Guggenheim Museum Director Thomas Krens is out.

Opinion Journal ^ | 9/22/05 | Eric Gibson

[Republicanprofessor]

He's Departing At Last, but It May Be Too Late: Guggenheim Museum Director Thomas Krens is out

So the high-wire act is finally over. Seventeen years after becoming director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Thomas Krens is out, effective Oct. 1. His replacement is chief curator and longtime deputy director Lisa Dennison. Mr. Krens will keep his titles of chief executive and "chief artistic officer" of the eponymous foundation, but he has been bumped upstairs, stripped of day-to-day control of the museums that are the foundation's raison d'etre and main focus.

This departure is a genuine art world event, because of Mr. Krens's influence and buccaneering style. He has done more to redefine museum practice than anyone since Thomas Hoving was director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1960s and 1970s. Still, as with Mr. Hoving, the surprise isn't that his departure took place, but that it didn't happen sooner.

Mr. Krens's signature contribution was his conception of a global Guggenheim. Art museums have traditionally been self-contained institutions, but Mr. Krens envisioned a world-wide network of Guggenheim satellites. Hardly a year went by without him announcing a new project--in Salzburg, Austria; Bilbao, Spain; Las Vegas; Rio de Janeiro; Taichung, Taiwan; Singapore; and, most recently, Guadalajara, Mexico. Each boasted flashy architecture and some featured breathtaking settings--dug into living rock, located under water, perched on the edge of a cliff. Some of these projects, such as the Frank Gehry-designed Bilbao Guggenheim of 1997, came to fruition and have been successful. Others, like one of two in Las Vegas, opened and flopped. Still others didn't live much past the news conference.

[Republicanprofessor]

The second of fun art post suggestions from Woofie.

[WillamShakespeare]

The Guggenheim...Didn`t George Consanza design the new wing for that?

[Republicanprofessor]

Once upon a time, museums sold art from their collections rarely and judiciously. Then Mr. Krens rewrote the rules when he sold important works by Kandinsky and Brancusi to buy a collection of 1960s Minimalist art. Today, institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are following suit, strip mining their collections for important works by major artists to raise money for contemporary art purchases.

I remember that they sold one of my favorite paintings, Chagall's Birthday to buy some more contemporary stuff. The problem is that all these curators are so short-sighted, and it if isn't in and neat, they are all too ready to sell it. I fear that the minimalist stuff they bought will, in time, be worth much less than the Kandinsky's and Brancusi's they sold.

Chagall's Birthday

A later work by Kandinsky, reflecting the theories of the Bauhaus, the German school of art and design between the wars.

One version of the Kiss by Brancusi.

I don't know which works by Kandinsky and Brancusi were sold; these are some other fine works by them.

[Republicanprofessor]

Art ping.

Let Sam Cree or me know if you want on or off this ping list.

[Miss Marple]

If I'm not on the Art list, please put me there. I am interested in museum directors, and the havoc they sometimes wreak.

[Republicanprofessor]

I've just added you to the list.

But we don't always deal with just the museum directors. We post interesting art stories of all kinds.

[march violet]

Thomas Krens was a horrible museum director who should have gotten the boot long ago. Instead of acquiring more art for the Guggenheim he was obsessed with building stupid branch museums in other places. The one in Bilbao was interesting but the one in SoHo was a giant gift shop. Krens was also incredibly fiscally irresponsible. The billionaire Peter Lewis (yes, that Peter Lewis) withdrew his support from the museum for that reason. He had been its chairman and biggest contributor. Meanwhile, the Whitney now has a better permanent collection than the Guggenheim. Although the Aztec show the Gug put on last year was awesome, I must admit.

[OldFriend]

The man has done more to define art downward than any other curator in modern memory.

[woofie]

Bump