Category: visual

Norman Rosenthal “turned a place whose membership and traditions give it a massive leaning towards the conservative into a world-class, influential venue for exhibitions of contemporary art. In the 1980s his show A New Spirit in Painting made stars of a generation of neo-expressionists and defined the taste of the time. He achieved the same thing for the 1990s with Sensation.”

“Will the RA — or London — be the same without him? Norman Rosenthal is not the only talented curator in the country, and the academy is not the only important venue. For a long time, though, he has been the leading impresario of spectacular art shows in the U.K., and arguably in the world.”

“Martin E. Sullivan, the chief executive officer of the Historic St. Mary’s City Commission, has been selected as the new director of the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution announced yesterday… [Sullivan] wants to continue the collaboration with other Smithsonian museums, expand the Portrait Gallery’s Web site and beef up the electronic information in the galleries.”

“A surprise $15 million gift will enable the National Air and Space Museum to add a new wing where visitors can watch the delicate process of bringing historic airplanes back to life…”

He is leaving the Met Museum, where he’s worked since 1963. “But I am not retiring from the field. At some point in the future I will continue, I hope, to be a voice for the major issues that concern me in the field of art and museology.”

“Robert Fitzpatrick, director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art since 1998, has become international managing director of Haunch of Venison, a 6-year-old gallery for contemporary art with spaces in London, Zurich and Berlin.”

“Total attendance at the 10 museums on Chicago Park District land weakened by 3 percent in 2007. The cause: King Tut withdrawal.”

“Norman Rosenthal, who for three decades steered the exhibitions program at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, is stepping down at his own request to become a freelance curator.”

“In part, the goal is that business people — or at least those with far more financial acumen than art training — do not end up running museums. And it is also to help the next generation of museum directors cope with the growing financial pressures on art institutions as they compete for visitors with one another and with the pop-culture industry.”

Orange County’s John Wayne Airport removes a piece of art from a public art show out of fears it might be controversial. The artist objects. So who should decide what public art gets chosen and displayed? A curator? Committee? The airport’s administration?