Krens the Great

--Edward

You may recall that lately I've been obsessed with the life of Alexander the Great, reading every biography of him I can lay my hands on. And I'm looking forward to seeing this exhibition at the Onassis Cultural Center. As cold-blooded conquerors go, Alexander was a hottie (see this image of Ghengis Khan for comparison). But his monomaniacal quest for glory saw Alexander lose his way, dragging his increasingly opportunistic and foreign forces around the known world, simply because it was there and he wanted it. None of the Greek idealists who set out with him on his conquest would recognize their leader (let alone his vision) by the end of his life.

I couldn't help but think of the Macedonian emperor when I read the story in today's NYTimes about Guggenheim Director Thomas Krens' imperialist designs. Despite the growing criticism and high-profile resignations, Krens keeps pushing further into exotic territory (with plans for possible Guggenheim satellites in Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, and Guadalajara) and bringing on board members who share his hunger for expansion:

Today's board is driven by leading members of New York's real estate world who share Mr. Krens's dreams of empire building. Besides [new chairman, William L. Mack, a real estate developer], one of five trustees who joined the board two years ago, they include Stephen M. Ross, founder and chief executive of the Related Companies, and Robert C. Baker, the chairman and chief executive of Purchase, a New York-based national realty and development corporation. [President, Jennifer Stockman] is president of Stockman & Associates, consultants specializing in technology.

Just like Alexander though, whose empire collapsed with a stunning expediency after his passing because he had too few true believers in key positions and had spread them too far apart, Krens is possibly building a global network of museums no one will be interested in defending after they're constructed (no true believers in Peggy's original vision, anyway).

But some board members - a defeated minority who decline to be quoted but say they believe the success of these satellites are exceptions - argue that the Guggenheim has no business trying to spread its name any further when there is so much work to be done at home.

Unlike Alexander who was known to murder his critics, Krens will nonviolently argue why he thinks his are wrong:

Mr. Krens defends himself against accusations of overspending and neglecting acquisitions and programming. He will probably be forever haunted by the critical ridicule of shows like "The Art of the Motorcycle," in 1998, and "Giorgio Armani," in 2000, even though they drew enthusiastic crowds.

"These perceptions are hard to dislodge," Mr. Krens said one morning, sipping an espresso in the lobby of the Mercer hotel in SoHo. He rattled off several historic exhibitions that rank among the 10 best-attended shows in the Guggenheim's history: "Africa: The Art of a Continent," in 1996; "China: 5,000 Years," in 1998, "Brazil: Body & Soul," in 2001; and "The Aztec Empire," which closed in February. He named some major retrospectives: those of Claes Oldenburg, Mr. Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg, Roni Horn and Matthew Barney.

Of course, one could point to mistakes (but no one could ignore the accomplishments) of Alexander during his lifetime, too. He always found a way. He was unstoppable. The problem with Krens, as with the Macedonian, is that he's building an army of imperialists, not true believer philanthropists. It doesn't seem likely that once he is gone the empire will continue to serve Peggy's vision.

(slightly different version cross-posted on my new art-centric blog)

Comments

[wilfred]

yeah edward! cool site! congratulations.

and you're right, ole alex is a hunk.

[Edward_]

thanks wilfred

the new site is having some tech problems though...not sure if I've already overloaded it or what, but comments are freakin' out.

[praktike]

hey, the art of the motorcycle rocked. and the peggy guggenheim museum in venice is nice. don't care much for bilbao, though.

[Anderson]

And he wept that there were no more markets to conquer ...

[NeoDude]

Edward,

So you know about your comment section. I tried to post a message for Mac, but it fritzed-out on me.

[Edward_]

yeah, thanks NeoDude...I'm not sure what's up with that.

You did eventually post a comment there, though.

hey, the art of the motorcycle rocked.

Sure, which is why it belonged here.

[sidereal]

And blogspot is way too generous giving out their raw error messages to users. I mean honestly. .

at com.google.blogger.base.Identity.getBlog(Identity.java:188)
at com.google.blogger.frontend.CommentCreateFormHandler.execute(CommentCreateFormHandler.java:103)
at com.google.servlet.handlers.AuthenticatedHandler.execute(AuthenticatedHandler.java:106)

you don't want to be giving your architecture details out.

Edward, I can tell you conclusively that a) Blogspot runs on Tomcat, which isn't very endearing and b) the problem is that the Blogspot service is out of memory on that box, which isn't very encouraging.

[votermom]

Neat blog. Will not let me post comments though ...

"The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request."
then a whole page of sttuff basically boiling down to this, I think
"java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: unable to create new native thread"

Using IE 6

[Edward_]

Edward, I can tell you conclusively that a) Blogspot runs on Tomcat, which isn't very endearing and b) the problem is that the Blogspot service is out of memory on that box, which isn't very encouraging.

I kind of pieced that together myself, sidereal, but even their "email" functionality returns the same error.

after just having moved into their new home, the Jones discovered a large family of very fat termites were already been living there.

Given that my user id is number 8558423, I'm not terribly surprised.

It's free and like they say, if it looks too good be to true, it most likely is. ;-(

[Edward_]

Neat blog. Will not let me post comments though ...

Thanks votermom. The comments seem to be fixed now...said the big ol' blogwhore

[xanax]

Edward? You don't think Genghis is cute (in that young Charley Chan kind of way)?? OMG!

[xanax]

or even Ghengis????

[Jackmormon]

Edward, I've got to agree with you about the Guggenheim. They keep opening museums when they have no cash--and STILL they charge more than any other museum in NYC (or practically anywhere else, for that matter). I'm a regular musuem-goer, but almost never to the Guggenheim...

[Jay C.]

Interesting piece, Edward (and congrats on the new blog). FWIW, I think Thomas Krens is onto something here - although the museum world being what it is, the fundamentals (i.e., roping in ego-driven moguls and tourism-happy municipalities to finance and maintain a chain of Guggenheims worldwide) will probably not go deeply examined - except by the occasional intrepid blogger. Unless, of course, the whole mess collapses: but that's another story...
I think your "Alexandrian" simile is apt: except that Krens seems to making sure, from the get-go that he finds the right "Ptolemy" here, or the right "Seleucus" there to keep the franchise going on into the future, even if he isn't around to see it.

PS: did this appear on the other blog?

[NeoDude]

Turning museums into fast-food places?

How postmodern.

McGuggenheims, over a billion severed.

[JerryN]

Jackmormon - just nitpicking, but at $20, the new MoMA has them beat by five bucks a head. In fact, the Met's recommended contribution is the same as the Guggenheim's admission. Of course, if you have no shame, you can stroll into the Met for free :-)

[Edward_]

In fact, the Met's recommended contribution is the same as the Guggenheim's admission. Of course, if you have no shame, you can stroll into the Met for free :-)

and I do! (have no shame and stroll in for free)

[wren]

Congrats on the new blog; will read it often.

Some of us are green with envy over those who stroll through the Met and the Guggenheim, shamelessly or not.

[jeet]

That's not Genghis. That's Kublai.

[Edward]

It's Kublai?

The site I stole it from said it was Genghis

so was Genghis any cuter?