Tyler Green Modern Art Notes

Every Friday morning, I read Carol Vogel. Every Friday morning (more or less) she leads with an item about some collection or artwork coming up for auction at either Christeby’s or Sothestie’s. Then, every Friday morning at about 9:15 am, I get an email from either Sothestie’s or Chirsteby’s confirming what I’d read in Carol Vogel. Gosh, I wonder how that happens… I mean, why report when you can wait for the phone to ring, right?

UNRELATED: Tom Krens’ penthouse is no longer listed on Corcoran’s website.

Something about yesterday’s museum post inspired MAN readers to email in. Great fun. As a result, I’m going to explain three omissions:

I tried to pick museums that were smaller and less-known. Two museums that I enjoy as much as any of the five on the list — the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Indianapolis Museum of Art — didn’t make it because I thought they were too big. IMA, for example, has an annual budget bigger than the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes the de Young and the Legion of Honor.

A reader also noted that I could have had the Norton Simon on my list. I should have.

Other readers noted the omission of the Texas museums, but they get lots of pub here and other places so I held them out. Other reader suggestions included the Nelson-Atkins in KC, the Des Moines Art Center, the MCA San DIego, and the Worcester (Mass.) Art Museum. The OC Art Blog suggests the Laguna Art Museum.

I’m moving to Vienna.

MANscoop: Lisa Yuskavage has left Marianne Boesky. (Maybe she didn’t want the new Boesky space to be known as The Brickhouse?) Buzz is Yuskavage hasn’t signed with anyone yet.

Back in December of 2003, John Currin left Andrea Rosen and the New York Times did a big ol’ story on it. Well, will the Yuskavage news get the same treatment, or was Greg on to something?

I believe that a diagram of the curatorial movement out of, into, out of and into the Walker Art Center would be very confusing. Fortunately, I can’t do that in HTML, but I can give you this, the Walker’s new chief curator.

A week ago I was in Buffalo, working on a magazine story about Clyfford Still. When I came back and started chatting with my friends, they all winced when I told them I was in Buffalo. No wait, I’d offer, the Albright-Knox has a top-notch collection. That earned me a lot of pitying looks. I’d seen those looks before… whenever I’d been to a city that most people don’t think of as having a top-notch art museum. So because lists are fun (and I’m always meaning to do more of them) and in no particular order, here are five really good, but less-considered, art museums that are nowhere near Fifth Avenue. If bloggers have other nominations, I’ll link later.

1. Albright-Knox Art Gallery: Fantastic permanent collection, great old building with both big spaces and small, the best Clyfford Still ever, and a good example of a museum that devotes itself to showing lots of parts of its permanent collection, lots of the time. And their contemporary Chinese art show this fall could be the sleeper hit of the season.
2. St. Louis Art Museum: Best German contemporary art collection in the US, and one of my favorite Matisses. Downside: They’ve got to be embarassed by how good the blog/websites StL’s other art spaces are. (I love the Pulitemporary blog and you should too.) 
3. Baltimore Museum of Art: Speaking of Matisse, here and the Barnes are nirvana for Matisse fans. The BMA’s contemporary galleries feel a little tired, but they have nice Truitt and a fantastic Alma Thomas.
4. Orange County Museum of Art: When I talk with curators, more and more they mention OCMA as a favored destination. (I’ve still gotta do a post on institutions and my last LA trip.) LA travel tip: Fly in or out of Long Beach and visit OCMA on that day. OCMA is not that far from the best little airport in the US.
5. Harwood Museum of Art: The best permanently-installed Agnes Martin experience in the US.

Artnet tells us that Matthew Barney is headed back to a museum near you, and that he has new work: Look for it at SFMOMA in 2006. Fortunately, there’s no New York venue (yet).

As BBC4 is looking for the UK’s favorite painting, The Guardian’s culture blog is looking for the worst painting ever. I find it more difficult to think of the worst than my favorite.

Thanks to Forbes for saying nice things about MAN.  If you’re curious the Kimmelman reference, click here. The Spiral Jetty post is here, and Basquiat is here.

Excerpted from Bloomberg, of course…

When the Walker Art Center decided to build a $70 million Herzog and de Meuron-designed addition, it was no surprise to anyone in Minneapolis that Kenneth and Judy Dayton would be the biggest donors to the project. The couple has donated $16.4 million to the Walker’s capital campaign, over $6 million more than any other individual donor.

Kenneth Dayton, who died in 2003, was the former chairperson and chief executive officer of Dayton Hudson Corporation. (Dayton Hudson changed its name to Target Corporation in 2000, and Target gave $5 million to the Walker’s campaign.)

The Daytons started collecting art almost 40 years ago. In the 1960s, the Dayton Hudson department store in downtown Minneapolis sold contemporary art out of a space in the store called “Gallery 12.” Judy and Kenneth Dayton bought some of their first pieces from Gallery 12, and went on to join the ranks of America’s top collectors of modern and contemporary art.

I talked with Judy Dayton at her home in Minneapolis about her family’s interest in the arts.

Q: How did your involvement with the Walker begin?

A: In the case of the Walker it started with Martin Friedman who was the most incredible director. At the time Ken and I had a latent interest in art. We were at a Dayton Hudson event at the Walker in honor of Twiggy, the model. As I was chatting with people, I discovered one of the curators from the Walker. I asked, “What goes on around here?” because I hadn’t really been to the Walker a great deal. The galleries were closed but he had a key and he let us in and flipped on the lights. There was a show of Minnesota artist Charles Biederman. It turned me on and a few days later we went back and got involved.

Q: How and when did you start buying art?

A: We started in the first year of our marriage by buying a painting on the Left Bank of Paris, a landscape of Montmartre. From there it was never a collection, it was always kind of an adventure. We were never out to build a collection – we think that’s kind of a precious word.

Q: And at some point you got interested in Roy Lichtenstein, an example of whom is right behind us.

A: That painting was on the cover of the Sunday Times one day. They did a story on Roy and that painting was in the background of a photograph. We called Leo Castelli and said we’d like to buy it. He said, “But you haven’t even seen it, how you can buy it?” Push came to shove and we got it.

Q: You also have a wonderful Richard Serra in your backyard. How did you come to own it?

A: We had fun with that. That was in the Museum of Modern Art in their sculpture garden at one point. That’s where we saw it. Some of the curators at MoMA wanted to keep it and some of the curators didn’t think it was big enough. So it was for sale, and we just happened to be there when the apple fell.

When it came time to install it at our home outside the city, a contractor made a model of it so we could move it around. The contractor brought out the model, and they dumped it in the middle of this circle we had outside the house because Richard Serra was going to come out the next day to help us place it.

The next day Serra came. We told him to go look and see where you think we should put it. He walked all around creation and then looked at the model in the circle. He said, “I wouldn’t move it at all. Put it there.” And we did.

Q: Will your entire collection end up at the Walker?

A: Yes. We’ve tried to be temporary custodians of some of these things  but eventually they’ll end up at the Walker because that’s the appropriate thing.