Met Museum Completes Staff Reduction Program

NEW YORK, JUNE 22, 2009)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that it had completed this week the museum-wide staff reduction program announced on March 12, 2009 as crucial to its efforts to forge a new, reduced operating budget for the 2010 fiscal year that begins July 1.

Through a combination of voluntary retirements, the closing of retail outlets, attrition and a hiring freeze, the expiration of staff contracts, and involuntary personnel reductions, the Museum has now pared its full- and part-time work force by a total of 357 positions, both administrative and professional, union and non-union, or some 14% since January 1.

“This realignment is a painful but unavoidable consequence of the global financial crisis,” stated James R. Houghton, Chairman of the Board of Trustees. “Significant short- and long-term reductions in income from the Met’s operating endowment, along with the retail downturn, and recent declines in membership and admissions income, have combined to compel us to craft a budget that sharply reduces costs while faithfully preserving the mission of the Museum. Acting with these obligations in mind, the Trustees and Management believe they have placed the institution on a sure footing to manage its resources over the next twelve months while continuing to offer its local, national, and international publics continued access to both its collections and its programs.”

The Museum announced three months ago on March 12 that it had begun this process by eliminating 53 positions at recently closed satellite shops around the country, and a further 74 positions in the remainder of its Merchandising operation. By the end of the fiscal year June 30, the Metropolitan will have closed 15 satellite shops.

Additionally, in May a total of 95 employees at the Met elected to accept a voluntary retirement incentive package offered to those age 55 or older and with at least 15 years of service to the institution. Over the last two weeks, the Museum has further reduced its work force by 74 union and non-union employees. With the previous Merchandising actions, all these staff reductions total 296 positions. The remainder of the total work force reduction of 357 has come primarily through attrition (a hiring freeze has been in place since January 1). The Museum also eliminated salary increases for FY 2010, and imposed new and ongoing expense reductions while introducing new programs for revenue enhancements.

“Ever since the first signs of global economic distress, our entire staff has worked tirelessly to close looming budget gaps in order to safeguard the museum’s mission and sustain its covenant with the public,” commented Director Thomas P. Campbell and President Emily K. Rafferty. “We believe we enter the new fiscal year well positioned to meet this goal. The savings to the institution from staff reductions alone will be more than $10 million, and while this does not entirely close the budget gap for 2010, it makes it possible to continue serving visitors and members at the highest possible levels, consistent with our historic commitments to excellence and innovation. It remains our goal that the public discern no difference at all in the visitor experience it has been our privilege to offer to them here.

“As we reported when we announced these difficult choices three months ago, we re-emphasize the Museum’s determination to continue providing a safe repository for its collections and a haven of reflection, education, and inspiration for its diverse visitors from around the city and around the globe. This commitment we reaffirm today.”

“At the same time,” they added, “we will miss our former colleagues enormously, and extend to both our retirees and those affected by the involuntary reduction program our gratitude and respect for the work they have done for so many years to sustain our institution.”

In FY 2010, the Metropolitan Museum will have a full- and part-time work force of approximately 2,200.

Burton does "Alice"

By Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY
You might have gone down the rabbit hole before. But never with a guide quite as attuned to the fantastic as Tim Burton.

Those who have grown curiouser and curiouser about what the offbeat reinventor of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory might conjure up in his version of Alice in Wonderland can feast their eyes on this array of concept art and publicity images, due to hang in movie theaters this week to promote the March 5, 2010, release.

"It has been Burton-ized" is how producer Richard Zanuck describes the director's vision of the Lewis Carroll classic. Many elements are familiar, from the enigmatic Caterpillar (Alan Rickman) to the fierce Jabberwock (Christopher Lee). But none has been presented in this sort of visually surreal fashion.

"We finished shooting in December after only 40 days," Zanuck says. Now the live action is being merged with CG animation and motion-capture creatures, and then transferred into 3-D.

The traditional tale has been freshened with a blast of girl power, courtesy of writer Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast). Alice, 17, attends a party at a Victorian estate only to find she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty society types. Off she runs, following a white rabbit into a hole and ending up in Wonderland, a place she visited 10 years before yet doesn't remember.

