midweek links

A few things that have crossed my monitor screen recently:

- Anaba has the latest on Christoph Büchel's appeal in the MASS MoCA case, including links to the parties briefs.  I spent too much time on that story last year (or was it the year before?  It's all sort of hazy), but for the bitter-enders out there, follow the link.

- Via Martin at the last link, The Deaccessioning Blog.  This one also falls under the category of topics I've had enough of for a while, so not much comment from me.  Except this: I don't disagree with the stated "ideological bent" of the site--"an artwork may be deaccessioned, so long as certain legal and ethical requirements are met"--although when it's put that broadly, I'm not sure how many people actually do disagree.  Still, the implication of this list has me scratching my head.  The cancellation of various temporary exhibitions at museums provides a reason to favor deaccessioning?  Really?  I loves me a big loan show as much as the next visitor, but the idea that temporary, short-term programming should be funded out of proceeds gained from selling permanent collection works--it's hard to see what else the post could be taken to mean--seems to me a bit short-sighted, to say the least.

- I don't really want to be so churlish, but this is just silly, and that's the best I can say about it.

- "Bless Stouffer's."  In keeping with my current reading, a visit with Janet Lewis a few years before her death.

- Arthur Danto on a new book about Robert Ryman.

- A bit old, but a New York Review of Books piece on James Cuno, antiquities, etc.

- Art in America talks to Art Basel's Marc Spiegler.

- Greg Cook posits a history of New England Lowbrow, starts gathering the evidence.

And that's it for now.

Comments

[e_]

sometimes, silly is just what the current situation calls for though, no?

[JL]

Perhaps so--lord knows that having colleagues laid off and facing a meeting this morning at which various unknown cuts (whether to pay, retirement, health care costs is still to be learned) will be announced, I could use a bit of silliness. And as I said, I didn't really want to be so churlish (and I also understand the need to feed the blog beast.) The post just rubbed up against a pet peeve of mine, the idealization of artists (perhaps intentionally.) And to my eyes, even worse, idealization not so much for what they do--a forgivable, if also silly, reaction of the art-besotted--but for what they (allegedly) feel. If I may add a silly remark of my own, which won't make sense to anyone: it all goes back to Rousseau, you see.

[Greg]

Thanks for the shout-out, JL.
And glad to see you posting regularly again.

[JL]

And glad to see you posting regularly again.

Shh--don't jinx it, man!

[Elizabeth Yeh]

Hello,

We recently published a new book that I thought you would be interested in. PROVENANCE: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo is a captivating real-life investigation of how John Drewe and John Myatt managed to fool prominent museums and private collections into accepting forgeries.

Please let me know if you’d like a copy of PROVENANCE, or perhaps additional copies for giveaways on your blog.

Thank you,
Lizz Yeh