Across my desk…
Lincoln Center Offers Art and Architecture Tours
A decade ago, during a financial crunch, Lincoln Center considered selling Jasper Johns’ Numbers, a work that had graced the lobby of the New York State Theater for 35 years and had grown in value to $10-15 million. Unlike the New York Public Library, whose leaders scandalously sold off the City’s art legacy — instead of relying on raising the money from patrons — Lincoln Center opted to keep its art. Now the Johns is a highlight of the new art and architecture tours of the Center’s 16-acre campus. The hour-long strolls, daily 10-4:30, take in not only the landmark Chagalls in the Met Opera, the Henry Moore in the reflecting pool, and works by Calder, Lipschitz, Nevelson, David Smith, and Lee Bontecou, but also the theaters, interiors and public spaces designed in the 1960s and 1970s by Philip Johnson, Eero Saarinen, Wallace Harrison and others. The art is the subject of a coffee table book by Charles A. Riley II. For reservations call 212.875.5350 or email tour_desk@lincolncenter.org.
Arts Advocates to Gather in Baltimore
I’m not much for arts advocacy, which relies on dubious statistics and ad hominem appeals that invariably come across as platitudnous, ineffectual log-rolling, but it can be instructive to hear what arts honchos have to say about the state of the arts in the U.S.. Art wonks will be out in force at the Americans for the Arts Half-Century Summit and Annual Convention in Baltimore, June 25–27, 2010. National Endowment for the Arts chairs past and present will discuss the future of the arts in America. with a keynote by NEA chair Rocco Landesman and a panel moderated by former chair Bill Ivey that includes Keri Putnam, executive director of the Sundance Institute, and Eric Schaeffer, artistic director of the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA. Also on the bill are Arianna Huffington, Peter Sellars, jazz artist Vijay Iyer, and choreographer Liz Lerman.
National Trust for Historic Preservation Names President
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the private nonprofit dedicated to preserving America’s historic buildings and places, took a big hit on its endowment during the recession, and now has named fundraising veteran Stephanie Meeks as its new president, succeeding Richard Moe who is stepping down after 17 years. Meeks, 45, is president and CEO of Counterpart International, a humanitarian relief and development organization, and previously spent 18 years at The Nature Conservancy where she rose to acting president and CEO. According to NTHP she led the three largest capital campaigns in the history of the conservation movement, one of them raising $1.6 billion for the Conservancy. (Full disclosure: my partner is a former v.p. for communications at NTHP.)
