The women behind the museum-renovation boom
Plus, more mess in the U.S.
Hello. Since the last time we spoke, I have:
Finished Office Politics by Wilfrid Sheed and read Bibliophobia by Sarah Chihaya.
Watched Flow (2024) with my cat (she liked it).
Started using Pimsleur for my various language-learning pursuits. Maybe it is time for me to find a tutor?
Onto the news.
The British Museum has announced that Lebanese-born architect Lina Ghotmeh, founder of the Paris-based practice LG—A, has won the museum’s competition to redesign its Western Range galleries. I first saw the news on director Nicholas Cullinan’s Instagram, which included a few images of Ghotmeh’s proposed designs. Cullinan wrote:
Her initial ideas for us…unanimously impressed the jury with their beauty, sensitivity and ingenuity and for her deep interest in archeology. These including using Portland stone spolia, 40% of which otherwise goes to waste and the striated surface of the process of chiselling would instead be employed here, along with rubble from the building process being reused to line the walls of the Lycian wing to ravishing effect.
Ghotmeh’s proposed use of natural stone and light is indeed quite striking—the design is at once contemporary and timeless. This won’t be the first museum she’s worked on, either—Cullinan noted that the architect, now 44, won a competition to redesign the Estonian National Museum when she was just 26. That structure is oblong and expansive, featuring glacial surfaces and towering panels of glass.
But Ghotmeh’s proposal for the BM made me think of another recently announced museum redesign: architect Frida Escobedo’s plans for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s forthcoming Tang wing, which were announced in December. The 46-year-old Mexican architect similarly incorporates light-reflective natural stone and strategically arranged windows into her design to create a space that is suffused with the sunlight that passes through Central Park.
Escobedo and Ghotmeh both imagine museums with a sense of openness that may very well better contextualize the artworks that will inhabit them. The BM, of course, must still contend with its oft-questioned claim to the Elgin Marbles and other artifacts, though it has reiterated its intention to increase its practice of loaning objects (as we previously discussed, the Museum’s ties to Parliament do complicate the question of repatriation). Both the Met and the British Museum, in their renovation plans, express a desire to make their spaces more amenable to larger numbers of people—not only physically, but also intellectually, fostering dialogues of cultural exchange, equity, and inclusion.
Escobedo and Ghotmeh aren’t the only female architects tasked with creating the museum of the future. The woman behind the Frick Museum’s nearly completed renovation is Annabelle Selldorf, 64, founder of the New York City-based Selldorf Architects. The Frick offers a starkly different experience from the Met or the British Museum, with its 1914 foundation that once served as a private residence. With its more intimate galleries, the Frick places its collection of European art in cozy, ornate context. Selldorf’s work improves ADA accessibility of the museum and introduces new educational spaces, as well as new galleries, including a special exhibition area, which will allow the Frick to better showcase works on loan without reducing the visibility of its permanent collection.
The German-born architect has been busy: She’s also behind the refurbishment of the National Gallery’s Sainsbury Wing, a project that increases the amount of light let into the building’s entrance floor and offers greater space for visitors to gather—and, upon its completion in May, should also reduce the amount of time visitors must queue for security, if all goes according to plan.
Here are two other female architects you should have on your radar: French-Iranian architect India Mahdavi, whose first museum project, PoMo, a modern and contemporary art museum in Trondheim, Norway, just opened last week, and Róisín Heneghan, one-half of the husband-wife duo Heneghan Peng Architects, who designed the long-awaited and recently opened Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Now let’s see who wins the Louvre’s forthcoming competition to remodel its entrance. We may very well see one of these names again.
Architecture is only one part of the equation when it comes to making the modern museum. What about wall text and curation? A new feature in Apollo suggests that some American museums may have gone a step too far in their attempts to admonish the past. Writer Walker Mimms particularly points to the Brooklyn Museum’s recent rehang of its American Art galleries in honor of its 200th anniversary, which recontexualizes artworks not just in their curation, but also with new wall text:
Find the microscopically detailed, 12-foot-long canvas of a storm in the Rocky Mountains by Albert Bierstadt (1866), one of the more cinematic Hudson River painters. More than half the label concerns the politics behind the naming of the peak. Nothing on divine mediation or the Native Americans in the foreground, Bierstadt’s crux. Conventional as they may have been, the old labels at least named some of Bierstadt’s aims and, through them, the fact that his movement ‘occasionally inserted Native bodies into depictions of the American wilderness to reinforce the stereotype that Indigenous people were equally untamed.’ It’s a point grounded in, and enriching of, the picture itself.
While the context of the location shown in the painting may be of interest to viewers, that context ultimately evades the intention of the artist, and therefore, the real significance of the work. This kind of moralistic overcorrection makes me think of the contemporary tendency to assume that a work of fiction is problematic because it features a character whose behavior or thoughts seem “problematic”—ignorant of the fact that should go without saying, that a work of fiction is not a how-to guide of modern morality. RTs ≠ endorsement.
There is certainly a happy medium museums can strike, bringing contemporary commentary and creations into conversation with those from centuries past. But that requires trust that a viewer can come to certain conclusions on their own. Some museums get this right. The Met, Mimms assents, does often “leave its viewers space to make their own interpretation” in its American Wing.
Repatriation, as we’ve discussed many times before is an ongoing (good!) trend in the museum world; most recently, the Netherlands said it would return more than 100 Benin bronze artifacts, which had been stolen by the British and sold to the Dutch, to Nigeria. But this practice also comes with challenges. Cambodia’s National Museum, for instance, has been so overwhelmed with returned artifacts that had been looted and trafficked—and still, thousands of stolen items remain in museums and collections worldwide.
