Museum Exhibits

Museums and Exhibit Reviews, Comments and Controversy

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Andrews, Edmund. "Anatomy on Display and It's All Too Human." The New York Times.
Discussion of "Human Body World" and exhibit shown at Mannheim's Museum of Technology.

Bailey, Martin. "Not so funny bones." The Art Newspaper. Nov. 1998: 10.
Discusses issues surrounding the display of human bones in Museums. Specifically, exhibits at the Museum of London and the Rotterdam Kunsthal.

Bailey, Martin. "Gambling on Art." The Art Newspaper. Sept/Oct. 1999: 6.
Stephen Wynn has spent nearly $200 million on art since 1996 at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.

Bedno, Jane and Bedno, Ed. "Museum Exhibitions: Past Imperfect, Future Tense." Musuem News. Sept/Oct. 1999: 39-43, 59-61.
Article gives a comprehensive history of museum exhibitions from the early 1900s to present. Details the growing importance of contextual material and interactive art exhibits, digital media, areas for families and children, timed events, civic investment and "entrepreneurial" shows.

Beem, Edgar Allan. "A Rockwell Renaissance?" ArtNews. Sept. 1999: 134.
Previews Guggenheim show due to open in Nov., 2001. Grapples lightly with the high art vs. sentimental/kitchy art issues surrounding the idea of Rockwell at the "museum of non-objective art."

Bradsher, Keith. "A Rich Museum and its Poor Cousin." The New York Times. May 28, 1999. C1.
"Detroit Institutions Are Entangled in the Politics of Race, Class and Labor."

Chambers, Marlene. "Critiquing Exhibition Criticism." Museum News. Sept./Oct. 1999: 31-37, 65.
An examination of the importance of exhibition criticism in relation to exhibition development. Explaination of the three most popular critical techniques: Yankee Trader, Houdini and LEGO.

DePalma, Anthony. "Student Admits Vomiting on Painting as an Act of Art." The New York Times.
"A student says that he was protesting art he thought was trite and banal."

Dobrzynski, Judith. "Questions Over the Met's Show of Minor Artist." The New York Times.
Brings up questions regarding the Metropolitan's motives for holding a Judith Rothschild retrospective. Critics feel that the musuem is trying to win the favor of the Rothschild Foundation, in hope of gaining ownership of part of Rothschild's personal collection which includes works by Picasso, Mondrian, Leger, Gris and Brancusi.

Gibson, Eric. "Off the Wall." ArtNews.Nov. 1997: 191-194.
"Selected offbeat, naughty, and outrageous events in the art world between 1902-1997."

Gombrich, Sir Ernst. "The visual arts in Vienna circa 1900: reflections on the Jewish catastrophe." The Art Newspaper. Sept. 1997: 28-30.
Lecture given by internationally renowned scholar which addresses the idea that "Jewish culture" was the invention of the Nazis and their predecssors and thus is an impossible thing to discuss in relation to art objects. Brings up the idea that the wealthy patrons of art in Vienna did not think of themselves as Jewish but first and foremost as Austrians. Gombrich believes that "there is no way to define a Jew" and that the Jews in Austria and Germany often realized the artificiality of the "so-called Jewish identity" and converted to Christianity as a result.

Heller, Scott. "The Museum of the 21st Century." ArtNews.Nov. 1997: 191-194.
"Treasure-House? Creative Laboratory? Hi-Tech cultural center? What will the art museum of the 21st century be?"

Kaufman, Jason E. "Detroit's museum of African American history: A truth often trampled by rage, guilt, bengeance and political correctness." The Art Newspaper. June. 1997: 9.
The Museum of African American History in Detroit, the largest American museum of its kind, "sketches a 400-year chronology" of African Americans, from their African roots to the struggle for economic and civil equality. The museum tries to take a "middle-brow" approach to education and for that reason focuses not so much on the historical relationship between whites and blacks but on the "suffering and victories of the African people." This approach is similar to that adopted by the Holocaust Museum in Washington and the MAAH worked with the same design firm that conceptualized that museum.

Kauffman, Jason. "Will the Detroit Institute of Arts be the first major US museum to close?" The Art Newspaper. June. 1997: 7.
Explains the problems facing the Detroit Institute of Art amid changes in governance.

Kauffman, Jason. "Casino profits fund Indian tribe's mega-museum" The Art Newspaper. July/August. 1998: 9.
The Pequot nation in Mashanatucket, CT is using profits from its casino to fund a museum of natural and cultural history. It is the largest museum run by Native Americans.

Martin, Douglas. "Not Your Father's Art Museum." The New York Times.
L"Brooklyn's Got Monet, but Also Karaoke, Poetry and Disco."

McQuiston, John. "Memorial Statue Removed in Nassau." The New York Times. Jan 8, 1998.
Located near the Nassau county courthouse, Michael Alfano's sculpture of a girlfriend killed by a drunk driver is removed after question arise regarding its impact on jurors.

Montebello, Philippe. "The work of art is the event." The Art Newspaper. May. 1997: 28-29.
The director of the Metropolitan Museum expresses his viewpoint regarding the millineum's "call for the creation of a new museum." He believes that museums need to be wary of becoming too much like malls too focused on what they can DO rather than what they ARE.

Nye, Bill. "The Marks of a Good Exhibit? Few Words, Flying Sparks." The New York Times. April 21, 1999.
The "science guy" explains why interactive science museums are important because of their ability to educate people about new techonology. This education will help people to become better informed "voters, taxpayers and neighbors." He critcizes the use of too many words on museum signage and promotes the ideas of learning through doing.

Pinchbeck, Daniel. "Beauty is a Beast." The Art Newspaper. Oct. 1999: 15.
"Museums and artists in Europe and the US are flirting with centuries-old questions of aesthetic value."

"Pictures for the People." The Art Newspaper. May. 1999: 11.
Critical notice of Rockwell show at the Guggenheim in Nov., 2001.

Riding, Alan. "Reviled in Life, Embraced in Death." The New York Times. August 12, 1998.
"A German Museum Honors an Artist Lost to the Holocaust."

Riding, Alan. "The Royal Academy Puts on a New, Fresher Face." The New York Times.
After years of bad management, London's Royal Academy is finally out of the red thanks to blockbuster shows such as Sensation and Monet in the 20th Century.

"Star Wars, The Magic of Myth." Calendar. San Diego Musuem of Art. Sept./Oct. 1999: 1,8.

"The ones that got away." The Art Newspaper. March. 1999: 28.
World-wide exhibition figures for 1998.

"To save a snowman for posterity." The Art Newspaper. June. 1998: 30.
David Hockney and Tony Cragg were among the artists invited to a conference on 'Mortality immortality: the legacy of twentieth-century art' at the Getty Center.

"World-wide exhibition attendance figures in 1998." The Art Newspaper. Feb. 1999: 14-15.