Image by Daniel A. Norman
Everyone likes to pick on the Brooklyn Museum’s bent towards populism, but is the New York Times story on the subject complete? A couple of responses from facebook and the blog’s comment section suggests it’s not:
David: This article frustrates me to no end. While I agree that there's DEFINITELY room for debate about Brooklyn's choice of exhibitions (as is true with any large institution), this article is essentially reporting one bar chart. Yes, attendance dropped massively last year, but that has more to do with them struggling to stay alive. But the two years prior had an impressive increase, the goal of tripling attendance was never going to be reached. Corrected headline: “Museum doesn't reach ridiculous goal and barely stays alive during enormous financial catastrophe. Trustees get grumpy and Robert Storr complains”. Go back to writing your annual article about the new web “site” ICANHAZCHEEZBURGER, NYTimes.
Susan Adele Wiggins I don’t think any borough wants to be the “middle of the art world.” WTF?
New York Times ICANHAZCHEEZBURGER jokes aside I still think the museum’s subpar programming is the source of their problems. The institution is about a 30 minute walk from where I live and yet I rarely feel compelled to visit. That’s because I’m too often disappointed. Far too much crap finds a home at that museum: art fair staple Devorah Sperber, a woman who recreates famous works of art with spools of thread, Click! a crowd sourced photography show of bad photography, and the college level postcolonial critiques of Yinka Shonibare’s costumed headless mannequins. Even when they launch shows by well known artists they manage to fuck it up. Anyway one else remember the woefully incomplete Annie Leibovitz photography exhibition with all those God awful landscapes? I love The Brooklyn Museum staff so it pains me to say this, but if they want people to visit, they have to start launching shows worth the trip.
Update: Museum Nerd asks whether visitor numbers should be the hallmark of a museum’s success.
From our comment’s yet another Dave suggests it’s a “legacy of disappointment” that effects the museum’s visitor numbers. Blockbusters shipped in and out of the museum that have been organized elsewhere, uninviting architecture (the seemingly always vacant ground floor for example), and decorating decisions that make no sense (American Wing = disaster).
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I think its the legacy of disappointment more than the choice of exhibitions plus the fact that the majority of “blockbusters” are just traveled in and out and there is no connection to the immense amount of art that is made in Brooklyn – nothing new, nothing radical. Also, there are a lot of really big turnoffs here for me (the ground floor always looks abandoned, the American wing’s choices of wall paint colors is incredibly distracting, etc.) However, I have a hard time believing that nearly a quarter million (!) more people saw Tim Burton at MoMA (810,000+) than saw Liebovitz, Mueck, Basquiat and Murakami combined (about 590,000) because these shows were bad exhibition choices or not worth the trip – it’s just got to me something more. Every once in a while there are surprise gems, for sure. But it always feels to me like a giant squandered opportunity.
I think its the legacy of disappointment more than the choice of exhibitions plus the fact that the majority of “blockbusters” are just traveled in and out and there is no connection to the immense amount of art that is made in Brooklyn – nothing new, nothing radical. Also, there are a lot of really big turnoffs here for me (the ground floor always looks abandoned, the American wing’s choices of wall paint colors is incredibly distracting, etc.) However, I have a hard time believing that nearly a quarter million (!) more people saw Tim Burton at MoMA (810,000+) than saw Liebovitz, Mueck, Basquiat and Murakami combined (about 590,000) because these shows were bad exhibition choices or not worth the trip – it’s just got to me something more. Every once in a while there are surprise gems, for sure. But it always feels to me like a giant squandered opportunity.
I think its the legacy of disappointment more than the choice of exhibitions plus the fact that the majority of “blockbusters” are just traveled in and out and there is no connection to the immense amount of art that is made in Brooklyn – nothing new, nothing radical. Also, there are a lot of really big turnoffs here for me (the ground floor always looks abandoned, the American wing’s choices of wall paint colors is incredibly distracting, etc.) However, I have a hard time believing that nearly a quarter million (!) more people saw Tim Burton at MoMA (810,000+) than saw Liebovitz, Mueck, Basquiat and Murakami combined (about 590,000) because these shows were bad exhibition choices or not worth the trip – it’s just got to me something more. Every once in a while there are surprise gems, for sure. But it always feels to me like a giant squandered opportunity.
Dave’s replacement headline actually made me laugh out loud though I refuse to type the ubiquitous abbreviation. One of the surprise gems that seems to live on forever is the semi-permanent Art Smith show.
