recent programs
Would Catherine the Great Approve? [Listen]
Little did I know what might happen when I agreed to participate in a special event at the Getty Museum last spring, introducing the screening of the Russian Ark, a whimsical movie shot entirely inside the Hermitage Museum... Tuesday, September 26, 2006. [ MORE ]

Bad News Turned Good News
There are some situations when it's difficult to decide whether the news is good or bad. A month ago, I read in the LA Times that the sixty-five foot tall sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and, his wife and collaborator, Coosje van Bruggen could not be installed as planned in front of the Disney Concert Hall. The sculpture--in the shape of a giant bowtie and collar-- had already cost the Music Center about $4 million and now, because the metal and fiberglass sculpture had developed dangerous cracks compromising its structure, and therefore its safety, the future of the whole project is uncertain. It's estimated that fixing the problem will cost another $3 million. At this point, there are no funds to cover the additional cost. To add insult to injury, the artists made a statement blaming the engineers for the structural problems and accepting no responsibility for this situation. To be completely honest, I don't find this development all that upsetting. After all, I have said before that Frank Gehry's Disney Hall is a remarkable sculpture in its own right, and doesn't need another sculpture in front of it that would only distract people from viewing the great building...
Tuesday, September 5, 2006. [ MORE ]

The Tenth Muse [Listen]
Many years ago, a great American performance artist, Laurie Anderson, famously said that talking about art is like dancing about architecture. The way I interpret her witty words is that unless one tries to experience a work of art first-hand, be it let's say a painting or a building, then forget about it. I believe that words, even at their most eloquent, can only try to convey the physical appearance of the work of art, the artist's intention and the context in which the artwork or building can be experienced and understood....
Tuesday, August 29, 2006. [ MORE ]

Tons of Rock, Steel and Art in San Diego [Listen]
Last week, I was invited to spend a couple of days in San Diego as a guest of the Museum of Contemporary Art and that turned into a big adventure. The Museum has two facilities, one in La Jolla and the other in downtown San Diego. In a few months, the Museum is expanding into an impressive historic structure, a former Santa Fe depot baggage building. It's located directly across from the Museum's existing building in downtown San Diego. The renovation of this 1915 building by the architect Richard Gluckman is almost finished and the resulting galleries with their abundance of space and daylight are nothing short of inspiring. As luck would have it, a day or two prior to my visit, the Museum had completed the truly heroic labors of installing Richard Serra's monumental sculpture consisting of six blocks forged out of steel: each standing about five feet high, each weighing about 22 tons. The brutality of its geometry creates a good contrast with the gentle arches of the outdoor loggia where the sculpture is placed...
Tuesday, August 22, 2006. [ MORE ]

Museum Crimes and Misdemeanors [Listen]
When a museum's name is in the news, it usually spells trouble for the institution. And there's been plenty of it lately. There was a theft at my beloved Hermitage in St. Petersburg: 221 pieces of Russian silver were missing from the museum storage room. When this was discovered, museum officials had the smarts to immediately go public about the theft. As a result, dealers and collectors who had unsuspectingly acquired some of the stolen silver have already returned a few of the missing items. And here's a Hollywood-worthy plot twist: suspicion initially fell on the Museum curator who died last year, and now Russian authorities have announced the arrest of her husband and son, implicating them in the theft. The Director of the Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, called the crime "a stab in the back" and promptly acknowledged a deficiency in the Museum's security...
Tuesday, August 8, 2006. [ MORE ]

Jumping on the Art Bandwagon [Listen]
I can suggest a number of reasons one might want to stop by the Gagosian Gallery when in Beverly Hills. It's always intriguing to see what's happening in one of the outposts of his art empire. In addition to this local site built for him by star architect, Richard Meier, Mr. Gagosian has two galleries in New York, two in London and one is planned to open in Rome...
Tuesday, August 1, 2006. [ MORE ]

Partying with Ancient Greeks [Listen]
I wonder, what is your way of keeping cool during the crazy, heat wave that has kept us prisoners these past couple of weeks. Movie theaters? Shopping malls? My secret is museum galleries. On Sunday, when the temperature hit 100 degrees and the humidity, I swear, approached 150% I escaped to the Hammer Museum. It was heaven to spend a couple of hours walking through “The Société Anonyme”, the coolest show in town, telling the story of modernism in America. Besides, the Hammer announced that during the whole summer admission to the Museum is free. How cool is that?..
Tuesday, July 25, 2006. [ MORE ]

Fine Art of Living with Art [Listen]
There are two ways of traveling in search of art: one is go to far away places and another, perhaps even more challenging, is to turn a fresh eye on things that are there, right under your nose. After all the traveling that I've done in the recent months, last Saturday spent in LA turned out to be especially full of surprises. I promised to take a group of aspiring collectors on a tour of galleries, artist studios and collectors' homes and, literally, until the last moment I was still rearranging the schedule. It takes some friendly arm-twisting to persuade a collector to open their home to, basically, a bunch of strangers. And artists feel protective of their studios as well; they want people to see their art but prefer to let the art speak for itself and if asked to talk about it they often feel nervous.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006. [ MORE ]

The Sweat and Joy of an Artist's Life [Listen]
As they say, there is no rest for the wicked. On the Fourth of July, when everyone else was doing as little as possible, I found myself working up a sweat at 6000 feet altitude. Almost a mile high above Palm Springs, there is a small town of alpine beauty called Idyllwild which, in spite of its popularity with tourists, still manages to maintain a leisurely pace and bohemian spirit. Every summer the town fills with poets, musicians and painters who come to participate in an intense two-week workshop. I was invited to be part of the "Painting's Edge" program where well-known painters and critics were giving lectures and spending time with the participating artists by reviewing their portfolios and discussing their work. Tuesday, July 11, 2006. [ MORE ]

From Tel Aviv: Lessons for L.A. [Listen]
One of the lingering memories of my recent trip to Israel is of walls; famous ones, like the Wailing Wall, and miles upon miles of inescapable eyesores that make up the Separation Wall. What I didn't expect was to pay any attention to the mundane walls along the freeways. Instead of the monotonous barriers that traditionally protect houses and people living in close proximity to freeways, Israelis excel in making these boring structures into surprisingly attractive components of the city fabric... Tuesday, June 27, 2006. [ MORE ]

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