Who could have imagined that a Hollywood movie prop would find a permanent home in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one of America’s finest art museums? The theatrical property in question is an 8-foot tall bronze statue – arms raised in victory – depicting Rocky Balboa, the fictional boxer played by Sylvester Stallone. On September 7th, 2006, to…
[ A storm regarding art and its relation to political activism has erupted at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA), resulting in the May 19th resignation of curator Chris Gilbert, who ran the museum’s Matrix film program for less than a year. Before taking the position at BAM/PFA, Gilbert was curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art, where he…
The federal government has decided to eliminate funding for the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Montana. Opened to the public in 1941, the museum not only houses a major collection of historic artifacts from America’s plains tribes, it hosts frequent exhibitions by contemporary American Indian artists. The Daily Inter Lake of Montana reports that the museum’s annual budget…
RUSSIA! a massive exhibition covering 900 years of Russian history, is now running at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City until January 11th, 2006. While the show includes everything from 13th-century religious icons to the most current artistic expressions coming out of the country, what I personally find most interesting are those paintings and artistic expressions that were kept from…
I have praised the Getty Museum as one of the greatest in America, and I’ve applauded the venerable institution for its policy of free admission to all exhibits – but no organization or individual is beyond reproach. The Getty has been wracked with controversy lately due to Barry Munitz, the power drunk gadfly president of the Getty Trust. On August…
In recent years the reach and influence of corporate power in the arts has been steadily growing, and while the super wealthy have always had clout in the art world, we are now looking at a totally different situation. Rather than just providing patronage, corporations are beginning to monopolize and control what was once a public institution… art museums. That…
This past Jan.15th, over 200 artists, teachers, and students assembled outside the Louvre in Paris to protest the museum having stripped them of free entry. Last Sept. the museum did away with its policy of free entry for arts professionals and students, igniting a storm of disapproval. The “Louvre For All” protest was backed by 22 unions – including the…
As with public libraries, art museums should exist to serve the public. The mission of educating, inspiring, and uplifting society has been the calling of art museums… thus far. The erstwhile objective of enriching the social order has evidently been abandoned in favor of the profit motive. New York’s Museum of Modern Art is charging a $20 entrance fee and…
