visual reality
by Lee Rosenbaum
3/18/96
REVENGE OF THE BLOCKBUSTER
A new breed of art impresario whose strong 
suit is showmanship, not scholarship, is 
moving in on the blockbuster business. As 
exemplified by both the "Wonders" exhibition 
series based in Memphis, Tenn. and the 
Florida International Museum, St. 
Petersburg, these presenters hire art 
experts as temps; shell out megabucks to 
borrow treasures from money-hungry foreign 
museums; construct lavish installations 
recreating the ambiance of tomb, temple or 
palace; charge hefty admission fees; and 
promote the whole package like an art 
theme-park. The goal is to attract 
thousands of visitors and millions of 
tourist dollars.

The latest manifestation: "Splendors of 
Ancient Egypt," artifacts from the Roemer- 
und Pelizaeus-Museum of Hildesheim, 
Germany, on view through July 7 at the 
Florida International Museum, a renovated 
former department store. The faux-papyrus 
press release promises "a taste of the 
actual Karnak experience--using mirrors 
and two dozen massive columns to completely 
surround the visitor with the magnificence 
of the temple." Another gallery recreates 
a pharaoh's burial chamber. The audio 
guide narrator is Charlton Heston, whose 
memoirs are on sale in the museum shop.
Now drawing some 2,700 visitors a day, the 
show almost didn't happen. The organizers 
spent $3.5 million by their own reckoning 
($4.8-6 million, according to press 
reports) on aborted plans to bring 72 
artifacts from the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. 
The money was partially raised through $1.5 
million in loans guaranteed by the City of 
St. Petersburg.
Trouble was, the Floridians never got a 
written commitment from the Egyptians. 
Dissatisfied with the financial and touring 
arrangements, the Egyptians walked from the 
deal just one week before the show was to 
open. The desperate Florida organizers 
managed to snare another show to fit the 
already designed Egyptian galleries--175 
stone reliefs, sarcophagi, papyrus scrolls, 
jewelry and statues from the Hildesheim 
museum, which is undergoing renovation. 
Reflecting the chaotic state of affairs, 
the show's catalogue features the Cairo 
objects, not those on display. The St. 
Petersburg organizers are now scrambling to 
sign up four to six more venues. Despite 
the confusion, the exhibition itself is 
first rate; the Houston Museum of Fine 
Arts has expressed interest for the fall.

It should be noted that even the 
Metropolitan Museum of Art has been a 
helpless victim of foriegn lenders. It 
happened with the last-minute indefinite 
postponement of the Medieval Spain Show 
two years ago, and it nealy happened with 
the current "Splendors of Imperial China: 
treasures from the National Museum of 
Taipei."

The Florida museum's next attraction: Greek 
art from the era of Alexander the Great, to 
be drawn from two currently touring 
exhibitions, one organized by the Greek 
Ministry of Culture, the other by the 
Fondazione Memmo of Rome. Scheduled to 
open Oct. 7, the show may catch some of the 
media hoopla surrounding the proposed 
Presidential candidates debate in St. 
Petersburg on Oct. 9. But is there a 
signed exhibition contract? Not at this 
writing.

Meanwhile, those craving the no-mirrors 
approach to Egyptology should head to 
Cleveland: "Pharaohs: Treasures of Egyptian 
Art from the Louvre,"Cleveland Museum of 
Art through Apr. 14.

TALKING OF MICHELANGELO
You've heard what the Michelangelo virus 
can do to your hard drive. There's another 
strain that periodically infects 
susceptible art historians, who start 
seeing visions of the master's long-lost 
(and presumably destroyed) works in the 
most unlikely places. Could we be 
witnessing another such outbreak in the 
feverish excitement over the putative 
"Michelangelo of Fifth Avenue"? New York 
University professor Kathleen Weil-Garris 
Brandt assures us that a lifetime of study 
has prepared her for this discovery, and 
that her archival research in four 
countries confirms it. Trouble is, she 
expects us to accept all this on faith, 
until her research is published in The 
Burlington Magazine, tentatively scheduled 
for July.

Meanwhile, she's lined up a roster of 
curatorial and professorial supporters, 
some of whom haven't actually set eyes on 
the work but nevertheless find her pitch 
convincing. She also found a receptive ear 
in John Russell of the New York Times, to 
whom she spoon-fed the scoop in a letter 
that she said he requested after she 
contacted him. The boy's photo landed on 
the front page, discreetly cropped above 
the genitals (befitting a family 
newspaper).

Other distinguished Michelangelo experts, 
most notably professors Leo Steinberg and 
James Beck, have eyed the ungainly weakling 
in the Cultural Services of the French 
Embassy in New York and asked, "Where's the 
beef?" Unlike the Michelangelos we know 
and love, this boy's got no muscle. The 
expression on his face, called "rapturous" 
by Brandt, tends more towards vacuous. But 
some allowances must be made for the 
possibility that this is an early work by a 
budding genius on an off-day.

Whatever it is, the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, eager to get in on the act, has
invited the Louvre (because the French 
government owns the sculpture) to co-
organize an exhibition that would display 
the questionable Michelangelo in the 
company of unquestioned ones. Maybe they 
should put it to a vote by the hoards of 
curious visitors who will undoubtedly flock 
to the spectacle.

WHO'S THE BOSS?
It's Hugo--the German menswear company 
that's playing major Medici with a $50,000 
annual artist's prize to be administered by 
the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. 
Whatever else you want to say about the 
Guggenheim's director, Tom Krens, he knows 
how to catch big fish for splashy projects. 
(Hugo Boss also recently committed to major 
ongoing support for Guggenheim Museum 
exhibitions.) The new prize will recognize 
"a body of recent work representing a major 
aesthetic achievement or a significant 
development in contemporary art." It can 
go to an established or emerging artist of 
any age or nationality.

Suddenly entrusted with one of the 
world's richest art awards, the Guggenheim 
could have exercised more imagination in 
picking the jury. It includes Krens, two 
Guggenheim curators (Lisa Dennison, Nancy 
Spector), and the president of the 
Guggenheim's International Director's 
Council (Athens businessman Dakis Joannou, 
whose collection of recent American and 
European art will be shown at the 
Guggenheim SoHo). The two other jurors are 
Marie-Claude Beaud, executive director of 
the insolvent American Center in Paris, 
which recently closed after unsuccessfully 
proposing a partnership with the 
Guggenheim, and Fumio Nanjo, Japanese art 
curator and critic.

The award, to be announced this fall, also 
includes an exhibition--at the Guggenheim, 
of course.



LEE ROSENBAUM has written on the art world 
for 24 years and is author of The Complete 
Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf). She is 
contributing editor of  ARTnews magazine and 
writes frequently for the Wall Street 
Journal "Leisure & Arts" page and Art in 
America magazine. Her articles have also 
appeared in the New York Times, London 
Daily Telegraph, Barron's, Money, and New 
York, among others.