Category: AJBlogs

The misadventures of Sotheby’s David Galperin, hyping four anticipated highlights of Sotheby’s Oct. 28 Contemporary Art sale, would be ripe for parody if the underlying issues weren’t serious. – Lee Rosenbaum

In the end, everyone comes out looking bad. And so it was when composer Matthew Aucoin, age 30, took on Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) in the Nov. 5 New York Review of Books. – David Patrick Stearns

What I like is her poetry’s simplicity. I like its rich feeling, which is straightforward and strong and not at all sentimental. Her poems age well. I’d be surprised if her poetry didn’t last longer than the poetry of many of the Beats. – Jan Herman

Can you stop a speeding freight train before it crashes? (Update: in this case, turns out the answer is yes.) – Lee Rosenbaum

Better late than never (but not soon enough), the Association of Art Museum Directors is attempting to backpedal from its decision, six months ago, to temporarily loosen its tight strictures against the use of proceeds from art sales for anything other than acquisitions. – Lee Rosenbaum

Sirens (coming from the street) were heard wailing at the beginning of Sotheby’s Virtual Preview of Highlights from Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary Art — a fleeting but thematically appropriate soundtrack. – Lee Rosenbaum

Shakespeare’s writing — all of it, poetry and plays — was repulsive to Tolstoy, who claimed in a pamphlet that whenever he read Shakespeare he was overcome by “repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment.” Orwell disagreed mightily: “Finally the most striking thing is how little difference it all makes.” – Jan Herman

It’s just short of seven months since the death of my beloved wife, and not until recently did I feel that I was starting to become myself again. Sometimes the pain of Hilary’s loss takes me by surprise and I find myself crying — but not often. – Terry Teachout

“The fiduciary responsibility of a museum’s board of trustees is not to use its institution’s collection as an ATM, but rather to search out all other means to secure the future, including important changing social dynamics, while protecting the collection.” – Lee Rosenbaum

Any museum official tempted to exploit the (so-called) permanent collection as a fungible commodity for bankrolling pet projects (however worthy) and bolstering the payroll should read and take heed of this six-page letter deploring the Baltimore Museum of Art’s planned disposals. – Lee Rosenbaum