Thomas Krens cut the figure of museum director as all big ideas and fearlessness – redefining the modern museum in an age of global branding. But he’s also a polarizing figure, an easy target for those who lament his big-business approach to art. With a pursestrings-attached gift to Krens’s Guggenheim Museum, the era of the Guggenheim as lavish spender and worldwide art brand seems to be at an end. “Global culture sounded inevitable a few years ago — all those plane-hopping travelers and multinational collaborations. But Sept. 11 put an end to that. The world became more divided, people less willing to travel, the American public poorer, more attuned to protecting itself and what it has.”