The issue is that the Cambodian museum doesn’t currently have the space to properly display the hundreds of returned artifacts it has received, especially not for a Cambodian audience, which views such statues as religious figures, rather than pure art, the New York Times reported. The need for a renovation and expansion is clear, though it remains uncertain who will finance such a project, or when it may be completed; while several Cambodian tycoons have offered funding, some academics say that the West has a responsibility to pay restitution. Former colonial power France, at the very least, is financing research into a potential expansion.
A few more pieces of museum news: The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, located in Sydney, reversed its free-admission policy (though it is “is looking to maintain free entry for under 18s and for Australian students”) and will now charge A$20 per person for entry, in order to safeguard the institution’s future, as its government funding has remained stagnant since 2008, The Art Newspaper reported.
North America will get its first Leonardo da Vinci Museum in Pueblo Colorado late this year. It will focus on science, art, and technology, with “interactive exhibitions and life-sized replicas based on da Vinci’s drawings and sketches,” ArtNews reported.
More mess in the U.S. thanks to the current administration: The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston shut down on Tuesday after the Trump admin fired five federal employees, most of whom made less than $60,000 annually. The following day, director Alan Price and deputy director James Roth—who earn a combined $323,000 a year—manned the front desk, but didn’t charge visitors for tickets because they didn’t know how to. Only one remaining employee knew how, but “he was busy preparing material to train others to take over,” the Washington Post reported.
Over in Atlanta, three book events—covering topics including climate change, the civil rights movement, and homelessness—at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum were canceled last week, the New York Times reported. There was a bit of finger-pointing about why, exactly, this happened. The National Archives runs all 13 presidential libraries (though they all have access to private funds that their respective foundations raise), and author Elaine Weiss, whose event for her book Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools that Built the Civil Rights Movement was among those canceled, told the NYT that her publicist at Simon & Schuster said that the Carter library was undergoing staff cuts and needed “approval from Washington for all programming.” Neither Simon & Schuster nor the Carter Library responded to the NYT’s request for comment.
The National Archives press office didn’t directly respond to the Times’s questions about these cancelations but shared a statement saying it trusts leadership at each library to make programming decisions, but programs should uphold the National Archives’s “core mission: to preserve the records of the United States and make them available to the public.” This all comes on the heels of multiple resignations at the Archives. On Truth Social, Trump said he was appointing Jim Byron, president and CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation, to serve as the senior advisor to Marco Rubio, who Trump named in February as temporary lead archivist—an appointment that Archives employees were unaware of for weeks.
There aren’t many new updates about the Kennedy Center beyond what we’ve already discussed, though the future of the Center and its programming do seem very much up in the air. The Times noted (as we already know) that the Kennedy Center does rely on fundraising, which may or may not be a challenge for Trump; obviously he’s had no problem getting his followers to shell out for his own invented currency, but can he get them to fund the arts? And what art, with that funding, might actually be produced? We’ll have to see.
The war on literacy has taken another turn as Indiana is ending its 50 percent matching funds for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program to support children in that state. Parton—an outspoken lover of books—started the Imagination Library in 1995 and today, it mails more than 2 million free books to children around the world every month, including 125,000 children in Indiana, The Daily Beast reported. Since the news of Indiana’s budget cuts came out, governor Mike Braun announced that his wife, first lady Maureen Braun would work with “philanthropic partners and consult with state leadership to identify funding opportunities for the book distribution program,” IndyStar reported. Alright…
Remember when we talked about the AI slop bogging down libraries? Well, after 404 Media’s investigation into this issue, Hoopla—one of the ebook providers for public libraries—said it would do more to restrict such slop from getting through its system…though not all are comforted by its vague statement. Jennie Rose Halperin, executive director at Library Futures, told 404: “This statement, which is very light on details, continues to avoid accountability for the expensive and shoddy product they are vending. Around the country, libraries are under attack by censors and book banners for simply providing access to quality resources that serve the needs of their communities, and hoopla’s model puts them further at risk.”
After resigning from the Kennedy Center, soprano Renée Fleming is trying her hand at something new: directing. She’ll make her debut directing Mozart’s Così fa tutte at the Aspen festival in July. “It’s supposed to be royalty or aristocracy,” she said of the 18th century fiancée-swapping opera. “I’m putting this more in high school, 1980, Yarmouth, Massachusetts, at the beginning of World Wide Wrestling. ... Also, the early ‘80s was Jane Fonda aerobics.” Why not!
The San Francisco Symphony has appointed its first Black principal player in more than 50(!) years. Joshua Elmore will become the orchestra’s principal bassoonist and its only(!) current Black player. “I think that my appointment is not just a change, but the beginning of a new time,” the 27-year-old Juilliard grad told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Representation is so unbelievably important. Young people need to feel that they belong. I had few people to look up to, growing up, who looked like me. I’m looking forward to being that beacon of light for younger players.”
More than 400 artists of varied disciplines signed a letter to the National Endowment for the Arts asking it to reverse course on its recently policy changes, which, in accordance with Trump’s executive orders, says grant recipients may not promote DEI or “gender ideology” (aka, recognize that gender exists on a spectrum beyond two sexes). Former MacArthur grant recipient and theater director Annie Dorsen spearheaded the effort and shared the letter with the New York Times. It reads, in part, “abandoning our values is wrong, and it won’t protect us. Obedience in advance only feeds authoritarianism.” NEA spokeswoman Elizabeth Auclair told the Times that the endowment, as a federal agency, would “fully comply with the law.”
If you’re looking for a good non-fiction read, perhaps consider one of the five books shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas prizes, which honor “excellence in nonfiction that exemplifies the literary grace and commitment to serious research and social concern.” Finalists include Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life by Richard Beck and By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land by Rebecca Nagle.
Your longread for the week is this piece by Judith Butler, published in Lit Hub, on the necessity of the humanities for a strong democracy. ▲