Christopher Knight says the Boston MFA is the latest art museum — and the most surprising — to adopt a broader approach to American art. In a related story, it’s kind of amazing that the National Gallery of Art’s internally criticized American art installation could look smaller and narrower today than it did a week ago.- In the NYT, Holland Cotter picked up one the same all-Americas-ness of the MFA’s approach, but failed to note that it’s part of a long-ongoing movement to broaden the definition of the field. (In particular, Cotter seems not to have been in California in a while.)
- Mind the ads/pop-ups: Sebastian Smee of the Boston Globe on a similar topic.
- Knight is also the latest critic to sing the praises of the Metropolitan’s Jan Gossart exhibition.
- In the LA/OC Weekly, Dave Barton says that the 2010 California Biennial, charmingly curated by a curator, is the best biography ever of Orange County.
- The City of Oakland, Calif. may spin off the Oakland Museum, reports Matthai Kuruvila in the San Francisco Chronicle.
- The LAT’s David Ulin on National Book Award-winner Patti Smith’s genre-busting talent.
- Roberta Smith examines Anselm Kiefer’s new show at Gagosian. She starts out effusive in her praise, but sounds more and more conflicted as her review goes on. [Image: Kiefer, Winterwald, 2010.]
November 21, 2010, 10:24 am
