This Week: “Velázquez Portraits: Truth in Painting”

“Velázquez Portraits: Truth in Painting” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Through March 12): In 2015 Philippe de Montebello was named chairman of the board of New York’s Hispanic Society. Now, that jewelbox institution at 155th Street and Broadway has begun to sparkle as never before. “Velázquez Portraits: Truth in Painting,” a micro-exhibition on view in Gallery 610 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through March 12, 2017, is the product of the latest felicitous arrangement under de Montebello’s aegis. “Velázquez Portraits” pairs the Met’s iconic holdings, including Juan de Pareja (1650), with loans that include two Society gems—Portrait of a Young Girl (ca. 1640) and Cardinal Camillo Astalli-Pamphili (ca. 1650–51)—newly restored by the Metropolitan’s conservation department. The cleaning has been revelatory, restoring life to these aged works and confirming Young Girl as among Velázquez’s most moving portraits. (Compare the unrestored painting at the very top to the one just below in this post). The exhibition should serve as reminder to visit the free museum of the Hispanic Society before it closes at the end of December for a multi-year renovation while its masterpieces return to Spain, many for the first time in generations, for a groundbreaking exhibition at the Prado in spring 2017.

Podcast: The Museum of the Present

How the American museum went from "being about something" to "being for somebody." From "The Future of Permanence in an Age of Ephemera," a symposium on museums hosted by The New Criterion at the Consulate General of France on October 21, 2016. Presentations to be published in the December 2016 issue of The New Criterion.

How the American museum went from "being about something" to "being for somebody"

Here is the podcast my presentation for "The Future of Permanence in an Age of Ephemera," a symposium on museums hosted by The New Criterion at the Consulate General of France on October 21, 2016. Full proceedings to be published in the December 2016 issue of The New Criterion.

A Symposium on Museums

“The Future of Permanence in an Age of Ephemera”

A symposium on museums

Thirty-five years ago, in the very first issue of The New Criterion, our founding editor Hilton Kramer warned against a “cultural drift that has brought some woeful consequences in its wake. It has changed the way art museums and other cultural institutions now conceive of their programs and priorities—and indeed, the very reason for their existence.”

On October 21, 2016, The New Criterion will host a symposium on museums called “The Future of Permanence in an Age of Ephemera.” Our event will seek to atomize the changes Hilton identified by considering the history of the museum, the evolution of its vocation and forms, and possible correctives to its misdirection.

It is my pleasure to join Bruce Cole, Eric Gibson, George Knight, Michael J. Lewis, Philippe de Montebello, Karen Wilkin, and Roger Kimball in this discussion. The event at the Consulate General of France, 934 Fifth Avenue, will conclude with a luncheon talk by the art conservator Marco Grassi, who will discuss “the birth of the idea” of the modern museum. 

This is an event open to the Friends and Young Friends of The New Criterion. 

Versions of the presentations will be published in the December 2016 issue of The New Criterion.