Art Museums as Architecture

Museums used to be in actual palaces, and if none were available, buildings were constructed to look like palaces. Why palaces? Well, to paraphrase the notorious bank robber, Willie Sutton, that is where the art is, gathered to show the wealth, power, and culture of the owner.

The Louvre is a converted palace. Originally built in 1190 as a fort, in the 14th century Charles V turned it into the royal residence, and so it remained for the French kings until 1682. Accommodations were made to show parts of the Royal collection, and selected artists were allowed to live and have their studios there. Finally, in 1793, it became a museum open to the public. In 1989, wanting to keep up with the times, the French government had the world-renowned architect, I. M. Pei created a new entrance in the center of the courtyard in the form of the now-famed glass pyramid.

Catherine the Great introduced art to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg in 1764 to house 225 paintings she purchased from the Berlin merchant, Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky. The Hermitage was opened to the public in 1852 by Emperor Nicholas I, who added a New Hermitage building specifically to house the collection as a museum.

In this country, we have no kings, but we do have venerable buildings that demonstrate our culture. The oldest museum in the United States dates from 1773 and is in Charleston, South Carolina. Founded by the Charleston Library Society, it was modeled on the British Museum, initially with zoological and anthropological objects, and expanding to works relating to local history.

From the 19th through the mid-20th century, museum buildings were constructed in the neoclassical style recalling Greek and Roman temples. They were to represent authority, respect, and cultural reverence for their contents. A prime example is the Berlin National Gallery, completed in 1830, and it was built on Berlin’s Museum Island. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was designed by the multi-disciplinary artist and visionary, Karl Friedrich Schinkel.

In the U.S., business moguls of the Gilded Age bought what they deemed the best art from Europe for their baronial style mansions. In 1882, Henry Clay Frick built Clayton in Pittsburgh, where his family lived until 1905, when they moved to the New York mansion he constructed with the aim of making his art collection public. They did not give Clayton up since Frick’s business and coke and steel empire was registered in Pittsburgh. In 1970, Frick’s daughter, Helen Clay Frick, moved back and opened Clayton as a museum for her personal collection that included early Renaissance Sienese painting and 18th-century French works of art.

All these museum buildings conveyed the importance of art and science, but in a manner intimidating to the general audience. Increasingly in need of public support, institutions no longer look to the past but rather hire the day’s star architects to create original destination buildings that will lure a public curious as to what they hold inside.

Near the end of last year, the Grand Egyptian Museum was opened near the Giza Pyramids. It has been described as the world’s largest archeological complex dedicated to a single civilization. The inauguration of the monumental building brought heads of state leading delegations from 79 countries to pay homage to the greatness of a culture, not in a palace of former rulers, but in a purpose-built statement of grandiose proportions.

In China, they are ready to open a museum reinterpreting traditional Suzhou architecture. It is the Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art. It was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, with an international practice whose home office is in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Time marches on, and what the art of the future will look like or the structures in which it, along with earlier collections, will be placed, is still to be seen.

Interviewing the Artists

As you know, I love and collect quotes, so I imagined myself asking artists questions that I was curious about.

How do you think about your subjects?

Gilbert Stuart lamented, "What a business this of a portrait painter - you bring him a potato and expect he will paint you a peach.” Marcel Duchamp was more introspective: “Do unto others as they wish, but with imagination.”

What do you wish to accomplish through your art?

Salvador Dali believed that "A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others." In order to accomplish that, Piet Mondrian responds, "The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel."

When do you feel that your artwork is complete?

Leonardo answered, “Art is never finished, only abandoned”. Rembrandt, however, knowing he had quite the ego, said, “A painting is finished when the artist says it is finished.” Again, I think Duchamp had the best answer, “Art is completed by the viewer”.

Who do you believe qualifies as an artist?

Picasso famously replied, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." Textile artist and teacher Tien Chiu tells his students, “You cannot aspire to be an artist, because you already are one.”

Is it hard to be an artist?

“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do,” Degas answered. Michelangelo concurred, “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”

Why do you create art?

Filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky believes "The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect..." Frida Kahlo says more simply, “I paint Flowers so they will not die”.

How do you define art?

El Anatsui, a Ghanaian sculptor, answered, "Art is a reflection on life. Life isn't something we can cut and fix. It's always in a state of flux." Degas responds

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see”. Edward Hopper thinks for a moment and then replies, “If I could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.”

How do you accomplish what you wish to do?

Georgia O’Keeffe said, "I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at—not copy it." Banksy believes, “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”.Balthus concurred, “Painting is a source of endless pleasure, but also of great anguish.” Author Fredrik Backman instructs, "Don't paint the way things look, paint the way they feel".

