CURIOSITY: LYNDON MAGLALANG

THE DOS AND DON’TS OF ARTISTS’ BEQUESTS

The dos and don’ts of artists’ bequests

An increasing number of artists are becoming philanthropists. Setting up a foundation is one option but there is another way

By Christine J. Vincent. Opinion, Issue 237, July-August 2012

Published online: 04 July 2012

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s recent announcement that it aims to surpass the grant-making pace set by the wealthy Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (The Art Newspaper, April 2012, p4) is one more sign that the previously little-known field of artist-endowed foundations has moved into the spotlight. The proliferation of these entities is a shot in the arm for the flagging cultural philanthropy field, and for that we are grateful. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that they are the only means artists are using to realise their philanthropic visions and heritage stewardship goals. In fact, recent years have seen remarkably generous bequests by visual artists in the US made directly to museums and universities without the intervening apparatus of a private foundation. Complex and costly to operate, private foundations are a viable option only for wealthy artists who can properly endow their philanthropic actions; bequests to institutions offer an important alternative for the majority of artists concerned with the beneficial disposition of their life’s creative works and, as such, deserve closer attention.

Research by the Aspen Institute’s national study of artist-endowed foundations, the first comprehensive examination of the topic, focused on private foundations, but also identified other options being used by artists to realise their posthumous philanthropy. By provision of the United States tax code, public charities, which include most museums and universities, are not required to report and identify donors and their gifts, as are private foundations. That leaves researchers with no consistent data on the number and scale of artists’ bequests within this realm. Nonetheless, a review of press coverage finds evidence of generous gifts by artists in a variety of communities.

Beyond the blue chip

In 2001, Maine’s Portland Museum of Art announced that it had received the bequest of the landscape painter William Thon (1906-2000). Key pieces were added to the museum’s collection, but beyond this, Thon directed that his remaining art be sold. The resulting gift, valued at $4m, endowed a fund to support a named curatorial post as well as a biennial exhibition of Maine artists with a jurors’ prize. The museum also implemented a project stipulated in the artist’s will, distributing original works with supporting educational materials to almost 70 schools across the state of Maine. In 2009, Pennsylvania’s Allentown Art Museum announced that it had received the art estate of the sculptor Peter Grippe (1912-2002), along with works by his wife, the ceramicist Florence Grippe. In addition to the artists’ studio and homes, intended for sale to endow a related fund, the gift included works by leading modernists such as Calder, de Kooning and Lipchitz. At around 500 pieces, it is among the largest gifts received by the museum. In 2011, the new art centre at the University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, opened a retrospective exhibition of the second-generation abstract expressionist painter Stephen Pace (1918-2010), featuring selections from the artist’s bequest of 273 works, 50 intended as a permanent collection. The $1.5m gift from the artist and his spouse, comprising art and cash assets, funded the completion of the centre with a dedicated art gallery; an art scholarship had previously been endowed.

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CURIOSITY: APRIL LUCAS

DOS PUEBLOS

FLORENCE’S CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM SHUTS

Florence’s contemporary art museum shuts

Asset rich, policy poor: Florence’s culture should be for the Florentines, not just tourists

By Edek Osser, Tina Lepri and Ermanno Rivetti. Museums, Issue 237, July-August 2012

Published online: 03 July 2012

The city of Florence has long been accused of lacking vision when it comes to contemporary art, a charge that is hard to refute. Ex3 Toscana Contemporanea, the only contemporary art museum in the city to receive public funding, was forced to close in mid-June because it had run out of money. It opened in 2009 and had so far mounted 16 exhibitions. However, its public subsidy of €85,000 in 2011, for example, was not enough to cover its annual operating cost of around €200,000. The director of the museum, Andrea Tanini, pointed out in an open letter that Florence’s €2m cultural budget for 2012 is destined almost entirely for established institutions that are already financially stable.

This blow to the city’s already struggling contemporary art scene is a symptom of the city’s cultural strengths and weaknesses. Florence is by no means a large city but it has 50 cultural institutions, including 25 state museums, seven municipal museums, private collections, churches and oratories, palaces, historical gardens and piazzas. However, the overall consensus is that, despite this treasure trove, Florence lacks any sort of cohesive cultural strategy. This has, in turn, created a situation in which the tourism industry has dominated and alienated the city’s inhabitants from their own cultural heritage. Carlo Sisi, a celebrated art historian and the president of the Marino Marini museum, says: “Florentines look at the Bargello museum, the Palazzo Pitti and the Uffizi as tourist hotspots rather than as places that belong to their world. This is why we need to rethink our cultural strategy to include them in it.”

