cases on gray stands — that this dramatic and gutsy art appears tame and precious.

Installation view of Life, Death, and Transformations in the Americas - a long-term installation – fifth floor. 

And the new (2009) gallery for their permanent collection of Contemporary Art, which should be outstanding given the vitality of the Brooklyn art scene, is a relatively small 3000 square feet, and it's ill-proportioned and drab. It has none of the beauty and warmth of the other new galleries.

Contemporary Art Gallery,  Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Kitchen Table Allegory, 2010 in foreground – fourth floor.

And to make it even worse, the Contemporary Art space is adjacent to about a dozen historic facades and period rooms and serves as an entryway to them — it's a disorienting distraction.

Entrance to the 18th-Century Period Rooms, right off the Contemporary Art Galleries – fourth floor.

As a footnote: It seems Joseph J. Lhota, who under Giuliani tried to censor the Museum's controversial 1999 exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection by threatening their funding, is now running for mayor. Happily his past bullying is hurting his campaign (see the New York Times article about it). The Museum didn't back down then and, I am pleased to note, they still don't abide censorship, even self-censorship — the most treacherous kind. This delightful and funny sculpture was on display in the middle of one of the Egyptian art galleries — no separate room, no discrete covers, no warning signs — no big deal.

Erotic Composition, Ptolemaic Period, 305 - 30 B.C., limestone, painted, 6 ½ x 6 11/16 x 3 ¾ inches (Brooklyn Museum, 58.13) - third floor.