These have been heady days. And I'm not even talking about politics. Only a few weeks ago the art market reached a seemingly insane high with the sale by David Geffen of two post-World War II paintings: the de Kooning for $63.5 million and the Jasper Johns for $80 million. But if you think that that's a lot of dough, how about the $140 million that Mexican financier, David Martinez, handed to David Geffen for an iconic drip-painting by Jackson Pollock, the costliest art sale ever made. So, let's...
Nov 15, 2006•5 min
Right now, there are two exhibitions in Southern California--one in San Diego and the other in Los Angeles--both speaking volumes about the ways savvy museum directors and curators develop relationships with private collectors. In building their art collections, American museums have always depended on the "kindness of strangers" or, to put it more precisely, on the generosity of private collectors, while their European counterparts could count on royal patronage or government support......
Nov 01, 2006•5 min
Being an art critic means being open to an endless stream of visual information. I guess it's a professional hazard to respond to every picture, to every image -- the good, the great, and the ugly -- and to judge it in terms of its aesthetics. While reading this morning's L.A. Times dance review, I was struck by the ugliest possible photograph of classical ballet dancers -- undeniably God's most graceful creatures --captured in a performance of "Swan Lake" by the Kirov Ballet. While the dance cr...
Oct 25, 2006•5 min
By my nature I'm not a pessimist but last week, reading about the sale of mid-century paintings--one by Jasper Johns and the other by Willem de Kooning--for $143.5 million made me rather sad; not for David Geffen who sold them for an astonishing profit and definitely not for the two hedge fund billionaires who bought them. It made me sad because of the insanity of this whole transaction...
Oct 18, 2006•5 min
Since World War II the number of new museums in the United States and Europe has multiplied and it seems that no museum--either old or new--is safe from the seemingly never-ending expansion with the name of a famous architect attached to the project. If you believe that with tens of thousands of artists being churned out of art schools every year there should be enough good art to fill all of these museums, in that case, you have no reason to be skeptical. For myself, I believe that no matter ho...
Oct 11, 2006•5 min
After an unprecedented fourteen month investigation by the California Attorney General's office, here comes the conclusion that surprises no one: the trustees of the J. Paul Getty Trust, one of the richest non-profit foundations in the world, slept at the wheel for almost a decade, while Barry Munitz, its former chief executive, was left to do as he pleased...
Oct 04, 2006•5 min
Little did I know what might happen when I agreed to participate in a special event at the Getty Museum last spring, introducing the screening of the Russian Ark , a whimsical movie shot entirely inside the Hermitage Museum...
Sep 27, 2006•5 min
There are some situations when it's difficult to decide whether the news is good or bad. A month ago, I read in the LA Times that the sixty-five foot tall sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and, his wife and collaborator, Coosje van Bruggen could not be installed as planned in front of the Disney Concert Hall. The sculpture--in the shape of a giant bowtie and collar-- had already cost the Music Center about $4 million and now, because the metal and fiberglass sculpture had developed dangerous cracks c...
Sep 06, 2006•5 min
Many years ago, a great American performance artist, Laurie Anderson, famously said that talking about art is like dancing about architecture. The way I interpret her witty words is that unless one tries to experience a work of art first-hand, be it let's say a painting or a building, then forget about it. I believe that words, even at their most eloquent, can only try to convey the physical appearance of the work of art, the artist's intention and the context in which the artwork or building ca...
Aug 30, 2006•4 min
Last week, I was invited to spend a couple of days in San Diego as a guest of the Museum of Contemporary Art and that turned into a big adventure. The Museum has two facilities, one in La Jolla and the other in downtown San Diego. In a few months, the Museum is expanding into an impressive historic structure, a former Santa Fe depot baggage building. It's located directly across from the Museum's existing building in downtown San Diego. The renovation of this 1915 building by the architect Richa...
Aug 23, 2006•5 min
When a museum's name is in the news, it usually spells trouble for the institution. And there's been plenty of it lately. There was a theft at my beloved Hermitage in St. Petersburg: 221 pieces of Russian silver were missing from the museum storage room. When this was discovered, museum officials had the smarts to immediately go public about the theft. As a result, dealers and collectors who had unsuspectingly acquired some of the stolen silver have already returned a few of the missing items. A...
Aug 08, 2006•5 min
I can suggest a number of reasons one might want to stop by the Gagosian Gallery when in Beverly Hills. It's always intriguing to see what's happening in one of the outposts of his art empire. In addition to this local site built for him by star architect, Richard Meier, Mr. Gagosian has two galleries in New York, two in London and one is planned to open in Rome...
Aug 01, 2006•5 min
I wonder, what is your way of keeping cool during the crazy, heat wave that has kept us prisoners these past couple of weeks. Movie theaters? Shopping malls? My secret is museum galleries. On Sunday, when the temperature hit 100 degrees and the humidity, I swear, approached 150% I escaped to the Hammer Museum. It was heaven to spend a couple of hours walking through ---The Soci--t-- Anonyme---, the coolest show in town, telling the story of modernism in America. Besides, the Hammer announced tha...
Jul 25, 2006•5 min
There are two ways of traveling in search of art: one is go to far away places and another, perhaps even more challenging, is to turn a fresh eye on things that are there, right under your nose. After all the traveling that I've done in the recent months, last Saturday spent in LA turned out to be especially full of surprises. I promised to take a group of aspiring collectors on a tour of galleries, artist studios and collectors' homes and, literally, until the last moment I was still rearrangin...
Jul 18, 2006•5 min
As they say, there is no rest for the wicked. On the Fourth of July, when everyone else was doing as little as possible, I found myself working up a sweat at 6000 feet altitude. Almost a mile high above Palm Springs, there is a small town of alpine beauty called Idyllwild which, in spite of its popularity with tourists, still manages to maintain a leisurely pace and bohemian spirit. Every summer the town fills with poets, musicians and painters who come to participate in an intense two-week work...
Jul 11, 2006•5 min
One of the lingering memories of my recent trip to Israel is of walls; famous ones, like the Wailing Wall, and miles upon miles of inescapable eyesores that make up the Separation Wall. What I didn't expect was to pay any attention to the mundane walls along the freeways. Instead of the monotonous barriers that traditionally protect houses and people living in close proximity to freeways, Israelis excel in making these boring structures into surprisingly attractive components of the city fabric....
Jun 27, 2006•5 min
The front-page news about the sale of Gustav Klimt's famous, shimmering gold portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer for an unconfirmed $135 million made me surprisingly happy. To be completely honest, my proprietary instinct would rather have all five Klimt paintings stay here in LA, yet I have to admit that this iconic painting is ideally suited for the focused collection and exquisite environment of the Neue Galerie in New York. After hearing this news, I jumped into the car and hurried over to LACMA t...
Jun 20, 2006•5 min
Last week, I got high: not once, not twice but more or less all week long. Traveling to Israel with a delegation of art patrons organized by the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles turned out to be the adventure of a lifetime. It's less than twenty-four hours since I returned from my first trip there and my head is still spinning from encounters with fascinating people, ancient and contemporary art, and landscapes of unsurpassed beauty. Landing in Israel at midnight, I was welcomed by two gorgeous ...
Jun 13, 2006•5 min