Who funds what

It is no exaggeration to say that Florence is dominated by cultural activities, with its 35 universities and academies (more than any single American city), as well as its museums and institutions. The city’s cultural infrastructure is split between four bodies; the Polo Museale, the umbrella organisation that oversees the city’s museums and institutions; the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, the foundation of the Banca CR Firenze, which funds cultural projects, restoration works and exhibition programmes; the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, the public-private foundation that organises historic and contemporary art exhibitions (but does not have its own collection); and the city’s administration, housed in the Palazzo Vecchio, of which the mayor, Matteo Renzi, struck a deal with Italy’s ministry of culture in 2010 to give the city more financial control over its cultural heritage. The most important of the four is probably the Polo Museale, which is run by the superintendent Cristina Acidini. “Our organisation is unique because of the sheer number of museums,” Acidini says. “In 2011 we had around 1.8 million visitors to the Uffizi, around 1.3 million to the Accademia and significantly less to all the other museums. A few are earning huge amounts while others hardly anything.” The Uffizi, of course, remains the most popular (and oversubscribed) destination in town, and the advent of the Nuovi Uffizi project will only exacerbate this trend—ten rooms for foreign artists were opened in December and a further ten dedicated to 16th-century Tuscan artists opened on 19 June. Another 13 rooms are being restored and are due to be completed by February 2013.

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CURIOSITY: GILBERT LATOJA

LIFE: AN INTERPRETATION

LARAGWAY

ARTIST TO SET SAIL IN FORMER MIGRANT BOAT

Artist to set sail in former migrant boat

Lucy Wood will travel in a craft used by fleeing Libyans

By Ermanno Rivetti. News, Issue 237, July-August 2012

Published online: 03 July 2012

It took just over a year of negotiations with the Italian authorities for the British artist Lucy Wood, who is represented by Upstream Gallery in Amsterdam, to obtain a boat that was used to transport Libyans to Italy during the Libyan revolution in 2011.

The Sicilian island Lampedusa’s position between the Italian and African coasts has, over the years, made it a destination for refugees from North Africa, who see it as a gateway to Italy and Europe. In a bid to encourage debate around migration and refugees, Wood plans to single-handedly sail the nine metre-long boat from Lampedusa to London between April and May 2013. She will stop in Malta, Sicily, Naples, Rome, Genoa, Monaco, Marseilles, Arles, Avignon, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam before making her way up the Thames.

Conceived as a piece of performance art, the boat contains items left by the original migrants as well as objects stored and collected by Wood during her stay in Lampedusa. The performance is intended to draw attention to the conditions that many migrants face during their dangerous journeys: Wood wants to invite local cultural institutions and artists to collaborate on talks and events at different stops on her voyage.

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CURIOSITY: KATHLEEN GOBASCO

AFTER CARAVAGGIO

MASTERPIECE SLOWLY BREAKS THE MOULD

Masterpiece slowly breaks the mould

Reaching new audiences remains a priority for the high-end London fair

By Gareth Harris. Web only

Published online: 02 July 2012

When Masterpiece launched in 2010, following the sudden demise of the old-fashioned Grosvenor House fair, its organisers aimed to establish a new type of fair by bringing together art, antiques and antiquities with other sectors of the luxury market. Now in its third edition (28 June-4 July), co-founder Harry Apter of the London-based dealer Apter-Fredericks is just as evangelical about redefining the traditional art fair concept. “You have to try and reach new audiences,” he says. “The antiques fair format is tired.” The jury is still out, however, on whether Masterpiece is finding its niche in the crowded international fair landscape.

The organisers of Masterpiece hope to draw in potential collectors by creating an all-round de luxe experience, comprising classic cars, boats, wines, a plush restaurant run by Le Caprice and a trove of high-end art and antiques. The timing of the fair, held during the Wimbledon tennis championships and framed by the post-war and contemporary auctions just before and Old Master sales after, is fundamental in enticing “cultural tourists” in the capital, and to an extent established collectors, to the purpose-built pavilion at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. On Friday afternoon (29 June), the plan seemed to be working; the fair was full of affluent thirty- and fortysomethings keen to part with their cash.

