SHARKS DON’T HAVE LIPS
By Mark Modzelewski
Do you like spoons? Well you are in luck my friends, because if there is something you will see a lot of at the new Museum of Fine ArtsBoston’s Arts of the Americas Wing, it's spoons...lots of spoons. Yes the new half billion dollar MFA build-out opened this week to incredible reviews and hoopla… lots of hoopla.
The MFA spent $345-million for the new building, conceived by a British director, with a UK-based architectural firm, using German glass, European wallpapers, Italian display cases, French limestone and Finnish granite—how delightfully American. The transformation took 11 years in the making, with 5000 objects and twice the number of American works that the museum had had on view. The other $159 million endowment is to fund ongoing operations. I am pretty sure however, that none is going to fund –in the word’s of the MFA’s website – the “art colony
across the street,” SMFA.
I made a couple of visits this week, and more than being disappointed, I was just bored. The cash spent on this project, donors' names are boldly displayed throughout the galleries, could have gone to numerous other arts projects in the region. Instead, it merely reinforced Boston’s place as a stuffy backwater of the art world. The huge new building serves as veritable explanation point to a yawn, not adding a bit of vibrancy to the comatose cultural landscape of this City, hamstrung by small thinking, reeking of mothballs.
A trip to the new wing starts with a bad recreation of grandma’s musty living room, where one is confronted with more that 50 Copley’s and nearly as many Sargents (36 to be exact). Does any museum need 50 Copley’s up on the wall? He just wasn’t that great a painter. There was a reason a lot of these works were in storage - they weren’t worth hanging up, particularly the near comical “Watson and The Shark” with its rubbery lipped chondrichthye seemingly smiling, perhaps wondering why the MFA put this piece up in such a prominent spot when the original of three versions is in the National Gallery in DC.
As you move through the galleries on the first couple of floors, you can't help but be awed by the Stuarts, Eakins, and Whistlers-- austere, masterfully rendered, and perfectly displayed on $85 tote bags in the new gift shop. What baffles me the most is how insignificant so many of the works are once you get past the Colonial era. You then encounter room after room of pleasant Sunday painting and academic sculptural pieces that in no way are part of the greater global dialog of art and piece after piece that is timid and straggling behind the trend makers and great
thinkers. So many of the works look as if they were bought at flea markets on the Cape.
I am not unsympathetic with the fact that any museum is stuck by geography and the chronology of artistic movements, showing the good bad and the ugly. And museums are compelled to manage their donations – and donors as well. However, the “American Modern” gallery is contemptible, set-off with its centerpiece of a Tiffany bedroom set. This period of art was painfully bad in the US, considering that while Dada, Cubism and Surrealisms were conquering Europe, the US was basically producing New Yorker covers for the cutting edge of art. Why give this era so much precious display space? The room is best epitomized by a decent Hopper painting of a drug store which boldly reads “Ex-Lax” Indeed this gallery—and the MFA as a whole - is
in dire need of a purging.
The top floor is suckers you in with the first work you see is “Chamonix” by Joan Mitchell --it is efficient in its beauty, with each mark having maximum impact. It includes Pollock's "Troubled Queen" which, while not a personal favorite, is a significant work during one of his transitional phases. The Rothko is a wonderful piece as well, oddly lit, but still high quality. Alas the recently acquired Cesar Paternosto is beaten into submission by the other works in the room. It is an impotent piece and looks like it was colored in those left over Crayolas that no one wants to use. The biggest mystery of this gallery is somehow the architects made a room that is able to physically diminish Abstract Expressionist, Color Field and giant Minimalist paintings. Bravo.
The nearby Modern photo room was just placid and completely underwhelming. Why, besides donor requests, did someone insert one Georgia O’Keefe and a Sheeler print in with the 50 or so photos? The floor goes on to include a handful of minor works and, inexplicably, gives a the crescendo spot to a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover painting. How can anyone think this is appropriate in a quality museum, especially one that is supposed to create a cultural renaissance in the city?
Another troubling aspect is the attempts at including non US artists in the contemporary era, which bordered on tokenism. The works were nearly without exception minor and were completely eclipsed by their American counterparts. Looking back, this isn't the case, as the small gallery featuring Spanish Colonial art was quite good with several notable works from the permanent collection and on loan. Also, in a completely unexpected surprise, the most impressive part of the entire new wing is in the basement with the pre-Columbian exhibit. An unexpectedly absorbing display of objects from MesoAmerica. I never would have guessed the MFA’s holdings of Mayan urns and crafts was so good. This section, and the delightful American Maritime gallery that adjoins it, appear to have been created by an entirely different curatorial team-- beautifully lit, constructed and displayed.
As I was exiting, I was wondering where were the Boston artists after Sargent? How does the MFA own only one Guston painting considering his ties to the City? No Jack Levine? No Ben Shahn? No David Park? No Maude Morgan? No Chuck Close? No Brice Marden? Sure, some of these will likely be up when the contemporary galleries are finished, but how are they not up in the America’s wing?
With my final steps out the door and into fresh air, I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful views of downtown Boston from the new wing. Alas, it was because I got lost and was in the staff area. Yes, only the Museum management gets the beautiful views. How utterly fitting.
