Just because a show is possibly likely to appeal to a large audience doesn’t mean it necessarily belongs. I mean, by that standard the NGA would do a show of Darth Vader costumes.

It’s not about the work, it’s about the museum’s decision. And how exactly is my position elitist?!

To be clear, I never said that museums should only consider audience draw as their criteria for launching a show. In the case of Misrach it’s a positive because it will connect more people with Fine Art photography, not in the case of Darth Vader.

The implication in the MAN posts is that the commercial viability of the exhibition makes it less valid, which sounds elitist. I don’t see how the museum’s decision can be separated from the work. Of course, I’m open to be proven wrong on this.

If you say it wasn’t your intent to imply that the commercial viability of the work made it any less valid, I’m willing to accept that but I’m still entirely unclear on what the problem is. What is wrong with the enlargement of a commercial show?

Shouldn’t an art museum — with all that implies, both legally and otherwise — strive to do more than merely re-hang a Pace show?!

I don’t understand why you assume I should know so much about a show I haven’t seen. I also don’t know what legalities are involved for the museum.

It’s kind of funny to watch him deny his own words here.

Paddy, he asks you, “Where did I imply that the commercial viability of the work made it less valid?”

Well, in the Sillman story he wrote that “The Hirshhorn exhibition is a commercial-gallery sales opportunity dropped into a museum.” He used the word “commercial” twice more in that short post and three times in the short Misrach post.

The clear import of all this repetition is that there is something suspect about “commerce,” that the selection of the work was made with a view to immediate marketing needs–choosing “available” work shown in the last couple of years–and not the long view of posterity. Green said as much in the Sillman review.

But when called on it, he said his use of “commercial” was just to differentiate a museum from a gallery and carries no value judgment. But he could just as easily do that by saying “private art gallery” to distinguish it from a public institution. The repeated use of “commercial” was scolding.

It’s the noodgy hectoring that bugs me more than elitism. Most of us in the gallery scene are inured to its web of incestuous relationships and just want to know “is the damn show any good?” (My own disillusionment came 17 years ago when the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth included William Wegman’s publicity photos for the movie “Hook” in a mini-retrospective of his, the same month “Hook” opened.)

Art is done on shoestring budgets relative to other forms of amusement. Great art shows (like great art articles) are a gift and can come together under the worst of circumstances. Pointing out those circumstances again and again, while offering the barest of discussion of the actual art being shown, isn’t muckraking, it’s ankle biting.