After reading this article I had to wonder, did this journalist do her
homework? Quilts have been very popular ewpecially in American Folklife and
have a significant historical impact. This past summer I had the absolute
pleasure of viewing a quiltwork done by homes using the Underground
Railroad. On these quilts the wners placed maps so these slaves could travel
safely from house to house as well as other important information they made
need. The Amish also created spectacularly crafted quilts of many designs
and patterns.
    Another point which I take objection to is that museums place these
exhibits in because of financial reasons. This is somewhat true, but big or
small you can not run large exhibits all the time( money doesn't grow on
trees), so when an exhibit comes around which is lease costly sometimes you
use them as fillers, which we do and place them between the large exhibits
you may run. So hopefully this journalist who obviously was quite naive in
her article about why and for what reason they are used, hopefully she looks
next time at the bigger picture.
p.s. I wonder what the Amish here in Pa. would think? Plus maybe Serrano ,
Maplethrope and "Sensations" are not art to her either.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kimberly Kenney" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2002 8:43 AM
Subject: Wall Street Journal article -- "Museums Cozy Up To Quilts"


> I saw this article through another list, and I
> wondered what you all thought about it.  I won't
> comment now, though I do have an opinion...
>
> Kim Kenney
> Curator
> McKinley Museum
>
> *********************************************
>
> "MUSEUMS COZY UP TO QUILTS"
>
> It's High Season for Blankets,
> But Patrons Ask: Is It Art?
> Competing with El Greco
>
> By BROOKS BARNES
> Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
>
> Museum curators have a lot to worry about in these
> tough times: attendance,
> security, damaged art.
> And now ... bedbugs?
>
> >From Colorado to Connecticut, some of the season's
> biggest blockbuster
> exhibits
> have nothing to do with van Gogh and Vermeer --
> they're all about quilts.
> Indeed, the kind of bedcovers that look like something
>
> from Aunt Edna's
> boudoir
> have made it to a surprising number of big-city
> museums, from "The Quilted
> Surface" in Columbus, Ohio, to "The Quilts of Gee's
> Bend," which will hit
> the
> Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Another museum on the
> tour -- New York's
> august
> Whitney Museum of American Art.
>
> But here's a question: Is it art? Curators and
> auctioneers are quick to
> point
> out that this is legitimate stuff, with its own
> masterworks and history.
> Plus,
> they say, quilts are great for attendance, pulling in
> a lot of people who
> wouldn't otherwise set foot in a museum. But many
> everyday museum-goers say
> they're surprised to see the usual fare replaced by
> beaux-arts blankies:
> This
> stuff's not art, they say -- it's crafts.
>
> Disappointing
>
> Kelly Howard, for one, made a recent trip to the UBS
> PaineWebber Art Gallery
> in
> Manhattan after friends raved about its exhibit of
> rare Tibetan artifacts.
> Instead, she found a show called "Six Continents of
> Quilts," which is set to
> appear in national and international museums for the
> next four years. "To be
> honest, I'm a little disappointed," the New York
> actress says. Two of the
> showpieces -- one with yellow police tape woven into
> it and another that
> incorporated computer circuitry -- did catch her eye.
> "I'm glad those two
> are
> hanging on a wall," she says, because they would "hurt
>
> somebody on a bed."
>
> This isn't the first time quilts have made the museum
> scene. The Whitney
> mounted the first major-museum quilt show back in
> 1971, and a Civil War-era
> quilt sold for $264,000 at Sotheby's in the in the
> mid-'90s. But in general,
> these pieces rarely made it beyond folk-art museums
> and the historic-homes
> circuit -- until now. Suddenly, quilts seem to be
> coming out all over, with
> eight big shows hitting art museums around the U.S.
> this year. The latest
> development: quilt subgenres. Indianapolis is cozying
> up to 50 food-related
> works, while Yale University Art Gallery is
> highlighting "Nine
> African-American
> Quilters."
>
> After all, adherents argue, if mosaics and collages
> are art, why not quilts?
> "They're highly refined objects that often address
> important historical
> themes," says Nancy Druckman, director of Sotheby's
> folk-art department.
> Also,
> the nation has 20 million quilters -- a hefty,
> built-in audience for any one
> of
> these displays.
>
> But there may be another, more prosaic reason for the
> quilt craze: These
> shows
> are cheap to mount. And museums need that, especially
> at a time when
> attendance
> is falling, outside funding is drying up and insurance
>
> costs are soaring.
> Insuring a quilt exhibition costs "peanuts" compared
> with even a modest
> painting or sculpture show, says Michele Twyman, who
> handles museums for
> Chubb
> insurance. Shipping's cheaper, too: While a large
> painting may cost $1,000
> to
> transport from Houston to New York, quilts of the same
>
> size can go for about
> $400. "They're a cinch compared to traditional
> artworks," says Jonathan
> Schwartz, president of Atelier 4, a New York
> art-shipping outfit.
>
> An Easy Sell
>
> Better still, quilts are an easy sell to finicky
> corporate sponsors who
> usually
> like uncontroversial art. Even Kenneth Lay, former
> chief executive of Enron,
> is
> a sponsor of "Gee's Bend." (The show features denim,
> corduroy and
> cotton-scrap
> quilts by African-American women in rural Alabama.)
> "Everybody wants a piece
> of
> it," says Shelly Zegart, the show's consulting
> curator. The Museum of Fine
> Arts, Houston expects the show to attract 110,000
> visitors during its 54-day
> run there -- on a par with the "Masterworks from El
> Greco to Picasso" show
> that
> will follow it.
>
> Still, some visitors hoping for Brancusi are
> disappointed to find batting.
> Dallas teacher Michelle Woodall was thinking about
> hitting the Houston
> museum
> as part of her junior high class's upcoming field trip
>
> to the Johnson Space
> Center. But when she saw the fall exhibition schedule,
>
> she nixed the plan.
> "Quilts that keep you warm, in an art museum?" she
> says. "I'd lose all my
> credibility."
>
> She may want to brace for more shows like it, though.
> Quilting is just one
> piece of a broader patchwork of fields that are
> gaining recognition in the
> art
> world. Glass, ceramics, clothing, even "fiber arts"
> (grass baskets) are
> showing
> up in big museums at a time when, coincidentally or
> not, budgets are at
> their
> tightest in a decade. The St. Louis Art Museum is
> showing "The Art of
> African
> Cloth" while the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is
> showing ladies' hats.
>
> A MORE PROSAIC REASON FOR THE CURRENT QUILT CRAZE:
> THESE SHOWS ARE CHEAP TO
> MOUNT.
>
> But even the folks in the art world think museums
> should raise the bar, if
> only
> a bit. "No more quilts!" begs Jonathon Glus, a
> municipal official in charge
> of
> public-art projects for Pasadena, Calif., calling
> institutions that give
> star
> treatment to quilts "essentially lazy." Adds Josephine
>
> Gear, a
> museum-studies
> professor at New York University: "Just because
> something is popular doesn't
> mean it belongs in a museum."
>
> Write to Brooks Barnes at [log in to unmask]
> Updated August 23, 2002
>
>
> =====
> **********************************
> Kimberly A. Kenney
> Curator
> McKinley Museum
> 800 McKinley Monument Dr. NW
> Canton OH  44708
> 330-455-7043
>
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