Michael Kimmelman
Chief art critic and columnist, the New York Times

“THE ACCIDENTAL MASTERPIECE”

 Michael Kimmelman is an author and the chief art critic for the New York Times.  In 2007 he moved to Berlin where he now writes as the Times Abroad columnist on culture and society in Europe.  His most recent book, “The Accidental Masterpiece” received widespread acclaim and became a national bestseller.  His earlier work, “Portraits: Talking with Artists at the Met, the Modern, the Louvre and Elsewhere,” was named as a notable book by the Washington Post and the Times, and a best book of the year by Publisher's Weekly.  Kimmelman has appeared in various television venues including interviews with Charlie Rose and is featured in the 2007 documentary film, “My Kid Could Paint That.”  A book on the Brazilian modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer is forthcoming this year. 

Born and raised in Greenwich Village, New York, Kimmelman attended Yale College and did his graduate work in Art History at Harvard University.  His original job at the Times was as a music critic (he is an accomplished pianist) but when John Russell, chief art critic at that time, discovered Kimmelman had a background in art history, he asked him to write about art.  After some hesitation (criticism was not part of his original plan) Kimmelman proceeded to, as he says, “…conduct my education in public, in a very conspicuous way.” 

This open self-education is perhaps one of the aspects of Kimmelman’s perspective on art which makes him so widely appreciated.  Rather than purveying one particular theoretical view or advocating a rigid set of criteria for art, Kimmelman takes a broad approach which seems to place both art and art viewers into a cultural context and in communication with each other.  Because of a perception that there is a “right” way to see art, many people may be intimidated or overwhelmed by a day spent in a museum.  However, for Kimmelman the key is, “I try to remember that just looking and keeping your eyes open is essential. You can’t worry whether received opinion is one thing or another.” 

Kimmelman exemplifies this expansive view on art in his latest book. The book includes discussions on artists as wide-ranging and lofty as Bonnard, Vermeer, de Kooning, and Duchamp, but it also includes a chapter about Dr. Hugh Hicks, who runs a private museum from his basement showcasing his collection of over 75,000 light bulbs.  As he writes in the introduction to “The Accidental Masterpiece,” his goal in writing the book was to explore how, “…art provides us with clues about how to live our own life more fully. Put differently, this book is, in part, about how creating, collecting, and even just appreciating art can make living a daily masterpiece.”

2009

Photo: Stefan Pauly

Dean Sobel
Director of the new Clyfford Still Museum in Denver

A recognized authority on the art of the 20th century, Dean Sobel has enjoyed a notable career: Director of the Aspen Art Museum from 2000 to 2005, he led the institution to all-important accreditation by the American Association of Museums. Sobel organized solo exhibitions of works by the renowned Robert Mangold, John Currin and Olafur Eilasson, as well as the group exhibition Warhol/Koons/Hirst: Cult and Culture. Before his appointment to the Aspen Museum, Sobel served in a joint position at the Milwaukee Art Museum, where he was Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art. His most recent book, published in 2004, is titled One Hour Ahead: The Avant-Garde in Aspen, 1945-2004.

The Clyfford Still Museum will join the Denver Art Museum in the city's Civic Center Cultural Complex. The physical campus, designed by noted architect Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture, is due to be completed in 2010. Programming for the Museum has already begun, with preview exhibitions at the DAM and lectures and presentations by Sobel and other scholars of Abstract Expressionism, the post World War II art movement that shifted the art world from Paris to New York City.

Still is known today as one of New York's most important and most reclusive painters. After his death in 1980, according to a recent Museum press release, his estate was sealed, his will specifying that his art be given to "an American city willing to establish a permanent museum dedicated solely to his work." Denver proved to be that city, and Sobel its inaugural director.

2008

THOMAS KRENS
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao:
Frank Gehry Designs a Masterpiece

With Special Guest
FRANK GEHRY
 

Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation since 1988, presented the keynote lecture for this season’s ART Santa Fe Presents event at the Lensic Performing Arts Center on Saturday, July 14, at 7:00 p.m.  Krens addressed the timely topic of the intersections of art, architecture, and culture with his lecture, The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao: Frank Gehry Designs a Masterpiece. 

 Under Krens’ leadership the Guggenheim has experienced substantial growth and flowering.  In the past two decades, the Guggenheim Foundation has developed an unprecedented international presence, with a network of cultural facilities and alliances with major museums around the world.  However, it was the unique partnership that Krens developed with the Basque Regional Government of Spain that set off an historic “boom” in art and architecture.  Designed by Frank Gehry, the museum at Bilbao, Spain quickly garnered world-wide attention as a landmark building of the 20^th Century.  In its first year the formerly economically depressed Basque region welcomed over 1,300,000 visitors to the new Guggenheim Bilbao.  The museum’s success has led to a revitalization of the region and millions of visitors continue to visit the museum. 

 The success of the Guggenheim Bilbao, dubbed the “Bilbao effect” is due in large part to the critically acclaimed architectural design by Frank Gehry. Mr. Gehry agreed to appear as a special guest along with Thomas Krens for this event.  Gehry, the Pritzker Prize winning architect of international note, engaged Mr. Krens in a dialogue about the Guggenheim Bilbao, as well as about the newly announced monumental project underway in Abu Dhabi.  Gehry’s own laurels are quite notable, including the AIA’s Gold Medal and the Americans for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award.  His life and work have been documented in the recent documentary film by award-winning director Sydney Pollack: Sketches of Frank Gehry.

2007

Philippe de Montebello

Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art for more than 25 years, chose to address only three venues in the United States during 2005; his lecture in Santa Fe, sponsored by ART Santa Fe Presents, was one of the three. Mr. de Montebello gave a carefully prepared and beautifully illustrated one-hour lecture, "Museums: Why Should We Care?"

Respected throughout the international art community and acclaimed for his dynamic, captivating lectures, Philippe de Montebello is uniquely positioned to speak on the state of the museum world today. Mr. de Montebello was born in Paris, attended French schools throughout the Baccalaureate, graduated Magna cum Laude from Harvard University in 1958 and received an advanced degree from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. He became an American citizen in 1955. With the exception of four and a half years he spent as Director of The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, his career has evolved at The Metropolitan.

Under Mr. de Montebello's leadership, The Metropolitan has conducted an outstanding acquisitions program and at the same time has vastly expanded its areas of international loan exhibition and education. Its growing audience now numbers more than five million visitors a year. To these visitors Mr. de Montebello is also the familiar and elegant voice of The Metropolitan, guiding visitors through special exhibitions and installations with the use of audio tours that he has narrated for most of his tenure.

2005

Philippe de Montebello