HOW TO REBUILD
THE GUGGENHEIM
by Jerry Saltz



On the last day of July, the art world awoke to a disturbance in the Force. The New York Times announced that Lisa Dennison, the director of the Guggenheim Museum since only 2005, would be leaving to become executive vice-president for Sotheby’s North America. Dennison wasn’t the best director around; she may have been only a puppet. But she was capably playing the role of Gerald Ford to this troubled institution, helping to bring the Guggenheim back from its 17-year nightmare under the reign of Thomas Krens. This self-styled shah of culture and franchising has been described as "cold, distracted and rarely on hand." I would add reckless, destructive, myopic and misguided.

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