saw jed perl on charlie rose a while back. he seemed kind of clueless. although this does look worth a read. easy sign in for instant access. worth it so far...

There is a paradox at the heart of any cultural institution. It is that the men and women who dedicate themselves to these essential enterprises exert a fiscal and administrative discipline that has nothing whatsoever to do with the discipline of art, which is a disciplined abandon. I imagine that for anybody who founds or sustains or rescues or re-invents a museum, an orchestra, or a dance company, this tension between the institution and the art comes to feel like a natural paradox. There is always a balancing act involved, which helps to explain why the very greatest institution-builders (Lincoln Kirstein comes to mind) invariably have something of the artist's temperament. And when we consider how rare such people are, we realize that there is nothing surprising about the fragility, the mediocrity, and the downright banality of so many cultural enterprises. If making art is hard, making an arts institution work may be harder still....

I made it. Through the whole thing ;-)
Barr, Rubin and Varnedoe = good. Everyone else (minus Wye and Storr)= bad bad bad.
Lowry = "is by all accounts a fiercely competitive and diabolically savvy man..."
It's a tirade for sure.
But I think this MoMA needs a good kick in the pants.

- selma 2-01-2006 1:09 am [add a comment]

And Bill Rubin died last week.. I totally missed that.
And off topic, but, Nam June Paik died today.
- selma 2-01-2006 1:21 am [add a comment]