Things have been out-of-sorts for me lately and probably for a good reason, but I have been paying attention to the Corcoran conundrum.

The institution, in the past, has always been a vital counterpart to DC’s Smithsonian Institionalized museum fare. In fact, post-Mapplethorpe brouhaha, the museum has been practically cutting edge.
I am always grateful to have completed a highly satisfying and grant-funded year-long project at Corcoran in 1996-97.
I left the country to pursue other things and came back in 2000 and was muy disappointed by the exhibition line-up at the Corcoran upon my return.

The bulbous Gehry project to me, seems like a vestige of the grandiose bubbly late nineties – and has indeed become a clichee.
DC – ostensibly the world’s nerve center - never can never be re-imagined like Bilbao simply because we are simultaneously known for and governed by our classical and iconic architecture and are deadened by a sheep-man sensibility. Not to mention the division between the classes and daunting housing market… talk about another bubble. The powers that be will never re-imagine the landscape of this city… it seems to be plowing along well despite its lameness.

The populist and hardly-inspired exhibits (Norman Rockwell, Jackie O) have been obviously geared to bring in the revenue to fund the flashy extension.
Sorry, the touristas would rather do Air & $pace Museum.
And the Corcoran has turned off loyal art enthusiasts and educated patrons.

So the plan was to cram the creation between the existing, aged, beautiful - and much need of repairs - building in the parking lot against a highly uninspired 70’s office structure, on a pretty much side sort of street.
I’m all for bringing visibility and excitement to the Corcoran and modernizing DC’s vista, but with homeland security hindering access to much of the public area (the Executive Building and the White House are in direct vicinity), and I don’t see that changing any time soon… and don’t really see the point right now…

I’m actually sad to see Director David Levy go – he has remarkable ties to post mid-century art (Larry Rivers!!!) and, at one time, tremendous vision. I’m sure the craptacular exhibits were a result of appeasing the trustees and bringing in paying visitors and realizing what was, at a certain time, the forward-thinking boon of a trendy Gehry extension.

Anyways, I’m out of a gig too, despite my best efforts.
Contract dropped after almost four years. And I don’t trust nobody.
Off to Upstate New York for a wedding and Vermont for a funeral.
When I get back have to create my own Re-Invention Tour.
Washington Post article for your courtesy about the debacle after the jump.

