Art Scoping

Texas! We head to Fort Worth and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art to hear from its director, Dr. Andrew Walker. We touch on the wealth of arts institutions in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and why the Carter, like most museums in the metro area, is free. We consider the Carter’s enormous photography collection, including the work of indigenous photographers, how the Carter has been transformed since the death of Ruth Carter Stevenson in both governance and management, the museum’s re-engagement with living artists and its broadened audience, the fluid definitions of what is American in American art, increasing the diversity of the collection, exhibitions, and audiences, current and future exhibitions, and how temporary experiences are challenging permanent collection orthodoxies.

Museums across the U.S. are striving to reboot---addressing historic underrepresentation of people of color in board and staff leadership, collections, exhibitions and programs, and audience. Few have achieved what Atlanta’s High Museum has under director Randall Suffolk. In this episode we delve into the steps he took beginning in 2015 to take an already significant institution and turn its attention to what are today eagerly sought points of distinction. We cover his efforts to listen to prospective visitors, lower admissions fees, change the exhibition calendar and collection focus, and de-emphasize blockbusters--and how he brought his board and staff along to embrace changes in a bid to earn credibility. A recent study attests to the progress made over the last few years.

Many Americans are pining for a return to Europe—and to Italy in particular. In this episode we check in with Californian-born ex-pat Tracy Roberts, Co-Founder and Vice-President of LoveItaly, dedicated to the preservation and appreciation of Italy’s unique cultural heritage. She has made Rome her home for decades, and we get an on-the-ground report about life there as the pandemic recedes, how museums have fared over the last year and a half, the mechanics of state-sponsored and commercial cultural patronage, along with updates on a series of projects addressing the conservation needs of museums, monuments, and churches.

A fan of “This Old House”? Then listen to Nick Cameron’s accounts of what it was like to oversee the care and updating of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s two million square feet, its fourteen-acre roof, and the whole exterior and grounds. As the former Manager of Operations and then Vice President for Construction at the Met for over two decades, Nick’s MBA came in handy while replacing antiquated procedures and systems, completing more than $850 million of construction, and navigating a sea of competing interests (and egos) to make the Museum into the modern facility we all enjoy today. Join this consummate back-of-the-house tour and your next visit to 82nd Street will be all the richer. Extra points if you can guess what Met staff used to call a “cheese”.

As arts organizations make post-pandemic plans, they are struggling to find the right balance between optimism and the realities of reduced staff, revenue, and relevance. Enter strategy and communications guru David Resnicow, whose eponymous firm has for decades pulled arts organizations out of controversy, tilted institutional missions and rhetoric away from self-congratulation, and advised boards and staff on ways to privilege substance, ethics, and civic impact over empty spectacles, ticket sales and vanity.

Imagine being able to read Egyptian hieroglyphs as easily as the back of a cereal box. This week we turn to Dr. Peter Dorman, one of the world’s most accomplished Egyptologists, to shed light on his background and training, his time as a curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art during the Tutankhamun exhibition, and his path from a naval officer in the Pacific to a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago, to his years in Luxor, and then as a university president in Beirut, and now a scholar affiliated with two universities. We spare you the mummies and turn instead to epigraphy and philology—as well as his training with AK-47s and evasive driving skills to elude capture.

One of the leading dealers in Old Master paintings and 19th century art is Alan Salz, director and head of paintings and drawings at Didier Aaron. We grapple with contemporary art’s domination of the art market, and come out with a note of optimism about interest in pictures from the past. Along the way we touch on the TEFAF art fair, the attribution of the Salvator Mundi to Leonardo da Vinci, what stops him in his tracks, the challenges of establishing authenticity and assessing condition, the downside of selling to art museums versus private collectors, the short-sightedness of runaway deaccessions, training in connoisseurship, and other topics.

“A $7 Billion Philanthropic Force.” That’s an artnet headline describing artist-endowed foundations, and this episode sheds light on the leader of not one but two of them. Sarah C. Bancroft is Executive Director of the James Rosenquist Foundation and President of the Board of Directors of The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation. She discusses her reliance on the Aspen Institute’s Artist Endowed Foundations Initiative, led by Christine Vincent, as well as recounting the core activities of these organizations, which include promoting research, exhibitions, and conservation of works by 20th and 21st century artists. We touch on copyright abuse, forgeries, and other concerns of AEFs, and are favored with her unique insights into the oeuvres, practices, and personalities of both Rosenquist and Diebenkorn.

We check in with Dr. Vishakha Desai about her soon-to-be-released new book, World as Family: A Journey of Multi-Rooted Belongings(Columbia University Press). It’s part memoir, part exhortation to connect across borders, both geographical and attitudinal. Our conversation ranges from the pandemic’s hold over India to her beginnings in the museum field, the need for Americans to tolerate ambiguity, cultural appropriation, globalism v. nationalism, restitution of cultural heritage, the sunset of the ‘universal museum’, and other pressing issues of our time.

If after all the ink spilled on the topic of #deaccessioning, you’re still unclear what the fuss is about, here’s a short summary of the concerns of most art museum directors, excerpted from a presentation I recently made to the Federal Bar Association. We go back to the landmark decision in 1993 by theFinancial Accounting Standards Boardto restrict the proceeds of art sales to buying new art, thesoftening of its stancein 2019, and the temporary lifting of restrictionsagainst the use of deaccessioning proceeds by the Association of Art Museum Directors. We recap the swirling external forces bearing down on art museums today regarding the monetization of collections, and I close with the hope that art museums won’t discard obligations to preserving our shared cultural heritage and will instead turn to philanthropy to address pressing needs from DEI to operating shortfalls.