The Barnes Foundation’s galleries got a little wild last week as more guests than expected arrived at the museum, which has timed tickets to control flow through the space. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the culprit was a bug in the online system that distributes tickets, resulting in double bookings for time slots. Read More
The design of the new Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, the husband and wife architecture team, is a hot topic these days. Critic Justin Davidson called it ‘virtuosic,’ while Christopher Hawthorne likened it to a “paint-by-numbers exercise.” Architectural Digest has an interview with the duo, whose 28-person Manhattan firm is unveiling four buildings in 2012, from Hong Kong to Washington, D.C. While there’s a slide show of their other projects as well, it’s the controversial Barnes site that’s on our minds. Read More
The reviews have been streaming in steadily since the opening of the Barnes Foundation, the collection of early modernist masterworks of Dr. Albert C. Barnes, on Saturday at its more centrally located site along Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The building, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, at a cost of $150 million, replicates the galleries of the original structure while expanding its footprint to add new amenities like a central court, a café, a gift shop and an auditorium—a total of 93,000 square feet, compared to the original in Merion, a suburb of Philadelphia, which was only 10,000 square feet. The critics are all over the place on the new building. Here’s a cheat sheet of where some of them stand. Read More
The Barnes Foundation gave a preview of its much-disputed new space today in Philadelphia to a select audience, including members of the press. While the public opening is on Saturday, May 19, and is free to the public for the first 10 days, all the tickets during that run are already sold out. The Washington Post has a report and video of the sneak preview—art, grandeur, protestors and all. Read More
Brett I. Miller, general counsel to the Barnes Foundation, was found dead this weekend at his home. Update, Wednesday, April 18, 2 p.m.: Jeff Moran, spokesman for the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office, confirmed that the cause of death of Brett Miller was intraoral gunshot wound and that the manner of death was suicide. While yesterday we reported that according to the Philadelphia Police Department, there was a suicide of a 47-year old man on the afternoon of Saturday, April 14, the officer we spoke with, Jillian Russell, could not confirm the man’s name. Today, it is confirmed that the 47-year old man was Brett Miller. Update, Tuesday, April 17, 1 p.m.: Officer Jillian Russell of the Philadelphia Police Department confirmed over the phone with The Observer this afternoon that there was a suicide of a 47-year old man at 12:10 p.m. on the afternoon of Saturday, April 14, though she could not confirm his name.
“The Board of Trustees and the staff of the Barnes Foundation are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague and friend Brett Miller,” Derek Gillman, the director of the foundation, said in a statement to The Art Newspaper, which first reported the news. Read More
The Dance, Henri Matisse’s 34-foot-wide triptych, has been installed at the Barnes Foundation’s Philadelphia campus, which opens May 19, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Two decades ago, the triptych was the subject of much legal skirmishing when it was taken down from its original home at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Penn.—the place for which it had been created on commission by Albert Barnes, who established the foundation in the 1920s. The mural on canvas traveled from Paris to Washington, D.C., and back to Pennsylvania to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for exhibitions and returned to Marion in 1995. Last year the triptych came down permanently. In light of the Barnes Foundation’s embattled past, the re-emergence of the mural is something of a triumph. Read More
