Thomas Krens

Last updated
Thomas Krens
Thomas Krens in 2006.jpg
Thomas Krens speaking at the Williams College Museum of Art in 2006.
Born (1946-12-26) December 26, 1946 (age 77) [1]
EducationB.A. Political Economy w/honors Williams College 1969
M.A. State University of New York at Albany Art 1971
Master in Pub. and Private Management Yale University 1984
HHD (honors) State University of New York at Albany 1989 [1]
OccupationSenior Advisor for International Affairs [1]
Employer Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation [1]
Known forDirector of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation from 1988 to 2008 [2] [3]
Awards Honorary Doctorates from Williams College, Yale University, and the State University of New York at Albany
Special Prize for Architectural Patronage at the Venice Biennale of Architecture
Order of the Aztec Eagle (Mexico)
American Federation of Arts Cultural Leadership Award [2]
Notes

Thomas Krens (born December 26, 1946) is the former director and Senior Advisor for International Affairs of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York City. [2] [3] From the beginning of his work at the Guggenheim, Krens promised, and delivered, great change, and was frequently in the spotlight, often as a figure of controversy. [4] [5]

Contents

During his 20-year tenure as director he expanded the Guggenheim globally by enlarging and raising the profile of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, and then building the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain (1997), Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, Germany (1997, ended 2013), the Guggenheim Las Vegas (2001, closed 2003) and Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, also in Las Vegas, (2001, closed May 2008), Guggenheim Guadalajara, Mexico (cancelled in 2009, originally to open 2011), and the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, currently under development. Krens spearheaded spectacular exhibitions such as The Art of the Motorcycle and ambitious shows covering the art of entire countries, including China and Brazil. As director, Krens increased the Guggenheim’s endowment from US$ 20 million to US$ 118 million. [2]

Krens was succeeded as director of the Guggenheim Foundation by Richard Armstrong, formerly the chief curator and director of the Carnegie Museum of Art and a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. [3]

Early life

Born and raised in Newark, New York, an upstate community on the Erie Canal. Krens graduated from Williams College in 1969 with a degree in political science. While at Williams, he also studied with art historians Whitney Stoddard, S. Lane Faison, and William Pierson, who are credited with forming the cadre of museum curators and art historians now known as the Williams Art Mafia. After earning a master's degree in studio art from SUNY Albany in 1971, he returned to Williams to teach printmaking and was appointed director of the Williams College Museum of Art in 1980. During this time, Krens earned an M.B.A. from Yale University, which launched him into a career in museum management. In 1986, he was made consultant for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and two years later became director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

Directorship of the Guggenheim Foundation

Exterior of Frank Lloyd Wright's Solomon R. Guggenheim museum in New York City during one of two renovations carried out during Thomas Krens' tenure as Director. 14 July 2007. Guggenheim Museum NY.JPG
Exterior of Frank Lloyd Wright's Solomon R. Guggenheim museum in New York City during one of two renovations carried out during Thomas Krens' tenure as Director. 14 July 2007.

When Krens became the Guggenheim's director in 1988, faced with a tight budget, a building in need of renovation and weak donor interest, he said, "If you want a vital institution, change has to take place on so many fronts that it's likely to be bewildering." [4] The 90s were a period of rapid expansion of museums across the US, not only the Guggenheim, and museum attendance was rising. [6]

Krens was at the forefront of this movement, and became a high-profile figure in the world of art museums, corporate and foundation philanthropy, and the marketing of art to the public. [5] [7] [8] [9] On the subject of branding the Guggenheim, Krens said, "A good brand becomes an article of faith among a consumer audience. If you buy a BMW or a Mercedes, or stay at a Four Seasons hotel or go the Louvre, you can be pretty much guaranteed a quality experience." [10] During his tenure, Krens has increased the Guggenheim’s endowment to $118 million from $20 million, although he has been known to dip into the endowment to cover operating costs. [11]

Exhibitions and acquisitions

Krens mounted several historic exhibitions that rank among the 10 best-attended shows in the Guggenheim's history: "Africa: The Art of a Continent," in 1996; "China: 5,000 Years," in 1998, "Brazil: Body & Soul," in 2001; and "The Aztec Empire," in 2004. [12] Moreover, under his leadership the Guggenheim organized major retrospectives of Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Roni Horn, Richard Prince, and Matthew Barney.

