Last night, former Buffalo News Editor Margaret Sullivan, now public editor for the New York Times, posted an interesting picture on my Facebook wall. It showed Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén, the newly appointed director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, posing with one of the gallery's most famous former residents in the Metropolitan Museum's grand Greek and Roman sculpture galleries: the statue previously known as "Artemis and the Stag." Here's the photo:
The statue, from the late-Hellenistic or early Roman period, was the focal point of the gallery's 2007 controversial sale of more than 200 objects from its collection to finance the purchase of new art. It is this iconic work to which the gallery owes a great deal of its new purchasing power -- $25.5 million, plus returns. So it's fitting that Sirén, who became the gallery's 11th director in April after the departure of former director Louis Grachos, paid a visit to the piece. It has occupied a prominent place in the Met's galleries since shortly after its sale and is on long-term loan to the museum from its anonymous buyer.
In my research into Artemis, as the statue became known during the fierce public debates over the 2007 sale, I ran across another picture. This one showed former gallery director Gordon Washburn, left, admiring the statue along with then-director Edgar Schenck shortly after the gallery acquired it in 1953:
I've retyped the accompanying news article, fascinating for anyone interested in more about the history of the statue, after the jump.
Today, at long last, the City of Buffalo annouced a series of grants from its newly established $200,000 cultural and anti-violence fund that it had been slow to release. Here is the list:
Organization
Program Name
Awarded
100 Mighty Men Ministry
Mighty Men Street Clean Up & Peace
Initiative
$1,000
African Cultural Center of Buffalo, Inc.
Educational Cultural Enrichment
$7,500
Alleyway Theatre Inc.
2013-14 Season of Live Theatre
$4,000
Back To Basics Outreach Ministries, Inc.
Youth Strengthening Program
$7,500
Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens
Society, Inc.
Project Empower
$2,500
Buffalo Arts Studio
General Operating Support
$5,000
Buffalo Christian
Center
The Merge
$5,000
Buffalo Fine
Arts Academy
/ Albright-Knox
Art Gallery
2013 Art Alive!
$2,500
Buffalo Inner City Ballet
Dance Enrichment Program
$5,000
Buffalo Music Hall of Fame
Comprehensive Music Database and
Archival Project
$2,500
Buffalo Naval Park Committee, Inc.
Inner City Overnight Program
$1,000
Buffalo Niagara Concert Band, Inc.
USS Little Rock Summer Concert
$1,000
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Celebration of Music
$2,500
Buffalo United front, Inc.
Family Fishing Day 2013
$5,000
Burchfield Penney
Art Center
Tours & Art Education Workshops
$2,500
Center for Exploratory and Perceptual
Art, Inc. (CEPA)
CEPA Gallery/Big Orbit Gallery Merger
$2,500
Central Terminal Restoration Corp
Bricklayers & Allied Crafts Workers
Local 3 and Job Corps Security Remediation
$4,000
Colored Musicians Club of Buffalo, NY,
Inc.
Queen City Jazz Festival
$5,000
Community Action Organization of Erie County Inc.
Sports P.L.U.S.
$7,500
Community Music
School of Buffalo
Outreach Concert Series
$2,500
El Museo Francisco Oller y Diego Rivera,
Inc.
Visual Arts Exhibitions for Artists of
Color
$5,000
GIRLS Sports Foundation, Inc.
GSF/ NICYO 2013 Slam Jam & Cultural
Expo
$2,500
H.E.A.L. International
H.E.A.L. Weekend Recreation Program
$4,000
Hallwalls, Inc. (Hallwalls Contemporary
Arts Center)
Year-Round Public Cultural Programing in
the Contemporary Arts
$5,000
Hispanic Heritage Council of WNY
Hispanic Heritage Month Main Event -
Restauracion Cultural
$5,000
Irish Classical Theatre company, Inc.
General Operating Support
$2,500
Iron Island Preservation Society of Lovejoy
Cultural Preservation
$2,500
Juneteenth Festival Inc.
Sankofa Days
$5,000
Just Buffalo Literary Center
Babel
$5,000
Latin American Cultural Association,
Inc.
Cultural Extension
$2,500
Mad DADS of Greater Buffalo
Youth Basketball
$5,000
Martin House Restoration Corporation
(MHRC)
General Operating Activities
$2,500
Metro CDC
Delavan Grider
Community Center
Nonviolence for Youth Program -
"Acting In"
$7,500
Michigan Street Preservation Corp.
