First, let’s catch up on all the art news from the week. We like the changes we hear going on over at the Smithsonian. The Post reports that Acting Secretary Cristián Samper has announced that Martin E. Sullivan will be the new Director over at the National Portrait Gallery. Though his resume alone proves he’s a worthy fellow for the job, the cajones he showed by stepping down as chairman of the State Department’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee after the U.S. showed no effort to preserve Iraq’s antiquities hopefully means he values his commitment to art over the other perks by which some Smithsonian appointees have been swayed.
Elsewhere at the Smithsonian, it would seem that getting their business and their museum people to work together is a little bit like getting the CIA and the FBI to team up. Samper is working on a “course correction” — a task force that will examine the profit sharing arrangements between the Institution’s branches and will offer critical oversight reports directly to the Acting Secretary.
Oh, and aeronautics nerds can clap their hands with glee: the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center just received a $15 million gift that will be used for a new wing inside their hangar, which holds the space shuttle Enterprise, among other feats of aviation.
Lastly, if you read about art at all on the internet, you know about the controversy going on regarding artist Cara Ober and the artist who copied her style and arguably hung it as her own, which essentially boils down to a story of art school drama (though perhaps also a cautionary tale for young artists working with agents who think they deserve more attention than the artist does). We only have one thing to say on the issue: if the only time the Washington Post’s chief art critic will deign small gallery coverage of local artists worthy of his time is when it involves breaking a big gossip story in which he backhandedly slaps a talented local artist in order to bask in the inevitable attention, please resign your position at the Paper of Record and start a just start a damn blog already.
Alright, let’s get to the agenda:
Photo by Terecico
