Who Will Artists Address Letters To Next at the Guggenheim?

by Paddy Johnson on February 28, 2008 · 8 comments

Guggenheim director Thomas Krens’ resignation yesterday couldn’t have been more poorly timed. Who will HOMU’s [The Homeless Museum of Art] Filip Noterdaeme address his letter to now that the man behind the Guggenheim franchise is leaving? Speaking to the subject of artist Cai Guo-Qiang’s Everything is Museum, currently at the Guggenheim, Noterdaeme observes how Qiang’s curation of HOMU’s The Incredibly Shrinking Museum side by side the Guggenheim’s latests projects underscores contrasting objectives;

I can’t help but point out how our respective proposals complement each other perfectly, like the Yin and Yang of the museum world. Yours is all about museum expansion via the Guggenheim brand, while mine is about museum implosion, shown with my Incredible Shrinking Museum (ISM)*. Anyone interested in understanding the state of the art museum today need look no further. There you have it in a nutshell: the contemporary art museum is simultaneously exploding and imploding.

Sadly, I expect Noterdaeme’s response to the exhibition will buried in a sea of stories related to the Krens’ resignation (even though he’s “stick[ing] around to run the Abu Dhabi project”) and Cai Guo-Qiang’s “easily deciphered if not terribly original art.”

*The Incredible Shrinking Museum is described by Noterdaeme on his site as “a museum about nothing for a society that has everything”.

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  • http://c-monster.net/blog1/2008/02/28/the-digest-022808/ C-MONSTER.net. » Blog Archive » The Digest. 02.28.08.

    [...] The Krens-master Cycle: Guggenheim director Thomas Krens steps down. Though he will remain at the foundation as a senior adviser, overseeing the new franchise in Abu Dhabi. Cue the Greek chorus: LAT, Bloomberg, Looking Around, Culture Grrl, AFC. [...]

  • billermo

    “a museum about nothing for a society that has everything”

    a bit seinfeldian,wouldn’t you say?

  • billermo

    “a museum about nothing for a society that has everything”

    a bit seinfeldian,wouldn’t you say?

  • billermo

    “a museum about nothing for a society that has everything”

    a bit seinfeldian,wouldn’t you say?

  • http://tommoody.us tom moody

    Roberta Smith’s review of Cai Guo-Qiang is carefully hedged. You can tell she hates the show. Check out the slick video of the artist making a “gunpowder drawing” on the Times video page (linked to in Smith’s article). Talk about your Asian stereotypes. It’s like the Hans Namuth film of Pollock making a painting done in the style of the ’70s TV show Kung Fu. With gratuitous slo-mo!

    I have seen the future of the Web and it is bad TV.

  • http://tommoody.us tom moody

    Roberta Smith’s review of Cai Guo-Qiang is carefully hedged. You can tell she hates the show. Check out the slick video of the artist making a “gunpowder drawing” on the Times video page (linked to in Smith’s article). Talk about your Asian stereotypes. It’s like the Hans Namuth film of Pollock making a painting done in the style of the ’70s TV show Kung Fu. With gratuitous slo-mo!

    I have seen the future of the Web and it is bad TV.

  • http://tommoody.us tom moody

    Roberta Smith’s review of Cai Guo-Qiang is carefully hedged. You can tell she hates the show. Check out the slick video of the artist making a “gunpowder drawing” on the Times video page (linked to in Smith’s article). Talk about your Asian stereotypes. It’s like the Hans Namuth film of Pollock making a painting done in the style of the ’70s TV show Kung Fu. With gratuitous slo-mo!

    I have seen the future of the Web and it is bad TV.

  • http://tommoody.us tom moody

    Roberta Smith’s review of Cai Guo-Qiang is carefully hedged. You can tell she hates the show. Check out the slick video of the artist making a “gunpowder drawing” on the Times video page (linked to in Smith’s article). Talk about your Asian stereotypes. It’s like the Hans Namuth film of Pollock making a painting done in the style of the ’70s TV show Kung Fu. With gratuitous slo-mo!

    I have seen the future of the Web and it is bad TV.

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