Category: visual

Is Venable’s vision for his museum misguided, or a clarion call for a struggling industry to cast aside its pieties in pursuit of a purely rational bottom line? As of last October, the Indianapolis Museum of Art has rebranded itself as Newfields: A Place for Nature and the Arts. Admission is no longer free, and your $18 ticket brings you into a wonderland of flowering gardens, foreign delicacies, theatrical performances, cat-video festivals, mini-golf, beer gardens, and, should you be into such things, an art museum, too.

Calling developer Gerald Wolkoff’s painting over of the famous graffiti murals – with no warning for the artists – “an act of pure pique and revenge for the nerve of the plaintiffs to sue” (what’s more, Wolkoff was an arrogant brat in the courtroom), Judge Frederic Block awarded each artist the maximum legal amount, $150,000, for each destroyed work.

“Ben Enwonwu’s 1974 painting of the Ife princess Adetutu Ademiluyi, known as Tutu, is a national icon in Nigeria, with poster reproductions hanging on walls in homes all over the country. The artist, regarded as the founding father of Nigerian modernism, painted three versions of Tutu and the image became a symbol of national reconciliation. But all three were lost and became the subject of much speculation.” Until late last year, that is.

The Obamas took a significant chance on both artists and were rewarded with powerful images that will shake up the expectations and assumptions of visitors to the traditionally button-down presidential galleries.

Holland Cotter: “Not only are the Obamas the first presidential couple of African descent to be enshrined in the collection. The painters they’ve picked to portray them — Kehinde Wiley, for Mr. Obama’s portrait; Amy Sherald, for Mrs. Obama — are African-American as well. Both artists have addressed the politics of race consistently in their past work, and both have done so in subtly savvy ways in these new commissions. Mr. Wiley depicts Mr. Obama not as a self-assured, standard-issue bureaucrat, but as an alert and troubled thinker. Ms. Sherald’s image of Mrs. Obama overemphasizes an element of couturial spectacle, but also projects a rock-solid cool.”

Gagosian’s mortality might even have a silver lining if he can tap the right successor. As Galloway writes, “Dying removes the icon from the inevitable judgment of everyday existence, including aging, and elevates persona to legend—ideal for a brand.” Just think: Louis Vuitton (the company) was founded in 1854. Louis Vuitton (the man) died in 1892. So the brand has been stacking cash for 164 years, and the founder has spent 126 of them stitching in that grand atelier in the sky.

Barrack Obama called the process of sitting for a portrait “torturous,” noting that as far as he knows he’s the first person in his family to have a portrait done. “I tried to negotiate less gray hair, smaller ears,” Obama joked at the unveiling. “Maybe the one are where there were some concessions … his initial impulse may be in the work may be to elevate me … mounting me on horses … and I had to explain I’ve got enough political problems without you making me look like Napoleon.”

Says Olly Wainwright: “For sure, it is more dry digestive than gelatinous trifle, but that is generally to be welcomed. It is also refreshing to find a development where as much, if not more, attention has been paid to the streets and spaces as the buildings that frame them. It may be the usual kind of overly managed pseudo-public space, but accusations of privatisation are unfounded, given that most of the site was off-limits to the public before.”

To be clear: The state attorney’s office says that the non-Rockwell pieces up for sale can go anywhere, but the Rockwell must be sold to another museum and remain on public view. “The agreement, which requires court approval, could end a contentious chapter in the history of the museum.”