Opinion
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The Science of Vaccinations
Scratch and Sniff
By: - Feb 15th, 2017Polio is widely regarded, along with smallpox, as vaccination’s other “unmistakable success,” and in recent years the World Health Organization has pronounced it confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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Denver's Unique Strategy to Fund the Arts
One Cent from Every Ten Dollars Spent Goes a Long Way
By: - Feb 26th, 2017There is a 0.1 percent sales tax for arts and culture in Denver’s seven-county metro area. At just one cent for every ten dollars it generates $1.85 billion annually in economic activity, creates 10,205 jobs, and stimulates $520 million in tourism.
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Rockefeller Offers Hamilton Matinees
Title 1 School Children See the Best Show in Town
By: - Mar 02nd, 2017Alexander Hamilton may have created the financial system that made building John D. Rockefeller's fortune possible. Now Rockefeller money is being used to fund tickets for Title 1 school children to attend the hottest show in town, "Hamilton."
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ICA To Lease Expanded Space
Two if by Sea in East Boston
By: - Mar 07th, 2017When the Institute of Contemporary Art opened its waterfront home there were awards for the dramatic design by Diller Scofido and Renfro. Immediately, however, it was obvious that with 65,000 square feet, and just its top floor for exhibitions, there was no plan for expansion and growth. For the next five to ten years the ICA is leasing a 15,000 square foot industrial place in East Boston. Visitors will commute by ferry to the seasonal Watershed which opens in the summer of 2018.
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How to Watch a Movie
Salvation in a Darkened Room
By: - Apr 10th, 2017This think piece explores the difference between movies and cinema. In a compelling overview Kempf states that "I go to a lot of movies for a variety of reasons: to learn about other worlds/people/times through fictions and documentaries, to measure the zeitgeist, to ease a 100°+ summer day, but my primary desire is to experience the art of cinema, a remarkable art that, even more than stage, is collaborative and incorporates the entire constellation of the arts."
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Can the Metropolitan Opera Survive
The House is One-Quarter Full
By: - Apr 10th, 2017Sitting in the 7th row of the orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night, in a skimpy house, most of my neighbors had paid between $20 and $37.50 for their tickets. Fortunately for the Met Opera, HD fans have a different take on Met productions than people who like their opera live.
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Tilson Thomas and Gehry's New New World
Miami Beach Leads the Way to Future of Classical Music
By: - Apr 18th, 2017Frank Gehry babysat for Michael Tilson Thomas in Los Angeles where they both grew up. Now they are building a new world for classical music together.
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Agita of the Artist Martin Mugar
Innocence and Experience
By: - Apr 26th, 2017For Blake, Christ was both a child and a lamb putting the innocence of the child and the lamb of the poem a priori in the realm of the godly. One cannot be a lamblike or a childlike without that innocence of God, which raises the question: what then is experience without innocence? Experience can only be a loss of innocence. Why do I in my painting linger in this realm of peachy keen colors if not to insist on the importance of this innocence that precedes experience.
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Met Opera Ends Season with a Bang
Alagna Sings Cyrano
By: - May 11th, 2017Opera is a form of many pieces. When the set, production, singing and orchestra work together, opera makes its own case. Cyrano de Bergerac realizes the seemingly Sisyphean task beautifully.
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Massive Rauschenberg Exhibition Headed to NY
Mulling Over Perls of Wisdom
By: - May 12th, 2017When visiting the Frank Stella retropective at the Whitney in 2015 the critic had his car towed. The event was so costly and inconvenient that Martin Mugar is thinking twice of driving to Manhattan to view the upcoming Rauschenberg exhibition. Many of his concerns and misgivings are informed by the critical comments of the critic Jed Perl. Here Mugar refects on Perls of wsdom. They enforce his own ideas of how Rauschenberg is emeblematic of the decline and fall of art in our time. As Mugar states "If you like your postmodern condition you can keep your postmodern condition and Rauschenberg's your guy."