One last question ... do you listen to the critics?

Composer Jean Sibelius answered simply, “Pay no attention to what the critics say ... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!" Jean-Michel Basquiat summed it up, "I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is".
 

A Mucho Lunch

When I lived and worked in New York, I often had lunch in the office and, more times than not, I ordered a sandwich from a local deli. It was good but unmemorable. Now in Santa Fe, I often get a Mexican meal, a burrito, tacos, or a quesadilla. I still eat at my desk, but I missed those New York sandwiches.

When I was working at a not-for-profit institution off St. Michaels Drive, a commercial area and not in the center city where most tourists go, I came across Mucho Gourmet Sandwich Shoppe in a mall on Llano, a side Street. What a godsend!

Mucho translates as “a lot” and that is what you get at Mucho Sandwich. I think of it along the lines of a Jewish deli in New York where they make sandwiches with gusto. It took only one visit for me to join the ranks of the regulars.

Wanting to learn more about this extraordinary establishment, I interviewed Shannon, who presides at the counter. Mucho was founded in 1989 by her parents, Peggy and Rex Schnupp, who wanted to start a small business when they moved to Santa Fe. Within a few years their children, Shannon and her brother Nathan, joined the company, and today they run it, keeping it a family operation.

Shannon gets in around 8:15 A.M. and makes the soups and most of the deserts and makes sure everything is running smoothly in the kitchen. They already have orders from the day before to prepare. Nathan starts taking phone orders at 9:00A.M., and the phone does not stop ringing until after the lunch hour.

He and his sister continue to work full out from the minute they unlock their doors at 11:00 A.M., when they open to the public, until 3:00 P.M., when Nathan no longer answers the phone, and Mucho is closed. By the time they open, every flat surface in the place is covered with boxes filled with bags of sandwiches for pick-up and delivery.

Shannon, always in a good mood as she works like a whirling dervish, yet seems perfectly calm when she takes your order. First, she puts your name on the sandwich bag, checks off the sandwich you picked, and adds any modifications. If you come in a few times, she will call you by name when you get to the front of the line! I once mentioned to a client of mine who had not been in for a couple of years, and she remembered his favorite sandwich and how he liked it modified!!

There is an incredible choice of sandwiches, and below is one side of the menu. A typical order might be a sandwich, a small bag of potato chips from a wide choice of flavors, and a large drink. As said, nothing is small here. A friend of mine goes just for the salads for his wife and his dinner. One of the most popular sandwiches is the Turkey Surprise, which is also known as the Thanksgiving Sandwich because it includes not only turkey and stuffing but cranberry sauce as well.

Monday to Friday, they are making a minimum of 300 sandwiches and salads. I asked Shannon what their largest single order was, and she answered that they once had an order from State Farm Insurance for 1500 sandwiches. To calculate the volume another way, they order 100,000 sandwich bags a year! On a regular basis, they have orders from hospitals, attorneys’ offices, schools, and the state government. I personally know of a couple of boards of directors that order from their for meetings. Mucho places orders every evening from its roughly 10 vendors, which are delivered the next morning. Nathan used to make the deliveries as well, but the volume became too great, and they have two relatives with SUVs to make those deliveries all over town.

Behind the lines, you can see four women smiling and chatting with their colleagues as they make all those sandwiches and salads nonstop. Two men work at the grill for the hot sandwiches. There is a large oven specifically for making their delicious crisp bacon. Huge bowls hold the lettuce that is used liberally in many of their sandwiches as well as salads. Of course, there is also a backup staff for washing dishes, etc.

There is camaraderie among their customers online as they chat while they wait briefly for their sandwiches. The pre-orders are already waiting in a box for easy takeout.

Hungry yet? Don’t be surprised if you take your Mucho sandwich out of the bag and find they sneaked in a cookie, unasked.

Collector’s Choice

I have, of course, written about collecting before, but after reading a couple of articles from Town & Country, which a friend sent me, I thought I would try again to answer the unanswerable.

The first was written over forty-five years ago by Russell Lynes (1910-1991). He was a photographer (though his brother George Platt Lynes was better known as such),  an educator, editor, and, in my world, best known as an art historian. The article I am referring to is called “The Romance of Collecting”. Lynes starts out by saying that a young couple asked him if they should buy a certain painting. They were not satisfied with his response, “Do you love it?” The couple probably wanted to have an affirmation of their taste. Today, I believe, the would-be collector would be calculating if it was worth the price, or worse yet, a good investment.

Everyone collects for different reasons, but the collectors I like best are those who can’t help themselves. That doesn’t mean that their tastes won’t change, just like your favorite food when you are young might not be the same when you are older.

