[CPProt.net] a particularly destructive foreign stereotype of the big, bad United States, exploiting other countries.

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

A 'particularly destructive foreign stereotype'? Shame on you Mr MICHAEL
KIMMELMAN! The Getty, Metropolitan etc dubious acquisitions and the Italian
investigations may be feeding a 'particularly destructive foreign
stereotype' but are in the first place revealing a very bad moral attitude
on behalf of some museums. You yourself are feeding a 'particularly
destructive' American excuse for very well based criticism. If this is to
become - which I doubt - a USA against the rest of the world confrontation,
than it is about time the USA and its museums seriously investigate their
morals in acquiring cultural property. This mailing list is not the correct
platform to comment on the 'exploiting of other countries' part of your
text, so I will refrain from doing so. 

Ton Cremers 



December 25, 2005
The Highs and Lows
Old Masters and New Ethical Lapses 
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

DEAD WHITE MALE HEAVEN It was a year of startlingly good shows of old
masters and other historical bigwigs, including a pair of superb drawing
surveys at the Met, devoted to Rubens and van Gogh, and a gem of a Memling
exhibition at the Frick.

BEST WORK OF THE YEAR By a senior figure, hands down, it was Richard Serra's
installation of eight huge sculptures at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain,
which pushed abstract art to a new level and set a benchmark for the new
century.

NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN Among the year's sleepers were two shows at the National
Gallery in Washington: one brought three monumental Renaissance sculptures
from Florence; the other, "The Origins of European Printmaking," was a
wonder cabinet of woodcuts, books and other art from the 15th century on.

FULL HOUSE The Whitney's low-key lineup this year had Tim Hawkinson and
Robert Smithson and ended with Richard Tuttle, Ed Ruscha, Raymond Pettibon
and Oscar Bluemner. 

MONEY MAKES THE WORLD GO AROUND Auction prices hit nosebleed levels, and
speculators lined up even for Damien Hirst's photorealist paintings of
emaciated crack addicts and soccer hooligans. Mr. Hirst's show at the
Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea suggested that he jumped the shark, but
investors weren't afraid to fork over up to $2 million. Anybody remember the
name Sandro Chia? 

SECOND WORST ABDICATION BY A MUSEUM The Los Angeles County Museum of Art's
deal with a for-profit outfit to organize the "Tut" show last summer (full
ticket price: $30). Naturally, the show was a hit, but at the cost of the
museum's good name. 

WORST ABDICATION BY A MUSEUM The very same Los Angeles County Museum of
Art's arrangement with Eli Broad to build a gallery for his collection on
museum property (city-owned, tax-free land), which he will oversee and the
museum will pay to maintain. The gamble is that he donates the art someday.
Meanwhile, he is also on the board of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. 

DIGGING UP TROUBLE The growing scandal over looted antiquities from abroad,
not to mention soiling American museums, fed into a particularly destructive
foreign stereotype of the big, bad United States, exploiting other
countries.

SADDEST MOVE OF THE YEAR The New York Public Library disposed of one of the
city's great civic treasures, Asher B. Durand's "Kindred Spirits," in a
closed auction for $35 million, which the library's curators didn't even
learn about until hours before the public read about it in the newspaper. 

BEST MOVE OF THE YEAR The Museum of Modern Art, which now has all the charm
of the Cherry Hill mall on Black Friday, at least managed to shift Monet's
beloved "Water Lilies" from the second-floor lobby; there, swallowed up in
the unlovely vastness, it had looked, as the critic Peter Schjeldahl so
aptly phrased it, like a soiled Band-Aid. Now it resides in a busy room on
the fifth floor, jutting from panels that are like giant flapping butterfly
wings. For the moment this will have to do. Call it a Band-Aid for a
Band-Aid.

LOCATION, LOCATION A tribute to the 1970's visionary Gordon Matta-Clark, at
the Queens Museum and White Columns, recalled his eccentric acquisition of
useless scraps of city property. 

PUT OUT MORE FLAGS Whether you thought it was ingenious or kitsch, Christo
and Jeanne-Claude's "Gates" in Central Park was clearly the biggest
spectacle in a year full of them. Sidestepping the approval of insiders, it
caused countless New Yorkers to debate the meaning of art. As promised, the
gates came and went, leaving behind tourist dollars, a pristine park and the
memory of a winter happening that refreshed admiration for Olmsted and
Vaux's miracle. 

http://www.nytimes.com/