Will Crystal Bridges Become the Walmart of American Art Museums?

When Walmart comes to your town, there are always two different reactions: “No! They’ll kill all the small businesses!” Or “Yes! Big selection at low prices!” A similar phenomenon is taking place in the world of American art museums as all eyes turn toward Bentonville, Arkansas, where the doors of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art will open this November. The brainchild of Alice Walton, daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton and the third richest woman in the world (her sister-in-law Christy is number one), Crystal Bridges both beckons art pilgrims to a new experience and inspires dread in those who see it as a sign of the apocalypse of art in America. After reading Rebecca Mead’s New Yorker profile of Alice Walton and her museum, “Alice’s Wonderland,” it’s only natural to ask if Crystal Bridges will become, for good and/or ill, the Walmart of American art museums. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Will Crystal Bridges Become the Walmart of American Art Museums?"

The Art of the Deal

President Obama has suggested in not so many words the need for a “New Deal” for America today to, we hope, match the success of FDR’s “New Deal” of the post-Depression age. A good way of looking back at that first “New Deal” and deciding on whether a new “New Deal” is the right prescription for an ailing America might be through the government-supported arts of the 1930s. Revisiting the New Deal: Government Patronage and the Fine Arts, 1933-1943 at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, The University of Oklahoma, Norman reminds us of the vast misery of the Depression years and how art not only helped the people of that time understand, but also helped some of them survive. In these images from the past may reside the key to our future. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Art of the Deal."

[Image: Joseph Hirsch (U.S., 1910-1981), Street Scene, 1938. Oil on canvas, 22 x 24 in. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, The University of Oklahoma, Norman; WPA Collection, 1942.]



[Many thanks to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, for providing me with the image above from and press materials for Revisiting the New Deal: Government Patronage and the Fine Arts, 1933-1943, which runs through May 9, 2010.]