The Guggenheim Museum has lost its chairperson and chief benefactor in a row over the direction of the world-famous institution.
The stetson-wearing, yacht-owning billionaire Peter B Lewis has resigned after having donated a total of $77-million to the institution.
Lewis, who has been the Guggenheim’s chairperson since 1998 and a trustee since 1993, stood down on Wednesday evening after a three-hour board meeting. He cited ”differences in direction” between him and the museum’s controversial director, Thomas Krens.
At the heart of the dispute lies Krens’s ambition to expand the Guggenheim into a worldwide brand — a strategy critics say has overstretched the institution’s artistic and financial resources and has arguably led to the commercialisation of a once deeply respected modern art collection.
Lewis told the New York Times that he felt the museum should ”concentrate more on New York and less on being scattered all over the world”.
According to a Guggenheim spokesperson, Lewis had aired his concerns about the international expansion of the museum and about its management, and there was a discussion. The board hoped he would stay but he decided to go.
”The board enthusiastically and unanimously gave its commitment to the museum’s management and reiterated its commitment to the museum’s international strategy,” said the spokesperson.
Under Krens’s leadership the Guggenheim has become a global brand. When he took over in 1988 it had two bases: its Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in Manhattan, and an elegant palazzo in Venice. Now, it also has the Frank Gehry-designed museum in Bilbao, and an outpost in Berlin.
But that was just the beginning of Krens’s expansion plans, though not all of them have been as successful as the Bilbao Guggenheim, which attracts nearly a million visitors a year. In 2001 he opened a Rem Koolhaas-designed Las Vegas branch, which was forced to close after 15 months. A SoHo outpost, in New York, was established — but also had to close in 2001. And, crushingly, plans for a big Lower Manhattan museum were forced on to the shelf in 2002.
Meanwhile, the roll call of other cities that have been in talks with the Guggenheim about establishing a branch is almost endless. Taichung in Taiwan was mooted, with a museum to be built by the British architect Zaha Hadid. Even Edinburgh made a pitch.
Krens is currently forging ahead with plans to establish a Guggenheim in Rio de Janeiro, with architecture by the French-born Jean Nouvel, and he is undertaking a feasibility study for another in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Krens once said that the museum of the future should have ”great collections, great architecture, a great special exhibition, a great second exhibition, two shopping opportunities, two eating opportunities, a hi-tech interface via the internet, and economies of scale via a global network”.
But what has been called the ”McDonaldisation” of the Guggenheim has had its critics. Observers have felt that it has stretched its collection and resources too thin, while programming nakedly commercial exhibitions such as one devoted to motorbikes in 1998 and a retrospective of Giorgio Armani’s fashion designs. He gave the Guggenheim $15-million.
At the same time, the main home on Fifth Avenue has been looking shabby and unloved, despite a round of fundraising for renovations from trustees — chief among them Lewis.
At the end of 2002, visitor numbers in New York were down 25% on the previous year. Lewis gave the institution a $12-million bailout, but there were strings attached: ”In the last four or five months, I have stopped cajoling and started seriously threatening,” he said at the time. ”I said, Tom, either you come back with a real plan, or we will have to talk about your leaving.”
Since 1965 Lewis has been chief executive officer of the Ohio-based Progressive Corporation, the US’s third-biggest motor insurance company.
In the run-up to the US election he became the biggest single donor — dishing out more than $14-million — to independent, Democrat-leaning groups involved in such activities as increasing voter turnout.
His lavish gift-giving would be sorely missed by the museum were it to dry up now. A Guggenheim spokesperson said: ”Mr Lewis absolutely will honour any outstanding commitments. He is deeply involved with and devoted to the institution.”
Art history
The Guggenheim was founded in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, and was originally housed in a former car showroom.
It takes its name from philanthropist R. Solomon Guggenheim, who set up a foundation to run the museum and who envisioned a unique institution for a radical new artform.
Its current New York home was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and opened in 1959.
A continuous ramp spirals around the building, taking visitors down five floors. It was restored in 1992 and a new tower added to increase gallery space.
The artwork is largely from six private collections, those of Guggenheim himself, his niece Peggy, and Justin Thannhauser, Karl Nierendorf, Katherine S. Dreier and Giuseppe Panza di Biumo.
The collection of about 10 000 works includes pieces by Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Salvador DalÃÂ, Paul Cézanne and Andy Warhol, and covers the period from the late 19th century to the present, encompassing the cubist, impressionist and pop art movements among others. Works by 169 artists are accessible online.
The museum houses exhibitions on the Aztec empire and Keith Haring’s New Aztecs work.
Recent acquisitions include Matthew Ritchie’s The Proposition Player (2003) and William Baziotes’ The Parachutists (1944).
The Guggenheim opened a branch at Las Vegas’s Venetian casino in 2001, but closed 15 months later. It was meant to join galleries in Venice, Bilbao and Berlin. – Guardian Unlimited Â