Displaying items by tag: museum directors

In mid-september the German casino conglomerate Westspiel announced their plan to sell "Triple Elvis"(1963) and "Four Marlons" (1966) at Christie’s, New York in November. The paintings are expected to fetch over €100 million or £80 million. A petition has since been sent by twenty-six museum directors in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia to the regional government, demanding it prevent the auction of two works by Andy Warhol, reports "Die Welt."

In the petition, the directors claim that the sale “contravenes international conventions” whose ultimate goal is to “protect public cultural heritage.” They fear the sale could set a very dangerous precedent that could become a “controversial political issue with considerable ripple effect.”

Case Western Reserve University in Ohio and the Cleveland Museum of Art announced a joint venture that will advance both institutions and prepare future curators, scholars, museum directors and academic leaders for careers in the arts. The endeavor was inspired by Cleveland Museum of Art trustee Nancy Keithley and Case Western Reserve trustee Joseph Keithley. The couple has committed $15 million to bring The Nancy and Joseph Keithley Institute for Art History to fruition.

Case Western and the Cleveland Museum have been longtime collaborators and the highlight of the Keithley Institute is its reimagined joint doctoral program that the museum and university first developed together in 1967. The program emphasizes object-oriented study, which entails seeing objects firsthand as well as participating in the curating process and other aspects of museum operation. The Keithleys’ generous donation will provide graduate students stipends and travel fellowships as well as compensation for curriculum development, teaching and collection seminars.

David Franklin, the Sarah S. and Alexander M. Cutler Director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, said, “We are honored that Nancy and Joseph Keithley chose to help us realize our shared dreams of a dynamic, world-class institute. Their gift is not a gift of collaboration, but also the opportunity to realize incomparable opportunities for students, faculty, staff and the public.”

Following the lead of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and PBS, Google will launch a series of monthly digital “Art Talks.” The project aims to bring gallery and museum collections to life through virtual hangouts with curators, museums directors, historians, and educators from the world’s most distinguished cultural institutions. The talks will explore various arts-related topics including the curating process, popular themes throughout art history, art education, and the significance of specific masterpieces and artists.

The first Art Talks hangout will take place at 8PM on March 6, 2013 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Deborah Howes, the museum’s Director of Digital Learning, will join a panel of artists and students to discuss the process of teaching art online.

Upcoming Art Talks include Caroline Campbell and Arnika Schmidt from London’s National Gallery discussing depictions of the female nude throughout art history (March 20, 2013) and a panel discussion of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s (1525-1569) Tower of Babel featuring Peter Parshall, curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (April 2013). Additional talks are planned for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico.

The talks will be posted on the Google Art Project‘s YouTube channel after they air.