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Commentary and Essays - Archive

Commentary, Op-Ed pieces, Blogs, Essays

 

September 24, 2007
Culture Girl put it all together on her blog for Arts

"It takes a music critic to solve the Barnes problem."
Full story

 

September 22, 2007
ArtsWatch: The Wind Began to Shift
http://blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/ArtsWatch/2007/09/the_wind_began_to_shift.html
Posted by Peter Dobrin, music critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer
"There's a change in the air surrounding the Barnes Foundation's proposed move to Center City. Some part of that feeling, admittedly subjective, is hard to pin down. Other aspects of a possible change are more tangible. For one thing, Judge Ott has told Barnes trustees that they have some explaining to do. "
Full story

 

Barnes to downtown Philly? A Bad Move,” Christopher Hawthorne, architecture  
critic for Los Angeles Times
Relocating the collection to a new home in Philadelphia isn’t a good idea but architects have trouble saying ‘no’
Full story

 

We Had to Destroy the Village to Save It” by Richard Lacayo in TIME’s blog,
The financial problems of the Foundation are real, but the snatch-and-grab solution of relocating the collection to Philadelphia is no solution at all. It isn't salvation. It isn't even euthanasia. It's death by disembowelment.
Full story

 

Burying Albert Barnes in the Philly MegaBarnes,” by Lee Rosenbaum, CultureGrrl
The dutiful recreation of the old Barnes room layouts and art installations, as a small portion of the much greater whole, will reduce his galleries to an anachronistic time capsule, diminishing rather than celebrating his spirit and achievement.
Full Story

 

Ada Louise Huxtable, architecture critic for the Wall Street Journal, reacts to “Burying Albert Barnes” (CultureGrrl, above)
I simply cannot believe that anyone is seriously considering reproducing the old rooms in the wrongheaded assumption that this will somehow make it all okay.
Full Story

 

Excerpt from “Giver’s Remorse,” by Tyler Green in FORTUNE 
The most notorious donor-intent case involves the Barnes Foundation.
Full Story

 

The Barnes Commission: Where are Architecture’s Conscientious Objectors?”
Lee Rosenbaum, CultureGrrl (blog)                :                                                                       Full story

 

Keep the Barnes, and Build Another “ by Nancy Herman, Philadelphia Inquirer
Contemplating this problem of the Barnes Foundation and the desire of the City of Philadelphia to make hay out of the collection, I have come up with an idea I think could satisfy all involved. It would honor the ideas of Albert C. Barnes, create many new reasons to visit Philadelphia, and keep the original foundation intact.
Full Story

 

Statement of Marie C. Malaro from Friends of the Barnes Forum&
It is very important for the public to understand that the true losers in the Barnes Case are the people of the state of Pennsylvania, not just those arguing against the move of the Barnes Collection to downtown Philadelphia. I say this because the Barnes decision sets a frightening precedent for other nonprofits in the state - a precedent orchestrated by powerful political and financial interests without regard for the long-term consequences for the public.
Full Story

 

Invest in Barnes where it is” by Jim Gerlach in the Philadelphia Inquirer 
Gov. Rendell's proposal to spend $25 million in taxpayer money to facilitate the move of the Barnes Foundation collection from its rightful home in Merion, Montgomery County, to the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia is a shortsighted and ill-advised decision…This $25 million would be enough to keep the Barnes Foundation solvent in Merion, making the move to Philadelphia unnecessary.
Full Story

 

Behind the Barnes Bonanza” by David D’Arcy in Artnet
Coincidentally, Rendell's announcement of the $25-million grant came on the same day the Pennsylvania state legislators cut a $25-million appropriation to the Philadelphia school district. More school cuts are planned. Rendell noted at the announcement of the $25-million grant that the Barnes might well receive more state money.
Full Story

 

Losing the Barnes is Not An Option” by Robert Zaller
The plan to steal the Barnes from its rightful home in Lower Merion is built on three fallacies.  The first is that it is a done deal, and that all further resistance--or even discussion--is fruitless.  The lie is that the Barnes’ neighbors are hostile to it, and that local opinion is resigned or indifferent.  The third is that the Barnes has no choice but to move because its financial problems can be solved only by relocation to the Ben Franklin Parkway. 
Full Story

 

The Barnes and Historic Preservation – A Long Note by Robert Zaller
But the Barnes is not another covered bridge somewhere; it is an institution of world renown, and one of the world's great art repositories.  It is also a unique entity, the confluence of one man's vision at a moment of our country's social, political, and cultural history, and his astonishing realization of it.
Full Story

 

Art World Omertà” by Eric Gibson in The Wall St. Journal
Why is a museum association sitting on the sidelines of a major debate?
From time to time AAMD has taken a public position on an issue, most notably…when it convened a task force on art stolen by the Nazis;…While the Barnes situation isn't on that order of magnitude, it is the next most important museum issue of our time. Yet AAMD has remained silent.

