The French painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), currently the focus of a major exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has for so long been so highly acclaimed and so gleefully debunked that a critic revisiting his work in the first decade of the 21st century is obliged to surmount a good deal of documentary Read More
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has lately acquired a curious collection of 20th-century realist paintings-the Blake-Purnell Legacy, it’s called-that raises some interesting questions not only about the place occupied by realism in contemporary art but also, and more perhaps importantly, about the acquisition policies of the museum itself. Some 40 paintings, drawing and Read More
Nothing is more ominous in the museum world today than announcements of grandiose bureaucratic ambitions for expansion, restructuring and–the worst malediction of all–some overreaching Strategic Plan in capital letters. For current fashions in museology all tend to subordinate esthetic distinctions to a variety of extra-artistic imperatives–political, social, commercial, administrative or some unholy combination of all Read More
