Recent links of note:

“Museum Alliance and Directors Group Issue Open Letter Criticizing Berkshire Museum’s Deaccession Plan”
Alex Greenberger, ARTnews
This month, The Berkshire Museum introduced its “New Vision,” a master plan of long-term “re-invention” for the museum that includes renovating its front lobby, modernizing its exhibition spaces, and emphasizing science and history over art in its programming. On the docket are high-tech “active teaching laboratories,” “interdisciplinary interpretation,” and other vacuous marketing strategies that the museum hopes will revitalize community interest that has waned in recent years, placing the museum in financial insolvency. We might forgive the museum for their plan, distasteful though it may appear, had The Berkshire not announced on Monday that funding will come primarily from the deaccession of 40 works of art, including works by Norman Rockwell, Frederic Church, and Alexander Calder. Within a day, two prominent museum organizations, the American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors, criticized the Berkshire for this proposed sale. The challenges faced by regional museums such as the Berkshire, financial and otherwise, are formidable and should not be taken lightly; however, as stewards of our cultural heritage, a museum’s first priority must be the protection and safeguarding of its collection. Museums across the country would do well to hold this intransient responsibility above the short term benefits of “community-outreach” derived programming.

“Abstract vs Figurative Art, with Mario Naves”
Mario Naves and Antrese Wood, Savvy Painter
Mario Naves, painter, teacher, and longtime art critic and contributor for The New Criterion, sat down this week to record an interview for Savvy Painter, a podcast that discusses the professional and aesthetic concerns of working artists across the country. In the approximately hour-long conversation with host Antrese Wood, Naves discusses his career as a critic-artist-teacher, his studio routine, his relationship with abstract and figurative art, and much more. Take a listen for Naves’s profound insight on important questions of art—from the general (Why make art?) to the specific (How to start a painting?)—and to get an intimate sense of the joys and trials that contemporary artists encounter daily.

From our pages:
“In Raphael’s Studio”
James Hankins

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