My wife and I have acquired art in fields that we knew were against the market because we loved the objects, not because we believed they would be worth more, but because we wanted to live with them. Yet, over time, our tastes and circumstances changed, and one collection gave way to another.

As a kid, I had friends who collected baseball cards and spoke about their Topps Mickey Mantle card, which has today brought fortunes at auction. I had a Mickey Mantle card too, but it was not a Topps product, but I kept it because it was Mickey Mantle. Unfortunately, I did not take care of it and put it in an album. Condition matters, so my card today is not worth much, if anything at all. As a grown-up, I have not been swayed by others. When I see it, love it, and can afford it, I buy it, but I have learned to take care of it as well.

Lynes makes a distinction between collectors and accumulators. I believe there is a very fine line there, starting with why the work was bought in the first place. The job of the art dealer is often to help place a work in someone’s home after they have said they have no more room. One might suggest that they can put the inferior work away and replace it with their new masterpiece! Thus, the collector becomes an accumulator and has closets full of art. The advantage there is that they will have work that they can give away. In my case, I often enjoy that more than anything, especially if a museum thinks what I owned is worth adding to their collection!

I mentioned another article from Town and Country, and that one was written this month by Laura Neilson about when “Scandal Sells”. It addresses art that Jeffrey Epstein owned, which can bring a premium, not because of the quality of the art, but because of the previous owner. You have probably heard of the collectors who collect drawings and paintings created by Adolf Hitler. I would say, “whatever turns you on,” but that does not change the art. If you appreciate history, I can see the interest in having a token. But if you put it up on your wall and have it there only because of the creator, you, in my opinion, are not an art collector.

Epstein owned a Roman-style statue that was in an FBI auction in Palm Beach. It changed hands a couple of times until a dealer sold it to new buyers who put it in the center of their living room. They were said to have “an appreciation for the emancipation of the piece”. As it was placed front and center of the new owners’ home, not hidden away for salacious private viewing, perhaps the provenance has become just part of the story.

The article, however, makes an interesting distinction. Interviewing auctioneers, the author finds that auctioneers must make valuations of objects not including provenance, since they don’t know what the provenance will add or subtract from the valuation. They also wonder whether there are ethical boundaries that people will not want to cross, and therefore, it might take longer for people to sell a work that belonged to Epstein than Bernie Madoff. The latter’s crimes were of a financial nature, and Americans have a more difficult time with sex. (see last week’s Missive). But you never know, it only takes two bidders to bring a price at auction. The Madoff Mets baseball satin jacket, valued at $720, brought $14,500 at a U.S. Marshals Service auction.

While provenance from a celebrity may add temporary interest to a piece, a history of passage through renowned art collections gives it true pedigree.

Sex in Museums

“The Eroticism of Things” is the title of a 2018 exhibition at the Werkbundarchiv-Museum der Dinge in 2018. This museum in Berlin is an archive documenting 20th/21st-century industrial design and consumer culture with a collection of some 40,000 mass-produced objects. The exhibition website includes the following explanation: “While nudes have entered many living rooms as replicas of respectable works in the art-historical canon, erotica has often gotten censored, tabooed, and banned. The distinction between eroticism, art, and pornography has always been in constant flux and continues to sway people’s perception and categorization of sexually charged things.”

Nothing has changed throughout history, other than people’s perception. In 2023, parents complained that Michelangelo’s David, which was shown to students in a 6th-grade art class at a school in Tallahassee, Florida, was pornographic, causing quite a stir and the resignation of the principal. But this was not a unique event. Even when it was created, Leonardo da Vinci, while praising the artist and sculptor, suggested that Michelangelo might add a loincloth!

For whatever reason, or maybe it’s obvious, the discovery of an 8-inch carved-bone phallus has made the art news. I read the article in Hyperallergic, but it has appeared in publications around the world. The “discovery” was made in the collections of The Valkhof Museum in Nijmegen, Netherlands, which specializes in Roman archaeology and regional history. The phallus was found when a government-funded inventory of the museum’s 16,000 boxes of archeological specimens was carried out. At the point of discovery, only 300 of the boxes had been gone through! I don’t know how the story got out, but I would like to think it was a brilliant PR agent for the museum🙄

This made me curious about objects with a sexual orientation in other museums. The story of the “Secret Cabinet” in Naples is worthy of a Missive of its own. It is a collection of first-century Roman erotic art found in Pompeii and Herculaneum, today exhibited in a separate section at the National Archaeological Museum. It is called “Secret” because the gallery was closed and opened so many times as attitudes toward sex changed. In fact, at one time the room was bricked closed, and the current installation only dates from 2000. This sculpture of Pan and a Goat is a highlight of the Cabinet.

