News Roundup: The snowballing of a controversy over the New Museum’s decision to exhibit trustee Dakis Joannou’s collection
Monday, November 16th, 2009In September, the New Museum announced a series of exhibition entitled “The Imaginary Museum,” the first of which will be curated by Jeff Koons from the collection of Dakis Joannou, who in addition to heavy collecting the work of Koons, is a trustee of the museum. The museum’s decision to show works from the collection of one of its trustees raised some ethical red flags by several bloggers, and last week gained momentum with a front page article on the NY Times followed by considerable coverage elsewhere, including an editorial in The Art Newspaper by Modern Art Notes’ Tyler Green, who had previously blogged about the situation, and responses by Jerry Saltz in New York Magazine. The cover of the November issue of the Brooklyn Rail featured a satirical cartoon by artist William Powhida with the title, “How the New Museum Committed Suicide with Banality,” taken by a post by James Wagner, skewering the incestuousness and insiderness of the New Museum, and Artinfo called the controversy the “New Museum scandal.” The New Museum responded in defense, and a number of other museum directors also defended the museum’s decision.
Dakis Joannou and Jeff Koons at the New Museum’s 30th Anniversary Gala in 2007 via The Art Newspaper (more…)
