THE PHILADELPHIA JUNTO.: DIA Pumps Up the Arts

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

DIA Pumps Up the Arts

OUT OF GAS

BY RICHARD CARRENO

[WRITERSCLEARINGHOUSE NEWS SERVICE]
Detroit
Detroit, in bankruptcy, is running on fumes.

Meanwhile one city department, the Detroit Institute of Arts -- yes, it is actually a municipal department -- may be the only one in an otherwise forlorn, dollar-short city that has a full tank of gas, about $2 billion worth. For the serious minded, here and elsewhere, the DIA, its head well above water in a place drowning in debt, is also more relevant than ever.

Never mind the anti-Detroit canard, a drumbeat beat by a sensationalistic press, that the Picassos housed here were 'up for sale.' Humbug. This, despite a report this week that Christie's is getting in the act. Actually, more Republican-backed mischief by Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr.

What is true is that the Picassos -- and the Van Goghs, Warhols, Copleys, and hundreds of other treasures in the Detroit's jewel-box encyclopedic museum -- are, in a unconventional civic arrangement, formally owned by the city through its municipal Department of the Arts. This meant, incidentally, that one of Detroit's long-stretch of crooked mayors might have, at least, hypothetically, taken home a Gainsborough to decorate his crib. (Sorry Mayor Nutter. In Philadelphia, which follows a more typical contract, the Philadelphia Museum of Art building is owned by the city; its contents, by the institution).

Thanks to the DIA's unique Diego Rivera's frescoes, created when Detroit and the nation were equally suffering another time of want, the Great Depression, the museum can also be summoned up as Detroit's conscience. This, especially, as Michigan Republicans, led by Governor Rick Snyder, try to gut the city's municipal unions of their rightfully-gained (and negotiated) pensions. (And no thanks to President Obama who, with apologies to his predecessor Gerald Ford of Michigan, has pretty up written his own New York Daily News headline: OBAMA TO DETROIT: DROP DEAD!)

Given the time in which they were created (1932-1933); who commissioned them (Edsel Ford, son of Henry); and their subject matter, the interaction of labor and management, it's not surprising that the murals in the now eponymous Rivera Court -- occupying the four sides of the former Garden Court -- were controversial from the start. That the Mexican Rivera (1886-1957) was an avowed Communist was just icing on the cake.

Rivera's brilliant masterpiece was always more than just the art. On one hand, there was interaction between the leftist artist and his capitalist benefactor, who ran the DIA as his privileged sandbox. While murals exclusively portray the Ford Motor Co. at work (advertising, anyone?), the artist-patron relation was really not much different than that of, say, Michelangelo and Pope Sixtus IV. (Even himself a sort of a Henry Ford of his era). Rivera got paid to create a theme devised by Ford; not the content. Similarly, Michelangelo was paid to promulgate the Faith. (Advertising, anyone?)

The mural scenes, depicting stoic managers; heroic workers (one sporting a Red Star); and mighty American industry (thanks to the ingenuity and capital of Ford, of course), stirred an outcry. Church and civic leaders and a gaggle of xenophobes (remember, Rivera being Mexican) decried the murals as (take your pick) blasphemous, Communistic, and/or Ford propaganda. Criticism even came from architect Paul Cret, the University of Pennsylvania professor who designed the DIA building.

Today, the murals are no less controversial. That is, if Synder and his union-busting confederates were -- granted, not very likely -- to take away the populist, worker theme in a visit to the Rivera Court.

In 1933, Ford was able to halt the Rivera-baiting by the local press with a few well-placed words. His minions obeyed.

Thanks to Ford, Rivera left Detroit unscathed. Not so in New York, where Rivera soon undertook his subsequent work. Interestingly, this commission, a mural in the new Rockefeller Center in New York, was also proposed by another plutocratic capitalist, Nelson A. Rockefeller. Rivera painted the mural -- and poked Rockefeller's eye with it by including, within the larger piece, a portrait of Lenin. Rockefeller -- and otherwise arts maven and patron of the newly-opened Museum of Modern Art -- had his workmen destroy the mural. Finally, Rivera struck back -- he copied the mural, stroke by stroke, in Mexico City.

And, yes, another lesson for today.

BROADSTREETREVIEW.COM INDEX

Articles by Richard Carreño
Diego Rivera's ghost in Detroit October 15 2013 The city of Detroit may be broke, but the Detroit Institute of Arts owns $2 billion worth of art works. Its most valued pieces, by the Communist Diego Rivera, portray heroic workers triumphing over stoic managers. In the best capitalist tradition, Rivera’s frescoes are now being held hostage by a pair of union-busting Republican politicians.

Dissecting West’s ‘Death of General Wolfe’ August 06 2013 Benjamin West’s Death of General Wolfe was once a hallowed symbol of British imperialism. Now it’s been hijacked by Canadians, whose supply of national icons is otherwise limited. National Gallery of Canada. 380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. www.gallery.ca/en.

Pittsburgh’s culture quest July 24 2012 The Mellons and the steel mills are gone, but Pittsburgh today boasts first-class museums, music, theaters and universities. The trouble is, they’re all in the wrong part of town.