Among those who welcome her back is the Mad Hatter, a part tailor-made for Johnny Depp as he collaborates with Burton for the seventh time. "This character is off his rocker," Zanuck says.

Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska, 19, best known for HBO's In Treatment, has the coveted title role. "There is something real, honest and sincere about her," Zanuck says. "She's not a typical Hollywood starlet."

There is the usual Burton-esque ghoulishness (Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen, whose favorite retort is "Off with their heads," has a moat filled with bobbing noggins), but Zanuck assures most kids can handle it. "The book itself is pretty dark," he notes. "This is for little people and people who read it when they were little 50 years ago."

ArtFriday: Libby Saylor

Two things I have to reward: patience and initiative. Initiative, because Libby emailed me with pictures of her artwork and I do like receiving things like that. It brightens things up no end to know that you are a person somebody wants to show their art to. Patience, because Libby emailed me ages ago just as I had given up on ArtFriday V2, so I feel I owe it to her.

My Lord, what a selection to choose from. I decided to go for four of her paintings over her photographs or collages for the simple reason that I feel they are her main works and I should show them. You, however, should go check them out yourself.

As to why I chose these painting: Everybody, every once in a while, should indulge in epic uses of colour. It’s good for soul.

You can find Libby Saylor at her website libbysaylor.com.

Francis Bacon @ the Met

The first major exhibition in New York in twenty years devoted to one of the most compelling painters of the twentieth century, Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective features some 130 works--sixty-five paintings and as many archival items from public and private collections from around the world--that span the entirety of the artist’s full and celebrated career. Marking the centenary of the artist’s birth in Dublin in 1909, the exhibition brings together the most significant works from each period of Bacon’s career, focusing on the key subjects and themes that run through his extraordinary creative output. The presentation affords the most comprehensive examination to date of Bacon’s sources and working processes, offering a reevaluation of the artist’s work in light of a range of new interpretations and archival materials that have emerged since his death in 1992.

Michelle Obama @ the Met

Joe Polifrone on C-Monster.net

joe polifrone on sweet-station

it’s a difficult time for models

Fashion & Style
Actresses Are Edging Out Models on Magazine Covers
By SUZY MENKES
Published: May 5, 2009
Hollywood celebrities rather than supermodels are now more likely to appear on the glossy covers of fashion magazines.

familial feud

A century after Charles Dickens wrote his 1859 novel about the French Revolution, The Tampa Tribune's Leland Hawes began an eight-part series, "A Tale of Two Cities," devoted to exploring the contentious relationship between Tampa and St. Petersburg.

Today, an eerie civility exists between the two great cities on opposite sides of Tampa Bay. It was not always so. Since the founding of the twin cities on Tampa Bay in the 19th century, Tampa and St. Petersburg have fought for urban, economic, and journalistic supremacy.

As the twigs were bent

By the 1880 and 1890s, the collective destinies of Tampa and St. Petersburg seemed set. And the quarreling began.

nytimes: affordable art 4 sale?

May 3, 2009
Art
$80 Million? Try a Tenth of That. Art’s New Numbers.
By CAROL VOGEL

TWO Madoff victims and a hedge fund manager are among the sellers at this spring’s important auctions of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art.

You could say a faint whiff of desperation is in the air: the catalogs are a shadow of what they were six months ago, as are the values and — for the most part — quality of the paintings, drawings and sculptures on offer...

met gala cont'd

viscountess of vogue


a fashion shoot for the magazine right before the ball, during which the photographer Arthur Elgort will snap models graciously leaping through the museum like gazelles, expensive fabric billowing behind them.

"welcome to the meeting, twitchy,"

walking across the brooklyn bridge

pictures generation @ the met

The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984
April 21, 2009–August 2, 2009

Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography and Tisch Galleries, 2nd floor
This is the first major museum exhibition to focus exclusively on “The Pictures Generation.” Educated in the self-reflexive and critical principles of Minimal and Conceptual art, this tightly knit group of artists brought those lessons to bear on a return to recognizable imagery, exploring how images shape our perceptions of ourselves and the world. Featured are 160 works in all media by thirty artists.

green pink caviar by marilyn minter

The film still above comes from Green Pink Caviar, a five-minute video by the artist Marilyn Minter that’s on view (along with short films by Patty Chang and Kate Gilmore) on MTV’s HD billboard at 44th Street in Times Square through April 30. (Starting April 24, a 60-second trailer will also run before midnight film showings at Landmark’s Sunshine theater.) New York asked Times Square passersby for their interpretations—and then spoke with the artist herself.

