This morning MAN reported that AAMD was looking into the unusual arrangement between the Denver Art Museum and local billionaire businessman Philip Anschutz. Continuing discussion thereof...One of the most unusual aspects of the Anschutz-DAM arrangement is that a cloudy non-profit associated with Anschutz has bought 50 percent of a painting that's been in DAM's collection since 1999. So when a muse...

Two committees of the Association of Art Museum Directors are investigating the Denver Art Museum's recent partial deaccessioning of Charles Deas' Long Jakes [right] to a nebulous non-profit controlled by Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz, MAN has learned. At question is whether the DAM-Anschutz arrangement is in compliance with AAMD guidelines as outlined in AAMD's "Professional Practices in Ar...

About 30 minutes after seeing Jim Campbell's Home Movies 1248-1 at the Berkeley Art Museum, I couldn't remember what the heck the piece was about. I remembered the extravagant, near-floor to near-ceiling strings of wall-facing LED lights that make up the physical part of the piece. I remembered that Home Movies existed of shadowy objects, figures and shapes that I could make out on the wall. But I...

San Francisco Chronicle critic Kenneth Baker absotively tees off on Dale Chihuly and John Buchanan, the director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Baker cites an atrocious Chihuly exhibition as proof of the degeneration of the once-proud FAMSF. (Chihuly is to sculpture what Siegfried & Roy are to performance art.) I saw this show a couple weeks ago: It's the worst exhibit, the worst instal...

Before we get to the rhyme, your weekend bonus fun: Art critic Peter Plagens was featured on NPR quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! last week. I'm jealous. (And yes, I was on 'Wait Wait' once, but it was about eight or nine years ago and I was just a random call-in contestant.) This morning's rhyme -- Pirkle Jones and Helen Torr -- was almost certainly pure coincidence. This one I'm not so sure....