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Expanded MASS MoCA Galleries
Preview of May 28 Opening
By: - May 16th, 2017During a media tour of the final phase of build out for the 17 acre MASS MoCA campus artists, curators and installlers were working around the clock. While some of the works were not ready for prime time we caught an exciting glimpse of what visitors will encounter this summer in North Adams. The development of Building Six adds 130,000 square-feet of usable space. For renovations, programming and endowment the museum has raised $65 million.
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MASS MoCA Celebrates
32 Years from Thought to Finish
By: - May 29th, 2017It was a challenge to find a legal parking space anywhere near the museum in North Adams. On Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, from dawn to dusk, there were long lines and a constant stream of visitors. There may have been some 6,000 during the day and another 10,000 attended the rock concert by Cake on MASS MoCA's Joe Thompson Field.
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Critical Condition
ATCA Conference in San Francisco
By: - Jul 04th, 2017In the age of social media everyone is a critic., Some enthusiasts post their "reviews" and images to Twitter and Facebook before curtain calls.That was he elephant in the room as some 80 of the 250 members of American Theatre Critics Association gathered for an annual conference this time in San Francisco. In addition to several days of seeing theatre there were meetings and panel discussions focused on issues and ideas in the profession.
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Nelsons and his Wife Leave New Met Tosca
See Them at Tanglewood on August 26th
By: - Jul 14th, 2017The new Met Tosca will premier with James Levine replacing Andris Nelsons at the helm. Kristine Opolais stepped out of the title role. They are together in Tanglewood for what promise to be a starry evening on August 26th.
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Berkshire Museum Dumps the Fine Arts
Selling Two Paintings by Norman Rockwell and 38 Other Works
By: - Jul 21st, 2017When the Berkshire Museum announced plans to focus on science and history there was initial euphoria. To reach a goal of $60 millon, $20 for renoivation, and $40 million for endowment it will sell 40 works of art including two paintings by Norman Rockwell which the artist gave to the museum and his Berkshire neighbors. In so doing it violates deaccession restrictions for art museums. In a shuffle Van Shields, the director of BM, has stated that he does not run an art musuem and is not bound by ethical guidelines. That may change as coverage evolves from local to national news.
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Artist Stephen Hannock On Berkshire Museum
How Selling the Art Betrays the Community
By: - Jul 22nd, 2017Works by Stephen Hannock are in global museum collections. His Oxbow painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be included in a survey of Hudson River artist Thomas Cole. Hannock's mate Sting will also be involved in the project. When he created paintings for his friend's hometown of Newscastle the studies were shown at the Berkshire Museum. He gave one of the studies to the museum to honor philanthropist Nancy Fitzgerald. The fact of that work and the entire fine arts collection of the museum is unknown. We talked at length with the Berkshire based global artist about the impact of the museum's strategy to sell its fine arts collection with a radical makeover as an interactive educational museum for history and science.
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Berkshire Museum Releases Auction List
Two Rockwells and 38 Other Works
By: - Jul 24th, 2017Initially the Berkshire Museum disclosed plans to sell two paintings by Norman Rockwell but declined to reveal the other works. Under intensive media scrutiny and concerns from the community the museum has posted responses to frequently asked questions on the website and has released the full list of deaccessioned works. The lot has a pre auction estmate of $50 million toward a goal to "reboot" with $20 milion in renovation and $40 million for endowment. The remaining $10 millions will be raised apart from the sale of works of art.
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Berkshire Museum Ignores Outcry
40 Works to be Sold at Sotheby’s
By: - Jul 27th, 2017In compiling a list of 40 works to deaccession the Berkshire Museum opted to sell no works given by living artists or donors. When Norman Rockwell gave two works to the museum the letter, which is referred to in media coverage, states his wish to share them with the people of the Berkshires. In selling the works is the museum in legal violation of that trust? GIven the sensitivity of what is at stake we demand that the museum make public the artist's letter.