Corcoran Director Quits; Trustees Shelve Gehry Plans
By Bob Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 24, 2005; C01
David C. Levy resigned yesterday as president and director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The Corcoran's board of trustees, meanwhile, suspended the museum's efforts to build a new wing designed by architect Frank Gehry, for which fundraising largely has stalled.
"If you don't have your money, you can't build it," said board Chairman John T. "Til" Hazel. "And we can't afford the enormous cost of fishing trips until we find a better way to target the donor base that we really need."
In a prepared statement, Levy told the board that the 136-year-old Washington institution had "made a great deal of progress over the 14 years of my tenure," adding that "we are on the brink of securing the Corcoran's future for generations to come." He acknowledged that completing the Gehry project was an "enormous challenge," but he disagreed strongly with the board's decision.
"Publicly 'suspending' the Gehry campaign," he said, "is tantamount to declaring it dead and buried."
Levy had been under pressure from board members who felt that his focus on the Gehry project had kept the museum from addressing other pressing needs.
The board also moved to begin developing new operational and strategic plans for the museum. Included will be a reexamination of the Corcoran's "mission and identity" and a plan to deal with persistent operating deficits and necessary renovations to the museum's existing Beaux-Arts building on 17th Street, which was built in 1897 and which requires, Hazel said, $35 million to $40 million worth of repairs. The repairs were to have been part of the broader Gehry project. Hazel said the museum would ask the permission of donors to redirect their money.
In addition, the board elected Jeanette Ruesch -- a former executive of the financial services company Ruesch International and the widow of former Corcoran board chairman Otto Ruesch -- as its new chairman, with Hazel becoming vice chairman.
Ruesch, Hazel and strategic planning committee head Paul Corddry said that the Gehry effort could be revived if one or two large donors came up with $100 million.
Architect Gehry, reached while traveling in Italy, said that businesspeople on museum boards sometimes overreact to financial problems "because they're used to keeping companies in the black, and when they see red ink, they don't understand that's the way every museum in the world is." With the push for the new wing suspended, the architect wondered, "How are they going to find another director of any significant kind?"
It is unclear how the Corcoran's donor base will respond to the news of the project's suspension and Levy's departure. But Olga Hirshhorn -- a leading art collector who has been involved with the Corcoran since 1977 -- said yesterday she was withdrawing a significant gift to the museum because of its treatment of Levy. Hirshhorn, who has already given the museum hundreds of artworks, said she was canceling plans to donate her remaining art holdings, as well as one-third of her residuary estate.
The Gehry project was launched with great fanfare in June 1999. The hope was that commissioning a wing by the celebrated architect, whose stunning Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, had become a tourist mecca, would help the Corcoran stand out in a city crammed with competing art museums.
Drawing crowds and establishing an identity were only part of it, however. "A museum should regard its building not simply as a receptacle where you put art, but as a work of art itself," Levy explains in a celebratory video called "Mr. Gehry Goes to Washington" that has been playing over and over near the Corcoran's main entrance.
Levy came to the Corcoran in 1991. Described in one Washington Post report as a "mild-mannered, bright-eyed art school dean from New York," he left the chancellorship of the New School for Social Research to take over an institution in crisis. His predecessor had first planned and then canceled an exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, the homoerotic content of which had drawn criticism from conservatives. The cancellation created a furor, enraging those who felt -- as did Levy -- that the Corcoran should have stood up for freedom of expression.
Levy's own exhibition record has received mixed critical reviews. The museum won praise for, among others, shows of photographs by Robert Frank and Sally Mann and for some of its Biennial exhibitions. But some Corcoran exhibitions in recent years have been panned with unusual ferocity. Post art critic Blake Gopnik objected strongly to "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years" -- arguing that the former first lady's dresses were celebrity relics, not art -- and called "Beyond the Frame: The Sculpture of J. Seward Johnson" the worst museum exhibition he had ever seen. A reviewer in Artforum denounced an exhibition by painter Larry Rivers in similarly strong language.
Talking last week about his years at the Corcoran, Levy noted that there are "two kinds of exhibitions," those designed to draw crowds and those more focused on artistic and scholarly excellence. Mentioning shows featuring the photographs of Annie Leibovitz and the paintings of Norman Rockwell as popular attractions he was pleased with, he also pointed with pride to a "beautiful and scholarly" one-room exhibition of paintings by an underappreciated American modernist.
"Nobody on the street ever heard of Francis Criss," he said. "People came and they were astounded by it."
In his own view, the recovery of the Corcoran after the Mapplethorpe fiasco has been one of the "extraordinary art world success stories."
Both Levy and members of the Corcoran board underlined the extraordinary bad luck the Corcoran had encountered since the Gehry project was launched: the bursting of the "new economy" bubble at a time when technology entrepreneurs were becoming increasingly important to its fundraising; the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and subsequent security measures that drove away potential visitors; and the untimely death of Otto Ruesch.
Levy said that he decided only yesterday morning to resign. His differences with Hazel and his supporters were "developing into a real fight," he said, the continuation of which would damage the Corcoran.
Ruesch said the board had passed a resolution thanking Levy for serving the Corcoran with "passion and distinction and dedication." But she also said that his overwhelming commitment to the Gehry wing would have made it difficult for the museum, under his leadership, to make the adjustments it must make.
Barring the emergence of an angel bearing $100 million, then, it appears that the Corcoran's Gehry dream is unlikely to come true. It lives on for now, though, in an architectural model -- on display in the lobby of the museum -- that draws admiration from the visitors who cluster around it. Last Saturday afternoon, one man motioned excitedly for his family to come take a closer look.
"It's really something!" he said.
Staff writers Jacqueline Trescott and Benjamin Forgey contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/19/AR2005051901864.html