As seen in Times Square, sponsored by Creative Time.
(Photo: Bill Miller)

The Reactions
“This is inappropriate and uncouth. But I can’t stop looking at it, even though it’s not appealing.”

“Is it an ad for gum? It said ‘chewing.’ ”

“I don’t care about any of the fucking shit around it—I like that there’s art in Times Square and want to see more.”

“It’s difficult to see when there’s so much around it.”

KID, POINTING: “What the fuck is that?”
MOM, ANGRILY: “It’s lips.”

“This is sick and horny.”

“In this context it’s grating, almost too shocking. Maybe people’s reactions are part of the art.”

Minter responds: We were screwing around in my studio, photographing girls spitting out candy on a piece of glass to get images for paintings—but when we looked underneath, we all thought, “Cool!” Since I feed off the fashion world like a parasite—I use their makeup artists, their stylists, even their catering services—I waited for my next commercial assignment so I could slip my project in between takes. We filmed this during a M.A.C-makeup shoot.

I called up Ford and said, “Gimme a model with a really long tongue and nice, full lips.” They sent me Louisa Taadou. For the candy, I bought a lot of colorful cake decorations: Here, I used yellow méringue filling mixed with blue food coloring. Austin Lynn Austin filmed from underneath the glass with a high-def camera, and Louisa held her breath to avoid fogging it up. I made sure you couldn’t see the eyes, because as soon as you see the eyes, it’s a different narrative.

I don’t want to sound disingenuous, but to me it’s not sexy—it’s gorgeous. It’s about hunger and insatiability, a trailer without a movie behind it, an ad only for itself.

younger than jesus @ new museum

nymag.com review by jerry saltz

In the last years of the boom, numerous artists came to the fore who have their aesthetic heads up the aesthetic asses of Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, Cady Noland, and Christopher Wool. They make punkish black-and-white art and ad hoc arrangements of disheveled stuff, architectural fragments, and Xeroxed photos. This art deals in received ideas about appropriation, conceptualism, and institutional critique. It’s a cool school, admired by jargon-wielding academics who write barely readable rhetoric explaining why looking at next to nothing is good for you. Many of these artists have sold a lot of work, and most will be part of a lost generation. They thought they were playing the system; it turned out that they were themselves being played.

The New Museum’s flawed but tantalizing new triennial, “The Generational: Younger Than Jesus” puts this kind of art behind us and points to what might lie beyond that recycling machine. It’s a big show, assembled by a big crowd: The New Museum asked 150 recognized artists, critics, and curators to recommend artists. They put together a list of 500 or so, and three in-house curators—Lauren Cornell, Massimiliano Gioni, and Laura Hoptman (a Millennial, Gen-Xer, and Boomer, respectively)—sifted through it to create the final building-filling show of 50 artists from 25 countries. A swell 564-page “artist directory,” showcasing the hundreds of artists who were seriously considered but didn’t make the final cut, accompanies “Younger” and makes this one of the most refreshingly transparent exhibitions ever organized. (It’s a kind of salon des réfusés in book form.)

look at this fucking hipster

possibly the greatest site ever!!!

picasso: mosqueteros @ gagosian gallery

nytimes.com
April 17, 2009
Art Review | 'Picasso: Mosqueteros'
Going All Out, Right to the End
By ROBERTA SMITH

In the main, Picasso only got better. That’s the take-away from the staggering exhibition of Picasso’s late paintings and prints at the Gagosian Gallery.

One of the best shows to be seen in New York since the turn of the century, it proves that contrary to decades of received opinion, Picasso didn’t skitter irretrievably into an abyss of kitsch, incoherence or irrelevance after this or that high-water mark...