In 1989, Krens negotiated a gift of Impressionist paintings from the widow of Justin K. Thannhauser, acquired works of Minimalist art from the Panza Collection and oversaw the commissions of major artworks by Jeff Koons, Rosenquist, Rachel Whiteread and Gerhard Richter at Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin. These works later became part of the Guggenheim’s collection. In Bilbao, Krens led an acquisitions program that has included major installations of works by Richard Serra, Koons, Jenny Holzer and Louise Bourgeois. He also has doubled the size of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. [11]

Museum expansion

In 1986, Krens first conceived of converting the recently closed Sprague Electric, Marshall Street plant in North Adams, Massachusetts into the world's largest contemporary art museum back when he was director of the Williams College Museum of Art, one of many tentative expansion projects that Krens launched or proposed when he came to the Guggenheim. Krens's conception came to fruition when the site became the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in 1999. He was not discouraged by those that did not get off the ground, and through persistence was able to see several huge projects to completion. The success of the expansion in Berlin came on the heels of the collapse of a proposed Guggenheim satellite in Salzburg, Austria, while at one time there were as many as three nascent projects in Venice. [13]

While The Wall Street Journal complained at the time of many institutions expanding more rapidly than their collections allowed, leaving empty display space, [6] the Guggenheim under Krens also found itself quickly acquiring new collections and being strapped for somewhere to put them, driving the need for expansions such as the Bilbao museum. [13] Krens pointed out that the Guggenheim and many museums already had more objects in storage than they could hope to display, and spreading them geographically is a good solution. [7] The Guggenheim in 1992 had space to display at one time 3% of its 6,000 works. [4]

The strategy pursued, radical in the eyes of traditionalists, [5] consisted of new construction and renovation, financed by bonds, and franchising by building satellite institutions around the world. Krens denied that deaccessioning (selling works from the collection) was a policy as well, though he was accused of treating the museum's collection of masterpieces as mere assets. [4]

The success of the Guggenheim Bilbao expansion was credited to Krens' tenacity and salesmanship, and was a major victory for him. [13] As of 2006 the Guggenheim museums worldwide had received a steady 2.5 million visitors a year for the prior 4–5 years, and attendance at the New York museum had tripled, according to Krens. [10] Part of the strategy of international expansion was for host country governments to bear the costs, benefiting from prestige and tourist income. [4]

Deaccessioning

In 1990, amidst a wave of US museums selling off parts of their collections, Krens was in the spotlight for selling works from what was seen as the Guggenheim's older, core collection (Kandinsky, Chagall and Modigliani) to raise $47 million to acquire newer 1960s and 1970s Minimalist sculptures from the Panza Collection. That is, the Guggenheim was accused of being trendy, and The New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman said the sales "stretched the accepted rules of deaccessioning further than many American institutions have been willing to do." [14] Krens pointed out that the works acquired were no longer considered contemporary, but rather classics, and that such sales are a regular practice by museums. [14]

Style and controversy

Krens has been the subject of criticism, both for his businesslike style and the way he changed museums, in particular the showmanship, populism and commercialization involved. [4] Krens denied seeking to become a public figure, and said his media reputation is the result of "mostly inaccurate caricatures." [15]

One of his harshest critics was the New Criterion's Hilton Kramer, who sees Krens as a "bureaucrat" who has caused disaster at a major cultural institution. Kramer's reaction to The Art of the Motorcycle was condemnation, [16] and the hint of scandal over the financing of a Guggenheim retrospective of the work of fashion designer Giorgio Armani elicited withering attacks. [17] [18] The charge that the Guggenheim had sold out to the mass market coincided with hip-hop at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston featuring guitar design, [19] and The Metropolitan Museum of Art presenting rock music performance costumes. [20] Krens dismissed the suggestion that Armani rented out the Guggenheim to show its wares, saying, "It's a non-story. Who do you get to support an institution? People who have relationships with it." [21]

Krens gave up day-to-day control of the New York museum in 2005. [10] Lisa Dennison became the new museum director while Krens remained director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, amid some grumbling that the New York City building was being neglected, and financial friction with foundation trustees. [22] Also in 2005, there was an attempt to force Krens out by a Guggenheim board member, billionaire philanthropist Peter B. Lewis, who had given US$ 77 million to the foundation. Lewis had become alarmed over the foundation's financial position and its reputation. The dispute ended with the board backing Krens and Lewis resigning. [5] [18]