Nash House
Museum
$5,000
Music is Art
Music is Art Festival
$2,500
National Inner Cities Youth
Opportunities, Inc. (NICYO)
Safe Structured Youth Sports
$7,500
New Phoenix Theatre on the Park
Pay-What-You-Can Thursday Performance
Series - lower West Side Johnson Park Neighborhood Revitalization
$2,500
People United for Sustainable Housing
Grant Street
Neighborhood Center
$5,000
Road Less Traveled Productions
Ongoing Organizational Programming
$2,000
Shakespeare In Delaware Park, Inc.
Shakespeare In Delaware Park
$2,500
Squeaky Wheel / Buffalo Media Resources
Youth Education Programs
$2,500
Stop The Violence Coalition, Inc.
Youth Intervention Project
$7,500
The Friends of Vienna
Three Chamber Music Concerts
$1,000
The National Federation for Just
Communities of WNY, Inc.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Andy Goldsworthy's new and controversial commission for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. The winding path, which only becomes visible under the perfect confluence of atmospheric conditions, is surely the most temperamental and unpredictable piece of art in the gallery's collection. For the gallery's annual "Art Alive" competition, in which teams create tableaux of artworks from the gallery's collection, members of the Albright-Knox education department decided to produce a human version of Goldsworthy's "Path." Here's what they came up with:
The gallery, according to this post on its Tumblr page, is launching a new summerlong photo-sharing campaign based on Goldsworthy's work at the gallery and elsewhere. "We encourage you to walk the Path, create your own Rain Shadow, make something out of sticks
or leaves, or get creative with nature in other ways," the gallery writes. "Please share the
photos of your observations or creations on Instagram or Tumblr and
include #akgoldsworthy and @albrightknox in your captions."
It is, as usual, an extraordinarily busy weekend for art in Buffalo. Here are a three events/exhibitions I didn't have a chance to fit into Gusto this week:
A piece by Adam Weekley is on view on "Chroma" at 464 Gallery.
"Chroma," opening at 6 p.m. today at 464 Gallery on Amherst Street, is timed to coincide with Buffalo's annual Pride celebration and features work by several Western New York artists who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer. The show includes pieces by Brian Dickenson, Mickey Harmon, Tommy Nguyensmith, Alexandra Spaulding, CJ Szatkowski, Adam Weekley, 464 owner Marcus L. Wise and others. It runs through June 5.
"Righting on Copper," an exhibition featuring work by the prolific and protean Buffalo painter Sarah Myers, will officially open a new art space on Grant Street. The exhibition space was established by the ambitious community activist group PUSH Buffalo in its headquarters (known simply as "The Center") at 271 Grant St.
Addison Richmond and Katie Sheffield re-create Claude Monet’s "Le bassin aux nymphéas, harmonie verte (The Water Lily Pond, Green Harmony)," an 1899 painting from the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris during Art Alive 2012. Photograph by Tom Loonan.
Art Alive, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery's annual competition featuring teams of students and adults re-creating famous works of art from the gallery's collection and elsewhere, takes place on Saturday from 12 to 2 p.m. on the gallery grounds.
Golda Meir, later Israel's prime minister, speaks
before a crowd of citizens and military personnel in this 1950
photograph by Rudi Weissenstein.
An item in today's Gusto about a photography exhibition of work by Rudi Weissenstein in the Jewish Community Center in Getzville misstated the date of the show's opening reception. The reception for "For Your Fortunate Eyes" takes place at 6 p.m. Wednesday and coincides with the screening of the documentary "Life in Stills" as part of the Buffalo International Jewish Film Festival.
On Friday, Urban Design LLC (21 Elm St., East Aurora) will host an exhibition and sale of about 30 posters from the extensive collection of Hans Sachs, a German Jewish dentist whose entire trove of early-20th century posters was seized by the Nazis on Kristallnacht, in 1938. Sachs survived the war, and much later his son Peter set out to reclaim some of the collection, which he finally achieved after years of legal battles. The show runs from 6 to 9 p.m. on Friday. Call (877) 500-0870 or visit www.urbandesignreclaimed.com for more info.
This tile, formerly embedded into the pavement on Porter Avenue, includes a line from a short story by Ray Bradbury.
In my recent tour of Buffalo street art -- the results of which where were published on Sunday in a story that merely scratched the surface of the city's slowly growing street art scene -- I came across several tiles embedded into the pavement at various crosswalks around town. I described these pieces, some of which are referred to as "Toynbee tiles," as "chiseled into the pavement." But an anonymous emailer informed me otherwise yesterday. Here's that emailer's more accurate representation -- perhaps gleaned from firsthand experience, perhaps not -- of how the tiles are integrated into the streets:
...so-called "Toynbee" tiles are not chiseled into the street; but rather are made out of pieces of vinyl (even a vinyl floor tile), which is then laid upon the street and covered with black tape (fabric works best) so as to hide the new tile and keep it in place while the pressure of vehicles pushes it into the asphalt and eventually wears the tape away.