Discovered: La Salle’s unsung art museum November 14 2011 An obscure museum in a North Philadelphia basement houses world-class treasures by masters like Tintoretto, Edouard Vuillard, Rembrandt Peale, Georges Rouault and Joseph Epstein. Most remarkable of all, admission is free. La Salle University Art Museum. Olney Hall, 1900 W. Olney Ave., lower level. (215) 951-1000 or www.lasalle.edu/museum.

Matisse and Barnes: A tale of two museums October 04 2011 Henri Matisse was one of the three great revolutionary artists (with Picaso and Duchamp) of the early 20th Century; Albert Barnes was a brilliant collector of revolutionary art. They made a great team until Barnes’s insufferable personality drove Matisse away, with consequences that still reverberate today.

‘Picasso and the Paris Avant-Garde’ at the Art Museum February 23 2010 Curator Michael Taylor has unveiled, for the first time in recent memory, the astonishing range, depth, and quality of the Art Museum’s Picasso holdings. But his show falls a few bricks short of an Anne d'Harnoncourt blockbuster. “Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris.” Through May 2, 2010 at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th St. (215) 763-8100 or http://www.philamuseum.org/.

Antiquity, looters and the Penn Museum November 10 2009 Who are the best stewards of ancient artifacts— enlightened Western curators whose museums stole the loot long ago, or dictators of Third World lands where the treasures were originally found? James Cuno of the Chicago Art Institute (who believes the former) confronts the Penn Museum (which favors the latter). "Iraq’s Ancient Past: Rediscovering Ur’s Royal Cemetery." Through Spring 2010 at University of Pennsylvania Museum, 3260 South St. (215) 898-4000 or www.penn.museum/sites/iraq.

‘American Stories' at the Met in New York October 18 2009 “American Stories,” currently at the Met in New York, reveals an indebtedness to Philadelphia's artistic patrimony. Almost the whole show could have been assembled from Philadelphia holdings or works by Philadelphia artists. So why is the Art Museum so modest about its contributions? “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915.” Through January 24, 2009 at Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue and 82nd St., New York. 212-535-7710 or http://www.metmuseum.org/. Art

Museum’s admission hike June 29 2009 The Art Museum recently raised its admission fees, a fund-raising model that is strictly 20th-Century. Then it hired as its new director Timothy Rub, a successful advocate of the 21st-Century model: free admission. Does the Art Museum’s left hand know what its right hand is doing?

Venice: Nice place to visit, but…. March 31 2009 There’s no place like Venice to jump-start your romantic gene. But before you move there, remember: The plumbing stinks. And try schlepping groceries, or hauling a suitcase, or finding a doctor or a decent restaurant or a neighbor who’s under 50.

Newspapers and the Internet March 03 2009 In the Internet age, what will happen to fact-based journalism as daily newspapers fold? Contrary to what you hear from print journalists, the quality of coverage could improve. Which would you prefer: The Inquirer, or a Philadelphia edition of the New York Times?

Vidocq: Philadelphia's Sherlock Holmes December 20 2008 Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan and Sam Spade are all legendary but fictitious private eyes. But Edgar Allan Poe and Victor Hugo were inspired by a real Philadelphia gumshoe of literary dimensions, as I discovered behind the door of the Vidocq Society in Center City. The Black Tower. By Louis Bayard. William Morrow, 352 pages; $24.95. http://www.louisbayard.com/

Sarah Palin and the ‘C’ word September 13 2008 Thanks to Sarah Palin, the 800-pound gorilla is out of the cage. The 'C' word— class— is the one word in the American lexicon that's even better hidden in polite public discourse than race. And it has little to do with money.

Alfred J. Munnings at Brandywine Museum July 29 2008 A remarkable new show at the Brandywine River museum is a tribute to the great sporting artist Alfred J. Munnings and also to the private collectors of Chester County who’ve accumulated his works without fanfare.“Alfred J. Munnings From Regional Collections.” Through Sept. 1, 2008 at Brandywine River Museum, off U.S. 1, Chadds Ford, Pa. (610) 388-2700 or http://www.brandywinemuseum.org./

The horror of globalization February 16 2008 What is a German discount food chain doing in Philadelphia, pampering its customers and employees alike and otherwise violating cherished local customs? Don’t these foreigners know what we Americans did to the Hessians the last time we got really angry?

George Stubbs paintings at Penn April 17 2007 The English painter George Stubbs is largely forgotten outside racing stables, geezer men’s clubs and faux clubby steakhouses. But he transformed the way artists depicted horses and sporting scenes. Equus Unbound: Fairman Rogers and the Age of the Horse. Through June 15, 2007, at Kamen Gallery, U. of Pennsylvania’s Van-Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, 3420 Walnut St., first floor. Free and open to the public; photo ID required. (800) 390-1829.

Christie’s and ‘The Gross Clinic’ January 03 2007 As a leading art auction house, Christie’s well understands the role of a dummy bidder in jacking up the price of a work. In Jefferson University's recent sale of The Gross Clinic, Christie’s consultants apparently found an unwitting dummy in the Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton. Has Philadelphia’s art community learned anything from this $68 million lesson?

What price admission to the Barnes? August 12 2006 Hefty admisssion increases are the new order of the day at New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum. Derek Gillman, new chief of the Barnes Foundation, may be tempted to follow suit. Here's one hard-nosed reason why he shouldn't.

Celebrating ....

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

DIA Pumps Up the Arts