It’s tough to compare MoMA and BMA visitorship. MoMA has about 6-7 times the annual visitors. The simple fact is that tourists make up the brunt of MoMA’s visitorship, while BMA is learning that rather than try to compete for international tourists, if they try to attract the 3.5 million Brooklyn residents to come at least once a year, they’ll do just fine.
Dave’s replacement headline actually made me laugh out loud though I refuse to type the ubiquitous abbreviation. One of the surprise gems that seems to live on forever is the semi-permanent Art Smith show.
It’s tough to compare MoMA and BMA visitorship. MoMA has about 6-7 times the annual visitors. The simple fact is that tourists make up the brunt of MoMA’s visitorship, while BMA is learning that rather than try to compete for international tourists, if they try to attract the 3.5 million Brooklyn residents to come at least once a year, they’ll do just fine.
Dave’s replacement headline actually made me laugh out loud though I refuse to type the ubiquitous abbreviation. One of the surprise gems that seems to live on forever is the semi-permanent Art Smith show.
It’s tough to compare MoMA and BMA visitorship. MoMA has about 6-7 times the annual visitors. The simple fact is that tourists make up the brunt of MoMA’s visitorship, while BMA is learning that rather than try to compete for international tourists, if they try to attract the 3.5 million Brooklyn residents to come at least once a year, they’ll do just fine.
To say that the BMA has no connection to art routed in Brooklyn is slightly inaccurate. Consider the frequent/permanent work of Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas, K8 Hardy, or the Williamsburg Murals exhibition (populist, and edifying, though not the quite box office hit as the Star Wars show). Of course this meager sampling isn’t enough to be considered solid representation of Bk artists (or a good one), but given the half-assedness with which BMA mounts shows I wouldn’t really expect more.
I agree with Paddy and the NYTimes article, the BMA needs a major spring cleaning/needs to be paddled for a series of bad decisions. How many “feminists” shows can a museum have in a ten-year span? And putting one of Mickalene Thomas’ obnoxious, bedazzled nudes outside the exhibition entrance isn’t exactly fodder for intellectual play on the meaning of feminism. If was supposed to be ironic then it seems an odd choice- like putting a trucker hat on a Judy Chicago plate. It’s tacky, like a lot of what happens there. I agree that the Museum has potential and as someone that has lived in the neighborhood I see the value of First Saturday’s, and Exhibitions like The Black list. But if I have to see another Ghada Amer embroidery at BMA, or really anywhere, I will scream. Amer’s work, in my opinion, is showing signs of aging, and not in the good Francis Bacon kind of a way. As are the museum’s curatorial concepts.
To say that the BMA has no connection to art routed in Brooklyn is slightly inaccurate. Consider the frequent/permanent work of Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas, K8 Hardy, or the Williamsburg Murals exhibition (populist, and edifying, though not the quite box office hit as the Star Wars show). Of course this meager sampling isn’t enough to be considered solid representation of Bk artists (or a good one), but given the half-assedness with which BMA mounts shows I wouldn’t really expect more.
I agree with Paddy and the NYTimes article, the BMA needs a major spring cleaning/needs to be paddled for a series of bad decisions. How many “feminists” shows can a museum have in a ten-year span? And putting one of Mickalene Thomas’ obnoxious, bedazzled nudes outside the exhibition entrance isn’t exactly fodder for intellectual play on the meaning of feminism. If was supposed to be ironic then it seems an odd choice- like putting a trucker hat on a Judy Chicago plate. It’s tacky, like a lot of what happens there. I agree that the Museum has potential and as someone that has lived in the neighborhood I see the value of First Saturday’s, and Exhibitions like The Black list. But if I have to see another Ghada Amer embroidery at BMA, or really anywhere, I will scream. Amer’s work, in my opinion, is showing signs of aging, and not in the good Francis Bacon kind of a way. As are the museum’s curatorial concepts.
To say that the BMA has no connection to art routed in Brooklyn is slightly inaccurate. Consider the frequent/permanent work of Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas, K8 Hardy, or the Williamsburg Murals exhibition (populist, and edifying, though not the quite box office hit as the Star Wars show). Of course this meager sampling isn’t enough to be considered solid representation of Bk artists (or a good one), but given the half-assedness with which BMA mounts shows I wouldn’t really expect more.