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Berkshire Museum Stonewalls Critics
Hires Costly PR to Spin Its Reboot
By: - Aug 02nd, 2017When ethical concerns and second guessing of its "reboot" plans surfaced the Berkshire Museum has spent money it doesn't have for expensive PR and marketing. Heavy hitters have been hired to deflect tough questions from the media and flack the museum's strategy to sell 40 works of art and change its mandate.
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Rockwell Family Opposes Berkshire Museum Sale
Game Changer and Time to Rethink the Reboot
By: - Aug 05th, 2017When Laurie Norton Moffett, director of the Norman Rockwell Museum, in a Berkshire Eagle op-ed piece asked the Berkshire Museum to "pause" in its plan to sell 40 works the story broke as national news. In daily coverage since then the pro and con has rocked back and forth. I seemed like game over when Joe Thompson, director of MASS MoCA, endorsed the sale and radical plans urging readers to "get real." Then lawyers waded in questioning that the works may or may not be "unrestricted." The controversy went into extra innings when the Rockwell family, in an Eagle letter, stated that the artist never intended for his works to be sold as a last ditch bailout for the poorly managed and curatorially aenemic museum.
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Protesting Berkshire Museum's Unethical Sale
Pickets Planned for Saturday Morning August 12
By: - Aug 10th, 2017The artists and their supporters in the Berkshires will take to the streets on Saturday, August 12, from 9 AM to noon. There will be picket lines in front ot the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield. They will provide a visible presence of those protesting the pending sale of 40 choice works and plans to gut and "reboot" the historic museum and collections.
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Pickets Protest Berkshire Museum Meltdown
Orderly Demonstration in Front of Museum
By: - Aug 13th, 2017From 9 AM to noon there was an ordely and peaceful demonstration in front of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield. Pickets came and went with between 40 and 80 individuals linuing the sidewalk at any given time. Most passing cars honked their support. There was a media presence. While museum director, Van Shields, remained hunkered down in the bunker, board president Elizabeth "Buzz" Hayes McGraw delivered her boilplate message to a TV crew from Albany.
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David A Ross Opposes Berkshire Museum Sale
Renowned Former Whitney Museum Director Posts Statement
By: - Aug 13th, 2017The renowned former Whitney Museum director, David A. Ross, in an exclusive statement posted to Berkshire Fine Arts strongly opposes plans initiated by the Berkshire Museum. “This is a sad affair. Perhaps the board, if unwilling to raise funds in the way all museums have to, should resign (along with its feckless director). My feeling is it should merge administratively with another educational non-profit in the region, and then begin the process of stabilization. It would be preferable to see the museum close for a few years of re-organization, than to forever destroy the core of its irreplaceable art collection.”
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Laurie Norton Moffatt on the Role of Trustees
Rockwell Museum Director Argues for Respect
By: - Aug 14th, 2017In a key op-ed piece for the Berkshire Eagle, Laurie Norton Moffatt the director of the Norman Rockwell Museum, called on the Berkshire Museum to "pause" its plans to sell 40 works including two by Rockwell. Largely based on her position the story broke in the national media. In the process the rhetoric escalated. In this opinion piece she asks for a wider understanding of the commmitment and responsibilites of serving on boards of non profits. With so many cultural institutions looking for funding from the same small pool of donors there are parfticular and extreme pressures for boards in the Berkshires. She calls for a focus on issues and not individuals.
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Financial Crisis of the Berkshire Museum
What Do the Numbers Add Up To
By: - Aug 16th, 2017As a matter of public record we have examined the Federal tax information Form 990 disclosures of the Berkshire Museum from 2011 to 2015. They do not appear to create a profile of a cultural institution in dire straits. The museum is going forward with last ditch plans to sell 40 works of art. It is possible that there has been a dramatic downturn in the past two years? A Berkshire Eagle editorial asked “Why deny access to the museum's profit/loss statements for the past two years?" Based on reports for the prior five years we have questions for the museum, its director, Van Shields, and the board of trustees.
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