“Picasso: Mosqueteros” remains on view through June 6 at the Gagosian Gallery, 522 West 21st Street, Chelsea; (212) 741-1717, gagosian.com.

fsu prepared to eliminate 21 programs

Florida State administrators on Monday afternoon released a draft of proposed sweeping cutbacks at the university, based on current reductions in state revenue.

If enacted, they would dramatically alter the university as we know it.

Twenty-one degree programs at FSU would be eliminated, including anthropology, German, oceanography, physical education and hospitality and golf management.

Numerous other programs would be reduced, merged or restructured. The Panama City campus would close effective Jan. 1, 2010. And approximately 350 faculty members would be laid off.

“It’s almost unbearable to consider,” FSU President T.K. Wetherell said. “This is going to have a lot of ramifications.”

The draft of cutbacks came out of the university’s budget crisis committee, which met earlier Monday. It was the first time specific programs were targeted for elimination.

Wetherell has scheduled a town hall meeting for next Tuesday to discuss the university’s plan for addressing the massive reductions in state aid. He’s expecting members of the Faculty Senate to have a counter-proposal to the draft released on Monday.

Music professor Jayne Standley, president of FSU’s Faculty Senate, believes the Legislature holds the power to change the budget forecasts.

“These (cutbacks) don’t have to happen,” she said. “The Legislature could solve this problem by solving the revenue problem in Florida.

“The size of the cuts that may be necessary are devastating,” Standley added. “I think the sum total is overwhelming and really will damage the university that Florida State has become.”

The state Senate and House will begin debating their respective higher education budgets this week.

FSU stands to receive $28.2 million less for the 2009-10 school year than it did in 2008-09 based on the Senate version, and $72.8 million less in the current House budget.

Senator Don Gaetz, a Republican from Niceville, said he sympathizes with Wetherell and FSU.

“In the toughest economy since the Great Depression, when nobody in my district is telling me the answer to their problems is for government to get a bigger slice of the pie, I’ve cast some pretty tough votes to increase fees up and down the line,” Gaetz said.

“We looked in the basement of the Capitol to see if there was some Confederate gold buried there,” he added. “There wasn’t. There’s no magic money.”

Programs targeted for elimination:
Anthropology
Apparel Design
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
Geological Sciences
Molecular Biophysics
Oceanography
Hospitality & Golf Management
Physical Education
Science Education (College of Education)
Geography
Behavioral Psychology
Software Engineering
Art Education
Ceramics
Sculpture
Studio Art
Recreational Management
German
Slavic Languages
Demography
Art Administration

FSU prepared to eliminate 21 programs

the model as muse @ the met

The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion
May 6, 2009–August 9, 2009
The Tisch Galleries, 2nd floor

Exploring the reciprocal relationship between high fashion and evolving ideals of beauty, The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion focuses on iconic models of the twentieth century and their roles in projecting, and sometimes inspiring, the fashion of their respective eras. The exhibition, organized by historical period from 1947 to 1997, will feature haute couture and ready-to-wear masterworks accompanied by fashion photography and video footage of models who epitomized their epochs.

artinfo: jobs

ARTINFO has launched a new Art Jobs Board for jobs, internships, residencies, and artist calls for entry. We have categories for nonprofits, museums, artist's assistants and arts administration, as well as consulting, editorial, and curatorial. We also have sections specifically for artist submissions and artist's residencies.

To search for jobs, internships, residencies, and artists opportunities, go to:

http://www.artinfo.com/jobs/

roxy paine @ the met

Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom
April 28, 2009–October 25, 2009 (weather permitting)
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden

American artist Roxy Paine (b. 1966) has created a 130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide stainless-steel sculpture, especially for the Museum’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. Giving viewers the sense of being immersed in the midst of a cataclysmic force of nature, Maelstrom (2009) is Paine’s largest and most ambitious work to date. The latest in a diverse body of work, this sculpture is one of the artist’s Dendroids based on systems such as vascular networks, tree roots, industrial piping, and fungal mycelia. Set against Central Park and its architectural backdrop, the installation explores the interplay between the natural world and the built environment amid nature’s inherently chaotic processes.

into the sunset @ moma

Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West
March 29, 2009–June 8, 2009