Full Story

 

Intentions Be Damned!” by Tom. L. Freudenheim
Donors of art often find themselves betrayed, The Wall St. Journal
This will certainly change the Barnes Foundation from a school with serious, if eccentric, principles to a sexy destination venue for gawkers of this sort of art -- even though that's just what Dr. Barnes did not want for his art. Even more shocking is the fact that all of this has been done with the collusion of local museums and foundations.
Full Story

 

Untouchable” by Peter Schjeldahl in The New Yorker 
You don't view the installation so much as live it, undergoing an experience that will persist in your memory like a love affair that taught you some thrilling, and some dismaying, things about your character. If there were other places like the Barnes, dispensing with it would not be tragic. But one minus one is zero.
Full Story

 

Friends of the Barnes Foundation Forum Statement by Robert Zaller
Lord Elgin took the Elgin Marbles from Greece.  The Nazis looted art from all over Europe.  Now the Pew Charitable Trusts and their co-conspirators are trying to destroy the Barnes Foundation
Full Story

 

Art For Sale” by Michael Lewis in Commentary 
Barnes’s little reliquary of a museum—designed by Paul Cret, sculpted by Jacques Lipschitz, and painted by Henri Matisse—was designed for the objects it contains. It was, one might say, an installation piece, on a grand scale. Dismantled into its constituent parts and removed from its context, it will offer something far diminished—an instance of more people getting to see less.
Full Story

 

The Barnes should stay put”by Edward J. Sozanski in the Philadelphia Inquirer 
I wouldn't blame Judge Stanley Ott if he envied King Solomon….Determining a baby's real mother was child's play.
Full Story

 

Philadelphia Story” A Review of Art Held Hostage by John Anderson.
By Eric Gibson, Arts Editor of The Wall St. Journal
Mr. Anderson notes that H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, head of the eponymous foundation, is also chairman of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. All three of the Barnes-interested foundations are major donors to the museum. And that's just the beginning of the web of influence surrounding this proposed deal. Reading about it, one finds it hard not to conclude that the fix is in: Sooner or later, Albert Barnes's paintings will be keeping company with John G. Johnson's.
Full Story

 

The Barnes Files, an essay series. 

Friends of the Barnes Foundation produces an essay series in cooperation with The Main Line Times, in Ardmore, Pennsylvania to engage people to think about the history and fate of the Barnes Foundation in Merion. 

More Than an Art Collection” by Sandy Bressler
People say, “What’s wrong with moving the Barnes art collection to Philadelphia?  It will stay intact and remain in the region.”  This line of thinking ignores the fact that the Barnes is much more than an art collection. 
Full Essay

 

Barnes and Education” by Jay Raymond
It is my contention that those in favor of moving the art cannot understand what sort of education Dr. Barnes nurtured and intended, for if they did, this plan to move the art would make them weep, as I do when I contemplate what will be lost.
Full Essay

 

Eakins, Barnes, and a Great City” by Evelyn Yaari and Sandy Bressler
Great cities celebrate and protect their cultural heritage.  Rather than move the Barnes art collection to Philadelphia, let a shuttle bus move visitors from Philadelphia to the Barnes.  On the return trip, they would see an exquisite panorama of a truly great city, a generous city that acts wisely and honorably with the region’s artistic legacies.
Full Essay

 

A Grateful Student” by Michelle Osborn
I’m a graduate of Smith College, I learned Spanish at the University of Madrid… yet the most exciting educational experience of my long life was at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, PA.
Full Essay

 

Hostile Neighbors or Concerned Citizens?” by Evelyn Yaari
In June of last year, I joined Friends of the Barnes Foundation, the organization opposing the plan to move the artwork of the Barnes from Merion to Philadelphia and decided to throw myself into a personal street campaign…
Full Essay

 

Visionary Collectors” by Nancy Herman                             
When the average Philadelphian was of the opinion that Modigliani was an exotic pasta, that nothing African could be considered ‘art’ and that Renoir was a pornographer, Albert C. Barnes was collecting this art.
Full Essay

 

A Civic-Minded Woman” by Margot Flaks                         
Its Merion location is as much a part of the Barnes as its art and there is no other place quite like it. Once destroyed, there can be no willing it back.
Full Essay

 

Missing in Action -The Attorney General” by Aram Jerrehian
The Attorney General is missing in action.  Not Tennessee’s Attorney General…But rather, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General, whose office is charged with overseeing nonprofit corporations and reviewing the actions of trustees of trust.
Full Essay

 

Email:  barnesfriends@comcast.net
Write: 7615 St. Martin’s Lane
            Philadelphia, PA  19118

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