Krens is seen by some young museum directors as a role model, or perhaps a cautionary tale. [4] Exhibitions credited to inspiration by Krens have since appeared, such as a 2009 motorcycle show in Sydney, Australia. [23] Guggenheim's Bilbao project is also credited with directly inspiring Fourth Grace in Liverpool and the Imperial War Museum North near Manchester. [18] Norman Rosenthal, Exhibitions Secretary of the Royal Academy, said of Thomas Krens, "Krens is his own worst enemy. Everybody thinks that he is a corporate business type, but he is actually a great dreamer." [18]

Books by Thomas Krens

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Biography Profile Thomas Krens, Marquis Who's Who on the Web
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 The New York Times staff.
  3. 1 2 3 Guggenheim Foundation staff
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Tuttle (1992)
  5. 1 2 3 4 Yablonsky (2008)
  6. 1 2 Gibson (1998) "A National Endowment for the Arts survey released in September [1998] reported that 35% of adults had visited an art museum at least once in 1997, up from 27% in 1992."
  7. 1 2 Dobrzynski (2000)
  8. Gibson (1998) "It was Thomas Krens, the Guggenheim's director, who set the tone for the current hyperthyroid phase of museum self-definition. When he took over in the late 1980s, Mr. Krens shrewdly saw that he could use the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice -- a small sister institution -- to leverage the New York museum from sleepy also-ran into major international player. This it now indisputably is, never mind the risks to the collection as it wings its way from one overseas Guggenheim outpost to the next."
  9. Mahoney (2006) "When Advertising Age told Thomas Krens, CEO-chief artistic officer of the Guggenheim Museum, that he had been named a marketing innovator, he was quiet for a minute. 'Is that an honor in my field,' he asked, 'or is it a negative?"
  10. 1 2 3 Mahoney (2006)
  11. 1 2 Carol Vogel (February 28, 2008), Guggenheim’s Provocative Director Steps Down New York Times. Accessed 2 February 2011.
  12. Carol Vogel (April 27, 2005) A Museum Visionary Envisions More New York Times. Accessed 2 February 2011.
  13. 1 2 3 Bradley (1997)
  14. 1 2 Kimmelman (1990)
  15. Mahoney (2006) "...for much of his long career at the Guggenheim, Mr. Krens has been both praised and vilified for turning what was once a small New York institution into a worldwide brand, creating the first truly multinational arts institution. Its reputation solidified by the triumphant opening of the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain nearly 10 years ago, Mr. Krens transformed the Guggenheim into one of the best-known brand name in the arts."
  16. Plagens (1998)
  17. Kramer (2000)
  18. 1 2 3 4 Sudjic (2005)
  19. Dangerous Curves: Art of the Guitar Sunday, November 5, 2000 - Sunday, February 25, 2001, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, archived from the original on June 15, 2010
  20. ROCK STYLE IS THEME FOR METROPOLITAN MUSEUM'S DECEMBER COSTUME INSTITUTE EXHIBITION, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 3 December 1999
  21. Ellison (2000)
  22. "2005: Art World Year-in-Review", ArtInfo, Louise Blouin Media, 25 December 2005
  23. Meacham (2009)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guggenheim Museum Bilbao</span> Modern and contemporary art museum in Spain

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, and located in Bilbao, in Basque Country, Spain. The museum was inaugurated on 18 October 1997 by King Juan Carlos I of Spain, with an exhibition of 250 contemporary works of art. Built alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao to the Cantabrian Sea, it is one of several museums belonging to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and features permanent and visiting exhibits of works by Spanish and international artists. It is one of the largest museums in Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum</span> Art museum in Manhattan, New York City

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. It was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. The museum adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder Solomon R. Guggenheim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation</span> American non-profit museum operator

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1937 by philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim and his long-time art advisor, artist Hilla von Rebay. The foundation is a leading institution for the collection, preservation, and research of modern and contemporary art and operates several museums around the world. The first museum established by the foundation was The Museum of Non-Objective Painting, in New York City. This became The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952, and the foundation moved the collection into its first permanent museum building, in New York City, in 1959. The foundation next opened the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, in 1980. Its international network of museums expanded in 1997 to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain, and it expects to open a new museum, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates after its construction is completed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peggy Guggenheim Collection</span> Art museum in Venice