There have been allegations that the British Museum destroyed sexually related artifacts in its collections. The Museum reassures us, however, that this is not the case with the collection of around 400 such works donated in 1865. Known as the Secretum, the collection was, from time to time, removed from public display but has now been dispersed to the appropriate archeological departments, in effect, hidden in plain sight. It makes me think of a bored child being taken through room after room and case after case of the 8 million objects in the Museum’s collection, until he stops in front of one and calls out, “Mummie, Mummie, look what they have here, why does it look like a penis?” What parent has not been put in such a predicament in public?

In many ways, the U.S. is much more puritanical than other nations. Even in Canada, women can go topless. In Germany, I read about co-ed saunas where men and women are accepted totally naked, but it is not obligatory. However, there are some in the United States who seek to counter this puritanical attitude. In Miami, Florida, in the Art Deco district, you will find The World Erotic Art Museum, library, and education think tank. The museum was founded by Naomi Wilzig (1934-2015) in 2005 and includes 4,000 artworks from around the world, dating from 300 BCE to the present. She had come from an orthodox Jewish home and did not know about erotic art until a request from her son, who knew she loved prowling antique shops and thought they might be a good source. She found that many of the antique dealers kept erotic items off view but would slowly open up and show them to her. Finding the quest fascinating, she built a collection which led to a book, lectures, and finally the founding of a museum. After being turned down in many places by communities believing erotic was merely porn, her son found her a welcoming location in Miami. Here is an example from the collection.

I will end with what is probably an apocryphal story of a highly respected curator of Greek and Roman Art at a major museum. It was said that when she retired after many years, one of her desk drawers was found to contain many of the phalluses missing from sculptures that were on view.

An old friend used to say to me, “The evil is in the mind of the beholder.”

Thoughts on “Raphael: Sublime Poetry”

When there is a blockbuster exhibition, it is hard to avoid it even at a distance. On March 29, “Raphael: Sublime Poetry” opened at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Without seeing the show, I would not presume to review it, but the very fact that it is taking place gives much to think about since, after Leonardo and Michelangelo, there is no other Renaissance painter with more renown.

Blockbuster shows have been around for a long time, and museums love creating them because they bring in the crowds, acclaim, and, of course, revenue. On the other hand, they cost a bloody fortune and take a great deal of time and work on the part of the organizing museum’s staff. The curators and director must convince their counterparts at the potential lending institutions as well as private collectors, to give up and risk their beloved works of art, which, for a time, they cannot show to the public or friends. This exhibition will not travel to other venues, reducing the risk to the art and making more people to travel to see it. The added prestige is countered by the costs since there is no other institution to share them.

The total of 237 works exhibited includes 33 paintings and 142 drawings, as well as tapestries and decorative arts. The loans come from some 60 institutions and private collectors. From the photos of the installation, it seems much of the lighting is dim in order to preserve the works on paper.

For many years, the Raphael altarpiece described simply as "Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints" was installed at the top of the grand staircase at the Metropolitan Museum. It is burned in my memory because I passed it so many times, but I could never get excited by it. Maybe that is because it was an early work, Raphael’s first altarpiece commissioned by the nuns of Sant’Antonio in Perugia for their private chapel. This was in 1504-1505, when Raphael was in his early 20’s and was not yet the great artist he would become over the short span of his life. At the time, the nuns knew he would not cost them as much as a better-known artist. In the seventeenth century, the nuns sold off the altar piece by piece. For this exhibition, the entire altarpiece was reconstituted, bringing together all the predella panels scattered far and wide.

In this painting, “The Holy Family with Infant Saint John the Baptist” (The Madonna of the Rose), 1517-18, done near the end of Raphael’s life, you can better understand the title of the show “Sublime Poetry”. However, art historians, through history, education, scientific analysis, and personal opinion, believe that parts of the painting are by the hand of Raphael’s star student and assistant Julio Romano (1499-1546).

Artists learn by studying the work of those who came before, and Rembrandt was no exception. Rembrandt never went to Italy, but he did collect prints and drawings by Raphael. Raphael’s portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (1514-1515) always brings to my mind Rembrandt’s self-portrait of 1640, based on the Raphael painting he saw and sketched in a sale of the collector Lucas van Uffelen’s estate in Amsterdam.

I will mention just two other notable works: The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, has lent this wonderful drawing of the heads and hands of two Apostles (ca. 1519-1520). It was already in the Ashmolean collection in 1846. These are quoted as “auxiliary Cartoon” for the Transfiguration, which was the last painting created by the master.

