Hasta La Ideas

The eagerly anticipated opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art will finally happen this November. While of course there’s lots of interest in the art itself, and the massive Moshe Safdie-designed complex it will all be stored in, there’s perhaps even more interest in a) what this multi-million dollar museum, which most people first heard about due to its role in the Fisk University controversy, is doing all the way out in Bentonville, Arkansas (you’ll recall it just received another $800 million last month), and b) who exactly this reclusive billionaire and Wal-Mart heiress, Alice Walton, really is. With a press-shy subject and an interesting story at hand, it was only a matter of time before she’d gotten the New Yorker treatment. Resident world traveling scribe Rebecca Mead penned a profile of Walton, upcoming in the next issue of the magazine, aptly titled “Alice’s Wonderland,” which digs into her past, how she landed in art collecting, and again, what she thinks she’s doing putting a gigantic museum and its collection in the middle of rural Arkansas. If you have a subscription, you can read the story right away online. Otherwise, here’s a bit from the posted abstract:

Walton, whose fortune now stands at twenty-one billion dollars, has become a powerful force in the art marketplace. In 2005, the American Jewish Historical Society commissioned Sotheby’s to find buyers for half a dozen paintings that it owned, all eighteenth-century portraits of members of a merchant family, the Levy-Franks. Walton, who was at Sotheby’s on other business, spotted them and bought the series—one of the finest collections of Colonial portraiture in existence. Over time, Walton has earned the respect of the museum establishment, although only those closest to her know the full extent of Crystal Bridges’ collection: just sixty-six purchases have been announced, a tenth of what has been acquired. The director of Crystal Bridges, Don Bacigalupi, is highly regarded for the work he did as the director of the Toledo Museum of Art, in Ohio, where he oversaw the successful construction of a new building; and his effort to exchange works with the Louvre, among other institutions, has allayed fears that Crystal Bridges’ collection will be simplemindedly nationalistic.

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The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has perhaps the most discussed film program in the country, though not always for its films. After a long slog of negative press between 2009 and 2010, with several threats of high-profile but ultimately avoided financial cutbacks, the program has been on an upward “good news” trajectory for some time now. First, the museum announced back in the spring that they’d partnered with Film Independent to help keep the program strong and growing, and now they’ve announced that long-time film critic Elvis Mitchell will be joining the program, serving as curator of a new weekly film series. Mitchell, who was perhaps most well known during his time at the NY Times, but was most recently, and only for three months, the lead critic at Movieline, will relocate to Los Angeles to fill to LACMA position. It will also bring him closer to his other job, which he’s had since the mid-90s, as the host of KCRW‘s show, The Treatment. Here’s a bit from the LA Times about his taking on the new role:

In perhaps a reference to his own employment restlessness, Mitchell said of the LACMA announcement: “This position is a double reunion for me. Selling tickets at the Bing Theater at LACMA was my first job in L.A., and to get to return to supervise a program at a place that is an intersection of art and popular culture is a dream come true…I couldn’t be happier. That is, until I get started.”

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With the surprising news from earlier this month that the NY Times‘ long-time and often controversial architecture critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff, would be stepping down to concentrate on writing a book, comes a great deal of speculation on who might replace him. Architectural Record, apparently thinking the Times will use its stature to steal away a critic from another paper or magazine, has assembled its lists of picks for the position, while also allowing you the public to vote in an ongoing poll. Will the Tribune‘s Blair Kamin give up his beloved Chicago and move to the Big Apple? Will fellow Pulitzer winner Justin Davidson take leave of New York, thus reversing the recent trend of writers leaving in the opposite direction, moving from that paper to that magazine. Most interesting, and what we believe is an incredible long-shot, is their inclusion of former staffer, Paul Goldberger, who Ouroussoff himself replaced in the critic spot. Seems like it would have to be quite the offer to lure Goldberger from the cozy confines of the New Yorker, where he’s been able to file long, flowing stories about architecture and what it all means in the grand scheme of things, but who knows? Check out the list, pick your favorite in A.R.‘s poll, and even select “Nobody,” if you believe the Times will go in a more surprising direction (like, um, hiring two relatively unknown bloggers from a site that rhymes with “MunSmeige”).

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Neville Brody (or should we call him Professor Brody, now that he’s gone legit and is causing trouble as the head of the Royal College of Art?) has received his due last night at the D&AD Awards show, when he was handed the President’s Award. It apparently wasn’t enough to invite Brody to design the organization’s annual Annual back in 2008, a collection of their best of the best within a myriad of industries; they had to celebrate him properly. And what’s a celebration without a tribute from your peers, along with some gentle ribbing along the way:

If you’d like to see who the other winners were at the D&AD Awards (spoiler: it was a good night for Wieden + Kennedy), Creative Review offers up this nice and thorough overview.

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Anish Kapoor, one of the first artists involved in speaking out against Ai Weiwei‘s ongoing detainment by Chinese authorities, has put his money where his mouth is this week, as The Art Newspaper reports that he’s “canceled plans to present his sculptures at the National Museum of China in Beijing.” Kapoor had been invited by the British Council, an organization that develops “high-quality events and link thousands of artists, cultural leaders and arts institutions in more than 100 countries, drawing them into a closer relationship with the UK” for a planned exhibition next year in China’s capital city called “UK Now.” While Kapoor dropping out in protest likely won’t put an end to the event, it surely isn’t the sort of initial press neither the Chinese government, nor the Council, would prefer. Here’s a bit more:

Kapoor has been outspoken in his criticism of the Chinese government’s treatment of Ai Weiwei, since his detention on 3 April. On 10 May, when he opened his Leviathan installation at the Grand Palais in Paris, he dedicated it to the Chinese artist, describing his detention as “barbaric”. Once Kapoor had spoken out, it was realised that his participation in the “UK Now” festival would be difficult. A British Council spokeswoman stressed that the exhibition proposal had been at “a very early stage, and until he had seen the space we could not have proceeded”.

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