Into the Sunset: Photography's Image of the American West examines how photography has pictured the idea of the American West from 1850 to the present. Photography's development coincided with the exploration and the settlement of the West, and their simultaneous rise resulted in a complex association that has shaped the perception of the West's physical and social landscape to this day. For over 150 years, the image of the West has been formed and changed through a variety of photographic traditions and genres, and this exhibition considers the medium's role in shaping our collective imagination of the West.

follow the met on twitter

rothchild @ moma in april

First Comprehensive Presentation from the Rothschild Collection to Open in April at MoMA

NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art presents Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection, an exhibition of more than 300 works that will be the first comprehensive presentation of this collection, a donation of approximately 2,500 works on paper by more than 650 artists that entered the Museum’s collection in May 2005. Assembled over a two-year period and ranging from the 1930s to 2005 with a heavy focus on contemporary practice, the collection provides a unique panorama of the state of drawing today. The collection was formed by the Foundation’s sole trustee, Harvey S. Shipley Miller, who is also a MoMA Trustee, in consultation with Gary Garrels, who was MoMA's Chief Curator of Drawings and Curator of Painting and Sculpture from 2000 to 2005. Compass in Hand is organized by Christian Rattemeyer, The Harvey S. Shipley Miller Associate Curator of Drawings, with Connie Butler, The Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawings, The Museum of Modern Art.

layoffs @ the met

03/12/2009
Layoffs In Store For Metropolitan Art Museum
By: Ty Chandler


Hundreds of museum workers will soon be out of work as the Metropolitan Museum of Art tightens its belt in the face of tough economic times. NY1's Ty Chandler filed the following report.

Museum patrons with deep pockets arrived for a gala benefiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art Thursday evening -- but not even those donations will be enough.

"The Met's been compelled to take some very unpleasant steps to get its budgetary house in order," said Harold Holzer, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Those steps include layoffs with the first round coming next week.

"We are going to have to keep up our service to the public with a leaner staff operation," said Holzer.

"It's going to be very unfortunate that the NGO's and the private sector and organizations that promote the art are going to hurt quite a bit," said Fred Ameri, a museum patron.

"Coming to the Met every Sunday is one of my personal favorite hobbies. However, sometimes you have do what you have to do to make ends meet," said Jonathan Yaraghi, a museum patron.

The Met's retail shops will be hardest hit. The South Street Seaport Store is already closed and more stores around the country will soon follow.

About 74 jobs from the merchandizing division will go with those stores. This spring, 10 percent of the Met's 2,000 remaining employees will also be out of a job.

Holzer says after the Met lost $800 million of its nearly $3 billion endowment last year and with more losses already in 2009, they had no choice but to cut back.

"This bad market will be felt in the budget and appear in the budget for years to come," said Holzer.

Holzer says the twists and turns of the financial markets still won't wipe away the richness inside the Met.

"In the end we are sort of impermanent. The art and the institution are forever and I think we are all, in a way, consoled by that," said Holzer.

bma raises admissions

The Brooklyn Museum announced today that it will increase its suggested admission fee to $10 for adults and to $6 for older adults and students with valid identification, effective Saturday, March 21, 2009. Admission, which has not been increased since 2004, is currently $8 for adults and $4 for seniors and students. Admission for Target First Saturdays, the Museum's evening of art and entertainment, will continue to be free from 5 to 11 p.m. as will general admission for Members and children under 12 accompanied by an adult. Target First Saturdays are also supported through funds from a major endowment from the Wallace Foundation.

1st day of training in cpnyc

sita sings the blues

vik muniz on creativity

cézanne @ philadelphia museum of art

snow angel...

it's snow time in nyc!

cast in bronze @ the met

ryan adams tonight @ the wellmont

"It's Time We Met"

Raphael to Renoir: Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna @ the Met

Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard @ the Met

happy hearts day!

winter fest 09

what better to brighten your day than a giant yellow ballon dog...

Pipilotti Rist @ MoMA

Tara Donovan @ MAD

the best part of this sculpture is that it is made up entirely of clear buttons...yes, buttons, like those on a shirt!!

winter in the city

hello and welcome!

welcome to i he(art) nyc!