Trouble in a Proposed Cultural Paradise

Art critic Jerry Saltz burns Guggenheim Foundation director Thomas Krens at the stake this week in New York Magazine. It's the kind of thing that's got to induce self-doubt, even if you are as seemingly egomaniacal as Krens.

Among Saltz's chief complaints is that Krens has tried to whore out the Guggenheim's collection and good name to cities as far reaching as Singapore and St. Petersburg and, of course, Bilbao and Abu Dhabi.

I don't have a problem with the Guggenheim building satellites around the world. In fact, the populism inherent in making a wealth of art available to a larger demographic of people is appealing to me. But the plan to build a Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi is a bad one for other reasons that Saltz notes: Nudes and "controversial" art aren't expected to be allowed in the Abu Dhabi annex. The government of the United Arab Emirates has also come out as anti-Israeli and anti-gay, leading Saltz to wonder if Jewish art and works made by gay artists will be shunned by the satellite museum, as well. So what exactly is going into this fancy new cultural destination? Definitely not Constantin Brancusi's Bird in Space (too phallic) or Matthew Barney's Cremaster cycle (also lewd). Maybe Ellsworth Kelly's Dark Blue Curve, a simple monochromatic shape. But, then again, there was such an uproar in the '80s over Richard Serra's Tilted Arc, also a non-representational piece of art, it was carted off in the middle of the night.