Corcoran Could Clip Its New Wing
Chairman Says Ailing Gallery Can't Afford Frank Gehry's Showpiece
By Bob Thompson and Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 20, 2005; A01
The Corcoran Gallery of Art's chairman said yesterday that the 136-year-old institution is in such serious financial straits that it should suspend efforts to build its much-heralded new wing, for which architect Frank Gehry has already completed a design, and replace its longtime director.
The suspension of the Gehry effort could come as early as Monday, when the board is scheduled to discuss a new strategic plan for the Corcoran. "In the foreseeable future, there's no choice," board of trustees Chairman John T. "Til" Hazel said, citing broad financial difficulties facing the Washington landmark, which includes both the museum and the Corcoran College of Art and Design.
Hazel said he and fellow trustee Paul Corddry approached President and Director David C. Levy earlier this week and suggested he offer his resignation.
Levy declined. The heart of the disagreement, he said, was that "I believe this city and region can support the campaign to get that building built, and they don't." He said Hazel and Corddry had approached him "without full consultation of the board leadership." But Levy, who has led the Corcoran since 1991, also said he would step aside if a bitter fight developed over his leadership.
"I'm not going to be a spoiler," he said. "I have too much respect for this institution."
The Corcoran announced its plan for the Gehry wing with great fanfare in June 1999. It was a bold stroke for a museum with a severe identity problem, and one that faced tremendous competition from larger, better-funded public entities such as the National Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution.
The hope was that adding a wing by the celebrated Gehry -- whose undulating, titanium-skinned Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, had grabbed so much attention that people began referring to "the Bilbao effect" -- would turn the old, gray Corcoran, with its small but choice collection of primarily 19th-century American art, into a must-see destination. It would raise the museum's visibility and attendance while doubling, Levy said, as "maybe the greatest piece we have in our collection."
Six years later, the Gehry dream shows little sign of becoming reality. Fundraising has stalled. A $40 million pledge from the District of Columbia last July was expected to spur other major contributions. So far, it has not.
Close to $95 million has been pledged for the Campaign for the Corcoran (which includes elements other than construction of the Gehry wing). Almost half of that, however, is contingent on the construction of the wing being either launched or completed (including the District's $40 million). So far, $17 million has been spent on construction plans (with the bulk of that going to Gehry) and $5 million more on fundraising costs. Meanwhile, Hazel said, building cost estimates have risen from an unrealistic $60 million to $200 million.
In large part, Levy and Hazel agree, the Corcoran has been victimized by what Levy called -- in what sounds like an understatement -- "a serious run of bad luck."
First, the so-called new economy bubble burst, ending a euphoric period in which, Levy said, Internet entrepreneurs "were making money in options that looked like they were playing Monopoly."
Two important early contributions to the Campaign for the Corcoran came from AOL executives Robert W. Pittman and Barry M. Schuler, who jointly pledged $30 million in February 2001. The Corcoran has received only $2 million of Schuler's $15 million pledge and doesn't expect more to be forthcoming. More importantly, hopes have dimmed for additional large contributions from new-economy entrepreneurs.
Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Those hurt all Washington museums, but the Corcoran, being across the street from the White House, was particularly affected. "We've had our neighborhood kind of closed down," Levy said. Among other things, tour buses are no longer allowed near the museum.
In May 2003, the Corcoran board elected a new chairman, Otto Ruesch, who shortly thereafter was found to have pancreatic cancer. Ruesch died in October 2004. Hazel, who had been his vice chairman, blames himself for not doing more during this period; he said he was aware that the Corcoran was in serious financial trouble but was reluctant to intervene.
When he became board chairman himself, however, Hazel, who made his fortune as a Northern Virginia developer, learned that the Corcoran's problems went beyond bad luck. Among the categories of concern he cited were:
