Dark Continent: Africa as Seen in American Art Museums

Two years before opening his Barnes Foundation in 1925, Dr. Albert C. Barnes vowed that in his new institution, “negro art will have a place among the great art manifestations of all times.” Such lofty goals and noble aspirations mark much of the history of American art museums in their quest to collect, display, and represent African culture through its art. Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display, edited by Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Christa Clarke, traces that long history by collecting the institutional stories of 13 museums that have played key roles in how African art is seen in the United States. Situated outside of the Western tradition, African art poses a challenge to the conventional thinking of the standard museum model. Sincere attempts to illuminate the realm once known as the “Dark Continent” sometimes led to even more obscurity and confusion, but the story of American art museums coming to terms with the fruits of Africa is ultimately a success story, still in the making. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Dark Continent."

[Many thanks to the University of Washington Press for providing me with a review copy of Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display, edited by Kathleen Bickford Berzock and Christa Clarke.]

A Prayer for the City: The Truth About the Barnes Foundation

Buzz Bissinger titled his profile of then-Mayor of Philadelphia Ed Rendell’s efforts to save his city from the brink of fiscal disaster, A Prayer for the City. Philadelphia, my native city, always seems to be fighting out of some corner, especially perceptual ones. The soon to be realized move of Dr. Albert C. Barnes’ Barnes Foundation to Philadelphia from a nearby suburb has unsurprisingly brought out many of the old prejudices against the city. Sadly, even respected art critics such as Christopher Knight of The Los Angeles Times fall into the trap of bashing the city in the name of “preserving” the revered intentions of the good doctor’s vision. Here’s my prayer for greater understanding of the truth behind the Barnes Foundation move and a plea for new respect for my city. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "A Prayer for the City."

Every Move You Make: Stalking Patrons at the Museum

I always used to laugh at people who ignored the lyrics to “Every Breath You Take” by The Police and thought it was a lovely love song. If it’s about love at all, it’s about obsessive love—creepy, obsessive love that watches you through the windows late at night as you sleep. Stalking, however meant, always seems wrong. That song popped into my head when I read Isaac Arnsdorf’s piece in the Wall Street Journal titled “The Museum Is Watching You: Galleries Quietly Study What People Like, or Skip, to Decide What Hangs Where.” In the never-ending effort to make museums more successful in reaching the public (and reaching the public’s wallet), museums are now taking marketing to the next level by literally standing behind viewers and recording their every move. Like the lover in the song’s lyrics, museums now watch “every move you make” in hopes of cracking the code of what you want to see and how you want to see. But is building the better museum this way really best for the art world and the public? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Every Move You Make."

Personal Shopper

When Dr. Albert C. Barnes wanted to start the collection that eventually became The Barnes Foundation in 1910 he had more money than actual knowledge of art. Dr. Barnes resourcefully called upon his high school friend, the painter William Glackens, to buy the works that would become the foundation of the museum. Born March 13, 1870, Glackens was already a well-established illustrator and painter associated with the Ashcan School who had been to Paris many times and became quite familiar with the works of the Impressionists. Glackens’s May Day, Central Park (above, from 1905) shows how he imported to America not only the Impressionist painting technique but also the Impressionist fascination with the everyday life of regular people. May Day, Central Park captures turn of the century New Yorkers enjoying leisure in Central Park, which opened in 1859 in emulation of the green-friendly renovations by Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann of Paris, France. One Impressionist especially obsessed with the Haussmannization of Paris was Glackens biggest influence (and biggest purchase on behalf of Barnes)— Renoir.

Glackens recognized the greatness of Renoir early on, buying works before the market rose. (Barnes himself would obsessively buy Renoirs for the rest of his life. Visiting The Barnes Foundation and its 181 works by Renoir today can give you a serious case of Renoir fatigue.) Glackens isn’t considered primarily an American Impressionist because of his association with Robert Henri, John Sloan, and other members of the Ashcan School, but Glackens appreciated the new dynamic of the Impressionists better than many others who simply mimicked the subject matter and brush stroke style. While others camped out on Monet’s doorstep, Glackens was painting works such as Nude with Apple (above, from 1909). Nude with Apple may not be as audacious as Edouard Manet's Olympia, which it alludes to, but for an American artist in 1909 it’s still pretty bold. Again, Glackens takes the French model and translates it into an American idiom, adding the apple to allude to this new “Eve” of the American “Eden,” where everything seemed so much fresher and newer than centuries-old Europe.

The Glackens room at The Barnes Foundation seems an anomaly after walking through rooms and rooms of Renoirs and other European masters. It stands as the simple acknowledgment to Glackens contribution of taste to the collection. For many critics, Glackens was too taken with Renoir, even to the point of losing the ability to put his own personality into his art. It is eerie how Glackens’ The Soda Fountain (above, from 1935) looks as if Renoir had traveled through time and space to drink a milkshake at an American corner drug store, circa 1935. However, I see Glackens as a great interpreter of the Impressionists, especially Renoir. Glackens saw beneath the brushstrokes and sunny day landscapes to the spirit and mind of the Impressionists. I like to think that if Manet or Renoir had been born in America in the late nineteenth century, they’d paint just like William Glackens.