On Wed, 13 Oct 1999, John A. Bing wrote: > I am neither an art professional nor a museum professional. So I pose > a question to this list for comments to a statement: > > A professional made a statement that no art museum (in the USA, I > assume) has purchased contemporary landscape (plein air) art in the > last 15 years. And further, that if one did, it (the museum, I > assume) might be laughed at. > > Is this really true? I thought museums, especially contemporary art > museums bought contemporary art, or does it only apply to certain art? =================================== I would have thought that this was something of an exaggeration, but during my 24 years directing major regional museum services (including contemporary art museums & collections) in the UK I was alarmed many times at the "sameness" of contemporary art acquisitions and exhibitions and subsequent experience hasn't changed this impression. That applies in both directions. If I sent back to my previus insitutions we could put together a remarkable "Salon des Refusees" exhibition of works that I acquired despite being refused funding from the various national or regional grant schemes because they did not conform to then current orthodoxy. In fact in most of these cases I was turned down by the government grant schemes for being too far ahead of the then current fashion or approved orthodoxy. Those of who dared to defy the establishment in the 1960s and do business with London dealers such as Nigel Greenwood or Nicolas Logsdail had to have a ready answer as to why we were near Grosvenor Square ("On my way to an anti-Vietnam War demonstration at the American Embassy") or the Lisson Gallery (easy answer - short cut to a "red light" district in those days). Certainly it was a total waste of time trying to get a grant on anything such then avant-garde galleries were selling. At that time the only acceptable contemporary art was what the leading British critic Peter Fuller used to call "the Official State Art of the NATO Capitalist Powers" i.e. American Abstract Expressionism and its numerous European imitators. Yet the Lisson in particular became the very height of fashionable and "establishment" orthodoxy less than ten years later and has maintained that status ever since. Certainly, over recent years the new orthodoxy has been very much focused on conceptual art, installations, video art etc. and few "serious" collectors and even fewer contemporary art museums have been collecting more traditional works, such as the sort of landscapes that you refer to. Patrick J. Boylan (Professor of Heritage Policy and Management) City University, Frobisher Crescent, Barbican, London EC2Y 8HB, UK; phone: +44-171-477.8750, fax:+44-171-477.8887; Home: "The Deepings", Gun Lane, Knebworth, Herts. SG3 6BJ, UK; phone & fax: +44-1438-812.658; E-mail: [log in to unmask]; Web site: http://www.city.ac.uk/artspol/ ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ museum-l.html. You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).