Fascinating stuff. Keep your eyes peeled for more of these tiles, which exist in many well-traveled areas around the city.
Last week, the University at Buffalo professor, writer, photographer and activist Bruce Jackson was kind enough to lead a guided tour of his photography exhibition, "Being There," in the Burchfield Penney Art Center. The sprawling show, which runs through June 16, includes photographs from his time documenting prisons in the south, trips to Alaska and Mexico, Buffalo's grain elevators and his large circles of literary and academic friends. Here's Bruce:
Albright-Knox Art Gallery Director Janne Sirén. Photo by Derek Gee.
Last night, in a speech that doubled as a kind of comedy routine, newly arrived Albright-Knox Art Gallery Director Janne Sirén gave a memorable introduction for the artist Andy Goldsworthy. (Goldsworthy was in Buffalo to talk about his nearly complete commission on which he's been working with the museum for several years). In it, he called on Western New Yorkers to take ownership of the museum and invoked Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum as an example of the transformative power of a cultural institution in the life and reputation of a region.
Siren's remarks give some clues about where he may take the Albright-Knox. I'll excerpt some of them here, and you can listen to the full audio of the introduction and Goldsworthy's presentation at the bottom of the post.
I’ve been in Buffalo
now for five and a half weeks.
Let me just say what an honor it is to share in the spirit
of your city, which I hope I can soon call earnestly my home city. One of the
most common questions that I am asked is, ‘So, have you found a home and where
is it located?’ And in fact I think I was asked that question before my
nomination, at least spiritually speaking.
Homes are important. Of course they are. And I think the
fact that that question is asked in this place, in Buffalo and at the Albright-Knox, tells
something about this institution, this home of art, this home of unique
individuals, this home of unique ideas, this home of constant innovation over a
period of 150 years.
It is a humbling experience to stand here before you as the
11th director of the Albright-Knox, one of the great global assets
that the United States possesses,
an amazing institution, an amazing history, and let me say, an amazing future
which I hope to build together with you and all the other people in Western New
York and Buffalo…
…
I really have no place standing on the stage tonight because
we’re here to hear Andy Goldsworthy share ideas, thoughts with us. I also have
no place on the stage tonight because what’s been accomplished over here on the
campus of the Albright-Knox with Andy Goldsworthy over the past years I can
take no credit in. That’s the work of Louis Grachos, one of the greatest
directors that the field of contemporary and modern museums knows today. And
you will see that history will bear his legacy far into the future.
So it’s just a significant honor for me to stand here humbly
on the shoulders of a giant and to wish you welcome.
…
The Albright-Knox is really your museum. Be proud of it.
Share information about it. And if sometimes you feel like it’s a little
distant… what’s really the relevance of a museum in today’s world? Think of
places like Bilbao.
Nobody in Europe traveled to Bilbao
20 years ago. It was a place where bombs were exploding... really a not very pleasant place.
Then comes a museum director from the United States, and as the result of
a long process, a museum is established: Guggenheim Bilbao, one of the great
art museum of the 20th and 21st centuries, a museum that
paid itself back in three years after it was constructed. It cost $200 million
to build, that was in 1990. Three years later it had paid itself back. Every
year, 700,000 people from different parts of the world travel to this
destination. 300,000 locals, 150,000 to 300,000 locals visit every year. That’s
been steady going for 15 years.
Be proud of your institution. If you’re not members yet, I
ask you to become. Not because it’s a fiscal quest from me to you, but you
deserve to be members of this wonderful institution. And if you know people who
are not yet members, especially young kids, invite them. Buy them their ticket.
$25, with that amount, a young person can come any day of the year as many
times as he or she wants.
...
This is one of the great institutions in the world. Take
ownership of it.
Today, the Arts Services Initiative announced a request for proposals for a $64,500 grant program to encourage activity along the Buffalo River. According to a release, grants of up to $12,500 each are available to groups interested in organizing programming in Buffalo River Fest Park, Silo City, Mutual Riverfront Park, Father Conway Park and "the Buffalo River itself."
The money comes from the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation, which has enlisted ASI for at least three years to coordinate programming along the river. More info is online at www.asiwny.org.