· Operating deficits: After having 20 years of financial records assembled and analyzed, Hazel was startled to find that in 17 of those years, the Corcoran had operated in the red. (In two of the three years it did not, losses were avoided only because of one-time events: a sudden, unanticipated gift and an accounting adjustment). The board had approved a fiscal 2005 deficit of $800,000, but Hazel learned that it had risen to $1,450,000. Hearing that the projected deficit for fiscal 2006 was $2.1 million, he said, "was a shocker."
In the mid-'90s, Hazel said, some "violins" that had been donated to the Corcoran were sold for $17 million. Money from the sale was used to cover operating deficits, and it is now gone. (The sale, in fact, included a variety of stringed instruments; none was part of the Corcoran's collection, so their sale was the equivalent of selling donated stocks.)
· Fundraising for the Gehry wing: Hazel said he has no criticism of the original decision to build the dramatic new addition. It offered "a great opportunity," he said, and "with a bit of luck, we could have been off and running." But "the problem is it didn't work," and the institution needs to come to terms with that.
· Necessary repairs on the existing building: The Campaign for the Corcoran was intended to raise money for significant repairs to the original Corcoran, as well as for new construction. If the Gehry project is suspended, however, that leaves the question of how to pay for these repairs. Hazel estimates their cost at $40 million. To use funds raised for the Gehry project, he said, would require seeking permission from donors who had thought they were contributing toward something new and different.
· Erosion of the donor base: When Hazel became chairman, he began asking friends in the Washington business community if they might have interest in supporting the Corcoran. He was disappointed by the lack of enthusiasm he encountered. With Levy's concurrence, he then hired a consulting firm, John Brown Limited, to survey the Corcoran's donor base. The consultants' report, he said, confirmed his own sense that "support for the Corcoran was essentially superficial."
Hazel and the trustees appointed four task forces, made up largely of members of the museum's and the college's separate boards of overseers, to consider the Corcoran's future. He also recruited Corddry, a retired businessman who Hazel knew had experience with organizations in trouble, to revitalize what had been "a defunct strategic planning committee."
Last Monday, the task forces reported their findings to that committee. Next Monday, the committee will submit its recommendations about a new strategic plan to the full board. It is at that meeting that the fate of the Gehry wing, and perhaps that of David Levy, will be addressed.
Asked for his views five days before the meeting, Levy took issue with Hazel's judgment that the Gehry wing is unrealistic for "the foreseeable future." It can still be built, he argued, though adjustments will have to be made.
"We have a lot of money that we've raised, but it's not enough," he said, "and we have an impending emergency with this building. So if I had it my way, I would turn the Gehry project inside out." In other words: He would ask the donors' permission to do the repairs to the old building first, rather than as part of the new wing's construction -- and then keep raising money toward the Gehry dream.
One of the differences between his vision and Hazel's, Levy said, was that the board chairman sees the museum "as a business" and, as such, thinks "it ought to have a business plan, to use his word, that shows you how it's going to deal with itself financially. And I would say that a museum is more like a church than a business. Because if its constituency doesn't come in and support it, it really has no future."
Hazel didn't quarrel with that. He just said, "Either way, you've got to have support."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Comments

[alice]

I agree with you about Gehry project looking dated already. He is beloved like no other, especially in L.A., so no one really wants to say that all his recent buildings look alike. The Walt Disney Hall is basically the Bilbao II. Do we really need a Bilbao III?

[Donald]

Gehry is a cliche. And when the Corcoran addition was announced I was extremely disappointed because it lacks originality. But then again, there are no more original ideas...everything has been done before.

[John]

Good luck on the reinvention tour. Having been on one since late last summer, I'll just say that it's scary and exciting and can lead to all kinds of good things.