The New Berensons?

Hmmmm..., I say...Hmmmmm

[via artinfo.com]

Two former museum chiefs are heading to New York—and to positions at high-profile contemporary-art galleries. David Ross, a former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, has become a partner in Albion with Michael Hue-Williams, while Robert Fitzpatrick, most recently director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, has been named international managing director of Haunch of Venison.

“I wanted to work more closely with artists, rather than patrons and trustees,” says Ross, explaining his transition to the commercial side of the industry. Fitzpatrick agrees, describing dealers as having a “passion for art, artists and helping their work become better known.”

Hmmmmm...

Alright, Ed, get off it...you say, what's all this hmmm'ing about?

Well, with all due respect to my friends in museums, whom I have the utmost respect for, I've always gotten this sense from many of them that the commercial gallery system is seen as somewhat, shall we say, tainted, in their circles. This notion is exemplified by nothing so much as the fact that it's widely believed to be harder for a commercial gallerist to become a major curator or director of a museum than it is for a camel to squeeze through the eye of needle. And yet, as we see, the constriction seems to apply in only one direction.

Don't get me wrong, I wish Misters Ross and Fitzpatrick only the best of success and happiness in their new endeavors, it's just that, after all these years of feeling somewhat like the arms dealer at a peace conference when discussing artists careers among curators or museum directors (and admittedly, that might be my own personal insecurity more so than any bias on the part of most of the museum folks I know), it is somewhat reassuring to see a former museum director acknowledging that "dealers [have] a 'passion for art, artists and helping their work become better known.'”

Will we see more migrations from the museum to the commercial side of things? Is this a sign of the times?

Of course, most of my sensibilities about this are perhaps outdated, stemming, as they do from my love of biographies of past art world luminaries. Indeed, the title of this post references one Bernard Berenson (1865 - 1959), the highly respected art historian and Renaissance expert, who had his reputation somewhat soiled by being seen as a bit too entangled with the doings of art dealer Joseph Duveen. To many people, Berenson's reputation never totally recovered, even after the two parted ways. Of course, perhaps Berenson's star got tarnished more because he worked with Duveen via a secret agreement that was exposed during his testimony in a high-profile trial that Duveen had to settle out of court (a collector sued Duveen for claiming, without seeing it, that the Da Vinci she wanted to sell, was in fact by someone else).

I actually think any gallery would be lucky to have former museum staff working for them. The education, standards, and best practices they'd bring would be a remarkable asset in the gallery's efforts to promote its artists. I just couldn't let it pass unhighlighted that a former museum director had justified such a move because "I wanted to work more closely with artists, rather than patrons and trustees." I'll hold my head just a little bit higher among my museum friends from now on. ;-P