Newsweek's Cathleen McGuigan phones in a report on Crystal Bridges, asking why art critics and patrons are so unnerved by Alice Walton's art-world maneuvering. Why does Walton's money scare people? Why not ask Laura Katzman—the director of museum studies at the Randolph-Macon Woman's College's Maier Museum, who resigned in protest from her tenured position after Walton's shopping-trip visit to the museum?
McGuigan writes that "locals can get jumpy", citing local news reports issued "supposedly because [Walton] was checking out the fine collection at Randolph-Macon College's Maier Museum of Art". (The story's significance expands beyond the purview of the art world. Here's the short version: Recognizing that single-sex schools don't compete in higher education today, Randolph-Macon Woman's College decides—rather quietly—to admit men. The school promises angry students and alumni that the university won't be forced to sell assets or its character with the transition. However, in the wake of an alumni backlash over the sex change and the school's secretiveness—a backlash that cost the school big time—the university starts to look to its assets for sources of income. It badly needs to replenish endowment spending, which has gotten so out of hand the school's accreditation is at risk, without alarming alumni even more. Hence, an audit recommending that the university sell its art collection; hence, a visit from Walton.)
It's not wrong that the lion prowls the savannah after the wounded antelope (as a friend likens Walton), but it's not better for these institutions—the Maier, the whole city of Philadelphia—that Walton arrives to buy art but not to support art institutions. Notes the Richmond Times Dispatch:
"One of the things that's frustrating is the continual talk of it as an asset," said junior Emily Knoble, a studio art major from Tucson, Ariz. "They're talking dollars and cents instead of creativity and inspiration and culture."Right: Critics like me and educators like Katzman get nervous because institutions start talking very institutionally when a baroness like Walton on hand, as if their decisions affected Excel spreadsheets more than their communities and constituencies.
Finally—and this gets ignored in favor of deliberations about aesthetics and acquisitions—but it should be said every time Walton makes any purchase that she benefits from a ludicrous tax giveaway written for Crystal Bridges by the Arkansas state legislature.
Posted by Kriston at June 11, 2007 9:43 AMInteresting story. Speaking of phoning it in, McGuigan mistakenly refers to Randolph-Macon College, which is located in Ashland. Perhaps she figured RMWC would be assuming that name when they go co-ed. Being that RMC -- RMWC's namesake -- is taken, the students in Lynchburg will be attending Randolph College when they start in the fall.
As one of the few alumnuses, I gotta say they're doing a great job of desperately eliminating everything that might make them a school one would choose over any other random 4-year college in the camps. Once they send the horses off to the glue factory they'll just be a prettier version of Lynchburg College down the road.
Posted by: Ezra 1 at June 11, 2007 1:58 PMThe Maier is the only place I know of to see really good, semi-contemporary work in Lynchburg. gutting its collection would really blow.
I think we all get the ickies from the Crystal Bridges project because its the ickiness of Wal-Mart almost directly touching the fine arts world. I don't mind the unwashed masses looking at art (I still have a bit of the dirty art-student in me), but it bugs me whan the expoiter of those masses starts wanting me to play along with her.
Its not wrong, its yucky, like Wal-Mart.
One does wonder if Crystal Bridges will survive La Walton.
I suppose I'm of two minds about this. RMWC was in financial trouble before it started admitting men -- that's why it started admitting men. I agree admitting men hasn't helped -- probably made things worse -- but the college thought it would. It's hard to blame the college for raiding the Maier when the college's survival is at stake. I don't even know if the Maier could survive without the college, if it came to a choice between them.
Nor am I sure that it's better to have important American art in Lynchburg rather than Bentonville. Philadelphia is one thing; Lynchburg another.
Posted by: jim at June 11, 2007 9:56 PMI do think having important art in Lynchburg matters - at the least to provide a counter to the mind-control of Jerry Fallwell's "Liberty" University.
As for raiding it for Arkansas, why not raid NYC or Philly or LA? Isn't there more great stuff in those places than one can possibly ever see?
Finally, I live an hour away from Lburg - so this may be tinged with selfishness. When I visit my folks, the Maier is one of the only bright spots to escape to.
Posted by: wwc at June 12, 2007 10:53 AMbut Walton DID raid NYC and Philadelphia both. In hindsight, the NY Public Library deal was the precedent setter that now gives every small-town trustee in the country the license to cash in and sell off their institution's "assets."
Posted by: greg.org at September 22, 2007 1:15 AMAs someone who knew Laura Katzman was already going to be leaving for a position elsewhere, "protest" had nothing to do with it. This is how rumors get started, research your facts before putting this stuff in print. Alumnae of the school should also call Administration of the college to get their facts straight before doing such petty actions as sabotaging the high school college fairs off of hearsay fueled by misinformation. If they wanted to keep Randolph Macon Woman's College they way it was, they should have had more involvement in the school to keep abreast with what was happening to it. And yes, the college did flounder and sink financially under the KGB administration and she knew it was going to be changing to a woman's college before she retired. Notice the moment she left, people started actually talking about what a bad state the college is in? If you want to blame anyone, blame KGB and her burying the college in her 12 years here. This stuff doesn't happen overnight, people, it happened over 12 long years.
Posted by: at October 3, 2007 11:57 AM