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Learning from the Guggenheim-Bilbao: Five Years After (continued): What are we to make of such “krensification of the museum”? His era includes the stock market bubble of the late 1990s and the Enron scandal (not surprisingly, his museum has been labeled “GuggEnron” by Jerry Saltz in The Village Voice). Deborah Solomon summed up the alternative positions thusly: “Is Krens an egomaniac who squandered the museum’s resources on a quest to expand his empire? Or is he instead a brilliant, misunderstood radical who inherited an institution with a relatively small endowment and stagnant program and wanted to try something more daring than mounting the umpteenth Picasso show? Either way, Krens could not have succeeded were it not for a general social bias that favors architecture over art.” It has been argued by Nancy Sullivan that what best defines the international community of art is its proximity to New York’s auction houses. Nobody understood this better than the Guggenheim, which became infamous for its auctioning of masterpieces at Sotheby’s. The fortunes of the auction houses are, of course, related to those of the stock markets, and it was not surprising that the Basque president, after signing the contract for Bilbao’s museum, had to travel to Wall Street to present the $20 million check for the franchise fee at the offices of Merrill Lynch. Its president, acting as a notary, was a member of the Guggenheim’s Board, as was Ronald Perelman, who donated $20 million in exchange for naming Frank Lloyd Wright’s rotunda after him. Perelman was subsequently upstaged by Peter Lewis, who admits to being unable to read a book about art, but who was willing to give $50 million out of his love of art. What these tycoons love about the freewheeling Guggenheim is that it shares their fundamental Wall Street culture of controlling global capital from New York. Bilbao convinced them that the transnational model of the museum franchises was workable. It was Lewis who recently “forced Mr. Krens to face reality” by cutting his budget and curatorial staff in half. The subtext is that the times of irrational expansion no longer apply in the post 9/11 world. What is less known is that the Guggenheim’s exuberance during the early 1990s was prompted by a marginal Basque city going though a historic economic downturn and with 20% unemployment. The “bean counters” further complained that the monies that ended up paying the New York Guggenheim’s renovation were directly at the expense of those formerly available for Basque art and culture. Bilbao is a good example that the margins of Empire are often more important to it than the center. But the picture coming from Bilbao is more complex. It has to do with tourism, urban renewal, economic growth through cultural industries, and the impact of a single flagship project on the transformation of the image and reality of a city. It has been labeled a “Cinderella story.” As a result, after Bilbao, every city has dreamed of its own Guggenheim effect. Gehry’s optimistic artichoke amid Bilbao’s post-industrial ruin (voluptuous Marilyn Monroe was Muschamp’s metaphor) has become an icon of what architecture can do for a city in decline. If one is to believe the numbers coming from Bilbao, nothing appears more restorative for a city than investment in emblematic architecture. It is on the experience of Bilbao that critics such as Leslie Bellavance can write: “More than merely housing masterpieces, today’s art museums must be masterpieces themselves. Every city, it seems, must boast a signature art facility. What can expensive additions by internationally renowned architects accomplish for cities not used to being cultural destinations? How do the museums maintain the level of excitement after the dedication ceremony? Does the rhetoric of mastery and community involvement translate into a continued discourse illuminating the relationship between art and its audience?” Was Warhol right in his prognostication that every museum should become a superstore? Or should it be a theme park? Is “the most vital function that a museum can provide… its capacity to give space to seduction of incongruity” (Krens)? What asymmetries are implicit in the “Cinderella” version of the New York/Bilbao relationship? What are the cultural implications of architecture as spectacle and ideology? What are the mutual implications of the art community and Wall Street capitalism, and how far should they go? How do we assess the formation of new capitalist hierarchies, whereby capital and consumption are local but franchise control is international? Should the museum as institution seek legitimation in symbolizing the new imperial order? Is the Benetton strategy of intertwining the politics of artistic representations with postmodern consumerist techniques the most appropriate one for the future of art? What is the role of flagship developments in the revitalizations of cities? These, and many other questions, are posed by the miracle in Bilbao. |
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• Introductory
Statement • Organizers
• Participants |
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