At the Brooklyn Museum, a Polemical History Lesson

WSJ ^ | 20 Sep 2016 | LEE ROSENBAUM

[oblomov]

Anne Pasternak, the public-art impresario and museum neophyte who one year ago became director of the Brooklyn Museum, quickly set about unraveling much of what her predecessor, Arnold Lehman, had done over his 18-year tenure. Her concept was commendable—to simplify and clarify installations that many visitors had regarded as chaotic, confusing and cluttered. But the results—particularly as seen in the sweeping overhaul of the encyclopedic museum’s distinguished permanent collection of American art in a mere seven months— suggest that Ms. Pasternak’s ambitions may have exceeded her know-how.

Brought to fruition by assistant curator Connie Choi, a month before Brooklyn’s new full curator of American art, Kimberly Orcutt, arrived on the scene, the reinstallation displays 35% fewer objects than before, eliminating the practice of double-hanging works (one above the other). This means that you no longer have to strain to see works that were hung too high, but it also means that certain artists are no longer shown in depth: For example, Marsden Hartley, an American Modernist painter whose styles ranged from realism to abstraction, was formerly represented by four paintings; now there’s only one.

More problematically, the new installation is sabotaged by political polemics: It seems perversely fixated on what’s shameful in our country’s past. While it’s legitimate to raise uncomfortable issues, the relentlessness of the negative critique makes the installation sometimes seem less a celebration of American culture and achievements than a recitation of our nation’s faults.

The introductory wall text fires a warning shot: “Some of the objects . . . raise difficult, complex issues, since many works were made for and collected by racially and economically privileged segments of society.” In our “Occupy” era, which takes aim at the disparities between the 1% and the 99%, “privilege” attracts potshots.

[oblomov]

Academia emits cultural toxins while ostensibly "studying" culture. If these culture theorists were studying another culture, such as a primitive culture, would they use the engagement to proselytize for their ideals among the primitives? If not, why are they comfortable spreading their ideals while studying American "primitives"?

[IronJack]

Using”art” as a forum for the dissolution of culture. How utterly marxist of her.

[ClearCase_guy]

Art used to be “elevating”. Religious art was inspirational — the lives of the saints, the suffering of Christ, etc. Paintings and sculpture portrayed heroes, or showed the joy of domesticity or honest work.

Today? Art is intended to make you ashamed of yourself and your country. It’s “transgressive” and is supposed to make you uncomfortable.