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro sestiere of Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection is housed in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an 18th-century palace, which was the home of the American heiress Peggy Guggenheim for three decades. She began displaying her private collection of modern artworks to the public seasonally in 1951. After her death in 1979, it passed to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which opened the collection year-round from 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peggy Guggenheim</span> American art collector

Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim was an American art collector, bohemian, and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912, and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Guggenheim collected art in Europe and America between 1938 and 1946. She exhibited this collection as she built it. In 1949, she settled in Venice, where she lived and exhibited her collection for the rest of her life. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a modern art museum on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy, and is one of the most visited attractions in Venice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hilla von Rebay</span> German-American painter

Hildegard Anna Augusta Elisabeth FreiinRebay von Ehrenwiesen, known as Baroness Hilla von Rebay or simply Hilla Rebay, was an abstract artist in the early 20th century and co-founder and first director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She was a key figure in advising Solomon R. Guggenheim to collect abstract art, a collection that would later form the basis of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum collection. She was also influential in selecting Frank Lloyd Wright to design the current Guggenheim museum, which is now known as a modernist icon in New York City.

<i>Sketches of Frank Gehry</i> 2006 American film

Sketches of Frank Gehry is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Sydney Pollack and produced by Ultan Guilfoyle, about the life and work of the Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. The film was screened out of competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Pollack and Gehry had been friends and mutual admirers for years. The film features footage of various Gehry-designed buildings, including Anaheim Ice, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was the final film to be directed by Sydney Pollack before his death in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles M. Falco</span> American physicist

Charles M. Falco is an American experimental physicist and an expert on the magnetic and optical properties of thin film materials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guggenheim Abu Dhabi</span> Art museum in Abu Dhabi,United Arab Emirates

The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is a planned art museum, to be located in Saadiyat Island cultural district in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Upon completion, it is planned to be the largest of the Guggenheim museums. Architect Frank Gehry designed the building. After announcing the museum project in 2006, work on the site began in 2011 but was soon suspended. A series of construction delays followed; the museum is expected to be completed in 2025.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Art of the Motorcycle</span> 1998 exhibition designed by Frank Gehry

The Art of the Motorcycle was an exhibition that presented 114 motorcycles chosen for their historic importance or design excellence in a display designed by Frank Gehry in the curved rotunda of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, running for three months in late 1998. The exhibition attracted the largest crowds ever at that museum, and received mixed but positive reviews in the art world, with the exception of some art and social critics who rejected outright the existence of such a show at an institution like the Guggenheim, condemning it for excessive populism, and for being compromised by the financial influence of its sponsors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deutsche Guggenheim</span> Art museum

The Deutsche Guggenheim was an art museum in Berlin, Germany, open from 1997 to 2013. It was located in the ground floor of the Deutsche Bank building on the Unter den Linden boulevard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas M. Messer</span> American museum director

Thomas Maria Messer was the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy, for 27 years, a longer tenure than any other director of a major New York City arts institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Armstrong (museum director)</span> American museum director

Richard Armstrong is an American museum director. Since 2008, Armstrong has been the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City and its other museums throughout the world. Before joining the Guggenheim, he was a curator at, and then director of, Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From 1981 to 1992, he had been a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Michael Govan is the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Prior to his current position, Govan worked as the director of the Dia Art Foundation in New York City.

<i>Head of a Girl</i>

Toward the end of his life, Vincent van Gogh began to explore portraiture. Before he was ready to have friends and family sit for him, his subjects were anonymous like the portrait Head of a Girl. He sent this portrait, as well as the one depicted in The Zouave, drawn in late June, 1888, in a letter to his friend the Australian painter John Russell.

Lisa Dennison is the chairman of Sotheby's North and South America. She was previously the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. She became director in 2005 and resigned in 2007 to work at the auction house Sotheby's, where she is now Chairperson.

Woman Ironing is a 1904 oil painting by Pablo Picasso that was completed during the artist's Blue Period (1901—1904). This evocative image, painted in neutral tones of blue and gray, depicts an emaciated woman with hollowed eyes, sunken cheeks, and bent form, as she presses down on an iron with all her will. A recurrent subject matter for Picasso during this time is the desolation of social outsiders. This painting, as the rest of his works of the Blue Period, is inspired by his life in Spain but was painted in Paris.

Karole P. B. Vail is an American museum director, curator and writer. Since 2017, she has been the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Director for Italy. Prior to this appointment, she worked on the curatorial staff at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York for 20 years.

References