From the selection of decorative arts is a tapestry after Raphael, credited to two Flemish tapestry makers, Jan van Tieghem and Frans Gheteels. Dated to the third quarter of the 16th century, the subject, Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas at Lystra, otherwise known as “The Sacrifice at Lystra is from the Acts of the Apostles Tapestry series. Lent by Colecciones Reales, Madrid, it illustrates the impact of the master’s designs.

This once-in-a-lifetime exhibition was curated by the Metropolitan’s own Museum Carmen Bambach, who wrote the much-praised catalog. The show closes June 28.

Resurrected Monuments

Time flies, and over six years ago, I wrote a Missive, “Addressing the Statue,” about the concept of taking down statues that do not fit in with the current thinking. 

https://www.geraldstiebel.com/2019/12/addressing-statue.html

I have always been opposed to dismissing the past, in any sense. You might say that another word for the past is History. We learn from history. I am sure you have heard the expression said to a young person going off into the world, “Fail early and fail often”. Why would anyone, meaning well, say that? It is simply that this is how we learn, from our mistakes.

Artnet had an article recently by Eileen Kinsella titled, “Toppled Monuments are Reappearing Across the U.S. Under Trump”. Much as it pains me, I have to say that, in my opinion, this is at least one positive aspect of the current administration, though it is probably being done for all the wrong reasons.

At the time of George Floyd’s murder, among others, a statue of Christopher Columbus was toppled in Baltimore and dumped in Baltimore’s harbor, citing the latter’s history of enslaving and colonizing the Indigenous people. Yes, that is abhorrent to most people today, but that ignores the fact that he is credited with discovering this Continent. I know he did not actually land on our shores, but still, one constituency in particular, Italian immigrants, is proud of him. He also satisfies a question of who was the founding father! I would have encouraged those who objected to the sculpture to have a plaque created stating their issue, but not destroying it. In any event, a replica of the Baltimore Columbus has recently been installed on the White House grounds!

Monuments represent the emotions of the moment, and these often change during periods of upheaval and power shifts. In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation challenged Catholicism, Papal authority, and clerical corruption. This led to the destruction and removal of statues in many European churches. Today, we would see beyond their religious symbolism to revere them as works of art, but with the wave of iconoclasm they have been lost forever. A block of stone that would have once separated the nave and quire of Durham Cathedral was reused and found in one of the buildings of the Cathedral College. The figures were probably defaced sometime after the death of Henry VIII (1547).

The Southern Poverty Law Center found that over 160 Confederate monuments were removed between 2015 and 2020. Here, the distinction is between destroyed and removed. Some have been relocated or relegated to a museum. The artistic or historic value may be preserved, but their story is no longer one you might pass every day and learn as you walk by.

Confederate statues in tribute to Southern pride or white supremacy are also being reinstalled after they had been taken down, so as not to offend one constituency or another. Again, I would say that is part of history and that those who forget will relive it. General Albert Pike has been described as “a racist Confederate Civil War general who defended slavery and wrote a militant variation of 'Dixie.” He has also been described as a Masonic leader, an author, a poet, a philosopher, and a philanthropist. His toppled statue has been reinstalled by order of the Trump administration.

Here in Santa Fe, the obelisk, known as Soldiers’ Monument, at the center of the Plaza (elsewhere it might be called the town square) has been a political issue for years. In 2020, on Indigenous Peoples’ Day (known elsewhere as Columbus Day), the obelisk was toppled by a small group of Indigenous demonstrators. It was erected in 1867 to honor the Union army soldiers, mostly local Hispanic volunteers who died in Civil War battles to keep the Confederacy from overtaking the New Mexico Territory. One of the plaques on the base referred to battles with "savage Indians" in reference to Apache raids on settlements. The offensive words, however, had been chiseled out in 1974. Today, the architectural plinth remains in place while an ongoing debate rages along with cost studies for razing, rebuilding, or moving the monument to the Military Cemetery. I believe it should be rebuilt or at least the pedestal left in place, accompanied by an explanation of the full history.

That same year, a statue of Don Diego de Vargas was removed from the Cathedral Park. De Vargas had led the Spanish retaking and resettlement of New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, but he also ordered the killing of 70 Pueblo Indians in 1693. After a man was killed in Albuquerque during a 2020 protest demonstration around a de Vargas monument, Santa Fe’s Mayor had our statue preemptively removed to a long-unknown location. A year later, a former city councilor said he saw it in the garden of a home/business where it had been placed by the contractor who moved the statue in the first place. In 2024, it was placed on temporary exhibition at t the New Mexico History Museum.

The destruction and/or the resurrection of a monument is more than a passing current event; it becomes part of our history.