“There are definitely people here with plenty of money,” said Clovis Whitfield of the London-based gallery Whitfield Fine Art. The gallery, a first-time participant, hopes that in these straitened economic times, a moneyed individual or organisation will dig deep for its £60m authenticated Caravaggio made around 1600 for Cardinal Benedetto Giustiniani; at the time of writing, the painting had not sold (the fair is still ongoing). A lithograph of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, 1895, available with Kaare Berntsen of Oslo for £1.7m, and Damien Hirst’s High Windows (Happy Life), 2006, priced at £1.5m with Robilant + Voena of Milan, had also failed to find buyers.

For now, core European connoisseurs still seem to be making their way to Masterpiece. But the question of whether the fair is an heir apparent to Tefaf Maastricht, the grand-dame of fairs which celebrated its silver jubilee in March, was a point of debate on the floor, especially as the heavyweight London old master dealers Johnny Van Haeften and Richard Green are notable absentees among the 154 exhibitors; Chinese antiques dealers are also under represented on the floor.

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CURIOSITY: GIRLIE ELISON

PAINTING THE AMERICAN FLAG

UKIYO-E WOODCUT PRINT LECTURE

THE CREAM OF THE OLD MASTERS CROP

The cream of the Old Masters crop

Works by Constable, Rembrandt and Hans Baldung Grien come to the block at Sotheby’s and Christie’s

By Paul Jeromack. Published online: 02 July 2012

London. Christie’s is due to offer a splendid selection of works in its evening auction of Old Master paintings on 3 July, crowned by Carmen “Tita” Thyssen’s Constable, The Lock, 1824 (est £20m-£25m), a last-minute addition to the sale.

The auction house received a consignment of 15 works from the Pieter and Olga Dreesmann collection of 17th-century Dutch paintings in early spring, including Rembrandt’s A man in a gorget and cap, 1626-27 (est £8m-£12m), and The interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, Haarlem, 1658, by Pieter Jansz. Saenredam (est £1.2m-£1.8m). These works acted as a powerful magnet for more Dutch pictures, the most notable being a lush, beautifully preserved masterpiece by Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Flowers in a glass vase on a draped table, with a silver tazza, fruit, insects and birds, late 1660s. The work’s estimate of £1.2m to £1.8m seems curiously restrained, given that the painting has long been acknowledged as one of De Heem’s masterpieces.

One of the other Dutch paintings in the sale is an accidental discovery: a Christie’s representative in Paris went to visit a grand household in case there were any worthwhile paintings tucked away. A thorough search yielded nothing, and the disappointed representative was just about to leave when the lady of the house said: “Oh, you might as well check this cabinet.” Inside was Joachim Wtewael’s Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan, 1610, which has been untraced since its acquisition by the family in around 1836.

Several fine pictures by Wtewael have been discovered in recent years, most notably Adam and Eve, 1610-15, which brought a record price of $6.2m at Sotheby’s New York in January 2011. This season’s erotic masterpiece is related to earlier compositions of the subject in the Mauritshuis and the Getty, and is confidently estimated at between £2m and £4m.

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CURIOSITY: ORCHID CHUA

ATENEO ART AWARDS 2012 SNEAK PEAK EXHIBITION

Ateneo Art Awards Exhibit begins today at the Grand Atrium Shangrila Plaza Mall running until August 13. 

Award's Night: August 9, 2012

Exhibition at the Ateneo Art Gallery: Aug 22-Sept 22

Featuring : Martha Atienza, Zean Cabangis, Vermont Coronel, Kawayan De Guia, Patricia Eustaquio, Dina Gadia, Riel Hilario, Goldie Poblador, Mervy Pueblo, Maria Taniguchi, Mark Valenzuela, MM Yu.

MOBILE ART SERIES HITS BOSTON’S STREETS

Mobile art series hits Boston’s streets

Housed in a rented U-Haul truck, White Walls Boston brings installations to art-starved pockets of the city

By Eric Magnuson. Web only

Published online: 02 July 2012

Twice a year, Boston’s streets are packed with trucks as students move on and off campuses in the university-filled town. Throughout this summer, however, some of those lorries are hauling much more interesting loads than budget furniture.

A 26-foot-long rented U-Haul truck is bringing local artists to Boston neighbourhoods that don’t normally have a visual arts scene. The White Walls Boston mobile art series launched on 30 June, featuring the work Phototrop by the local artists Jesse Kaminsky and Vela Phelan.

Throughout the night, and “after a brief technical battle”, according to the project’s Facebook page, Kaminsky and Phelan drove their installation piece to four different locations where they parked and opened the back door to let passersby step inside to view their work. The piece consists of a rear-projection video beamed through an installation of thousands of blue strings cutting across every angle of the lorry’s interior.

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CURIOSITY: CARL BELDA