The Disruptive Roots of African Art Studies in America

The Barnes Foundation’s current exhibition, Mark Dion, Judy Pfaff, Fred Wilson: The Order of Things, epitomizes the business buzz phrase “disruptive innovation” like few other museum shows (which I wrote about here). Disrupt or die, the thinking goes. Old orders must make way for new. Coincidentally, as the Barnes Foundation, home of Dr. Albert Barnes’ meticulously and idiosyncratically ordered collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces left just so since his death in 1951, invites outsider artists to question and challenge Dr. Barnes’ old order, it also publishes their own insider’s critical “warts and all” assessment of Dr. Barnes’ relationship to African art and African-Americans. In African Art in the Barnes Foundation: The Triumph of L’Art nègre and the Harlem Renaissance, scholar Christa Clarke reassesses Dr. Barnes intentions and results in his building of the first great African art collection in America. “More than just formal accents to modernist paintings and other Western art in the collection,” Clarke argues, “African art deserves to be seen as central to the aesthetic mission and progressive vision that was at the very heart of the Barnes Foundation.” Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Disruptive Roots of African Art Studies in America."

Disruptive Innovations: Reordering the Barnes Foundation

Few business buzzphrases draw as much interest (and ire) as “disruptive innovation.”  Disrupt or die, the thinking goes. Old orders must make way for new. At the Barnes Foundation, home of Dr. Albert Barnes’ meticulously and idiosyncratically ordered collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces left just so since his death in 1951, three artistic innovators aim at questioning and challenging Dr. Barnes’ old order. Mark Dion, Judy Pfaff, Fred Wilson: The Order of Things invites three award-winning, contemporary installation artists to disrupt the existing paradigm at the Barnes and assist us in seeing Dr. Barnes and his collection in a whole new way. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Disruptive Innovations: Reordering the Barnes Foundation."

What Has Year One of the “New” Barnes Foundation Taught Us?

By some accounts, last year’s move of the Barnes Foundation from its original home to the new location on Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway marked the last stroke in the fall of Western civilization. Hyperbole reigned, arguments raged, protesters protested, and lawyers filed, but the move to the strikingly modern building happened and life went on. But what has a years’ worth of experience taught us about the Barnes’ move? Was it a disaster, a success, or a mixture of both? If we’re talking about the Barnes, you know that different people will have passionately argued, differing answers to those question, but here’s one person’s take on the situation. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "What Has Year One of the “New” Barnes FoundationTaught Us?"

[Image: Giorgio de Chirico, Portrait of Albert C. Barnes (detail), 1926. Image source.]

How to Open a New Old Museum

In 1923, during an exhibition of his art collection that would become the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania, two years later, Dr. Albert C. Barnes told an interviewer, “I am trying to do the biggest thing for Philadelphia that any one man has attempted.” Nearly nine decades later, the grand reopening of the Barnes Foundation in its new location on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia is attempting something even bigger—the opening of a new old museum that will make both the fans of the old place and fans of the new place both happy. With a beautiful new $150 million USD building and campus surrounding Dr. Barnes’ priceless old collection, it’s hard for anyone to complain. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How to Open a New Old Museum."

[Image: View of the Barnes Foundation looking south east at night. The Barnes Foundation Philadelphia. © 2012 Tom Crane.]

[Many thanks to the Barnes Foundation for providing the image above and other press materials as well as for inviting me to the press preview.]