I agree with Paddy and the NYTimes article, the BMA needs a major spring cleaning/needs to be paddled for a series of bad decisions. How many “feminists” shows can a museum have in a ten-year span? And putting one of Mickalene Thomas’ obnoxious, bedazzled nudes outside the exhibition entrance isn’t exactly fodder for intellectual play on the meaning of feminism. If was supposed to be ironic then it seems an odd choice- like putting a trucker hat on a Judy Chicago plate. It’s tacky, like a lot of what happens there. I agree that the Museum has potential and as someone that has lived in the neighborhood I see the value of First Saturday’s, and Exhibitions like The Black list. But if I have to see another Ghada Amer embroidery at BMA, or really anywhere, I will scream. Amer’s work, in my opinion, is showing signs of aging, and not in the good Francis Bacon kind of a way. As are the museum’s curatorial concepts.
Listen, I don’t want to sound like BMA hater because that’s the total opposite of the truth. The Sensation exhibition was a really a watershed moment for me in many ways and I liked both the more recent exhibitions of Basquiat and Gilbert & George, among others, and was completely and pleasantly surprised by a contemporary show – I think it was all recent acquisitions? – a year or so back.
Ultimately, I think this discussion comes down to examining what the function or purpose of this sort of museum is, or should be, and the strategies to make it function in the best way possible. No matter what exhibitions are programmed, in a city with dozens of museums, the bigget, most centrally located ones (as Museum Nerd points out, due to the hoards of tourists) will always come out on top, attendance-wise and the smaller ones (especially those in the “outer boroughs”) will play second fiddle. I think Brooklyn gets it the worst because it’s supposedly the borough of the creative class, and arguably this is true, and the expectations are there.
In my mind, institutions in Brooklyn (or any other place where the creative energy is palpable any-and-everywhere) would act like hubs which could nurture and foster emerging and contemporary culture and be places where those who create things can present them to the people around them, for better or for worse. The difficulties and risks in doing this within a large and encyclopedic institution are of course huge, but I think totally worthwhile, and maybe more effective than a soulless blockbuster.
Listen, I don’t want to sound like BMA hater because that’s the total opposite of the truth. The Sensation exhibition was a really a watershed moment for me in many ways and I liked both the more recent exhibitions of Basquiat and Gilbert & George, among others, and was completely and pleasantly surprised by a contemporary show – I think it was all recent acquisitions? – a year or so back.
Ultimately, I think this discussion comes down to examining what the function or purpose of this sort of museum is, or should be, and the strategies to make it function in the best way possible. No matter what exhibitions are programmed, in a city with dozens of museums, the bigget, most centrally located ones (as Museum Nerd points out, due to the hoards of tourists) will always come out on top, attendance-wise and the smaller ones (especially those in the “outer boroughs”) will play second fiddle. I think Brooklyn gets it the worst because it’s supposedly the borough of the creative class, and arguably this is true, and the expectations are there.
In my mind, institutions in Brooklyn (or any other place where the creative energy is palpable any-and-everywhere) would act like hubs which could nurture and foster emerging and contemporary culture and be places where those who create things can present them to the people around them, for better or for worse. The difficulties and risks in doing this within a large and encyclopedic institution are of course huge, but I think totally worthwhile, and maybe more effective than a soulless blockbuster.
Listen, I don’t want to sound like BMA hater because that’s the total opposite of the truth. The Sensation exhibition was a really a watershed moment for me in many ways and I liked both the more recent exhibitions of Basquiat and Gilbert & George, among others, and was completely and pleasantly surprised by a contemporary show – I think it was all recent acquisitions? – a year or so back.
Ultimately, I think this discussion comes down to examining what the function or purpose of this sort of museum is, or should be, and the strategies to make it function in the best way possible. No matter what exhibitions are programmed, in a city with dozens of museums, the bigget, most centrally located ones (as Museum Nerd points out, due to the hoards of tourists) will always come out on top, attendance-wise and the smaller ones (especially those in the “outer boroughs”) will play second fiddle. I think Brooklyn gets it the worst because it’s supposedly the borough of the creative class, and arguably this is true, and the expectations are there.
In my mind, institutions in Brooklyn (or any other place where the creative energy is palpable any-and-everywhere) would act like hubs which could nurture and foster emerging and contemporary culture and be places where those who create things can present them to the people around them, for better or for worse. The difficulties and risks in doing this within a large and encyclopedic institution are of course huge, but I think totally worthwhile, and maybe more effective than a soulless blockbuster.
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