Big Star performs “The Ballad of El Goodo” in Missouri in 1993. Goodo.

In tomorrow’s Crain’s New York Business, I wonder if books have a future (hoping mine will be part of it).

In case you missed them (and care), here’s a link to a library of my Curbed.com posts this week. Gripepad is now back in session.

Judith Dobrzynski‘s Real Clear Arts blog breaks the news that chairman of the department of European Art and Sculpture Ian Wardropper, who lost the top spot at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to his own underling, Tom Campbell, is decamping for the Frick Collection, where he, too, will be a museum director. Congratulations!

Gripepad will be on hiatus this week as I guest-edit ny.curbed.com alongside the awesome Sara Polsky in Lockhart Steele‘s apparent attempt to divert attention from the departure of longtime curbed blog-God Joey Arak. Please send tips and good wishes that-a-way.

Yesterday’s announcement that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is likely to take over the Marcel Breuer-designed Brutalist building that now houses the Whitney Museum of American Art was expected. What it left out, however, was unexpected. The Soviet-style desire of the Met’s administration (and their friends and toadies in the New York cultural elite) to suppress its own fascinating and often impure history is well known, but that history is not entirely forgotten, even if you couldn’t read it yesterday. The decades-long enmity between the two museums and between the Met and contemporary art and artists is told at great … Continue reading →

Anna Wintour (that’s not her above) got her reward for tireless service to Si New — , oops, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday when she was promoted from powerless non-voting honorary trustee of the museum to only slightly less powerless “elective” trustee. On the same day, James Houghton, the museum’s aging chairman, stepped down and was replaced by real estate owner and operator Daniel Brodsky, who is slightly younger. Women’s Wear Daily got the scoop on Wintour’s ascension to the socio-cultural Pantheon that is the museum’s board, but not Brodsky’s promotion. The New York Times … Continue reading →

My new Crains column tackles arts philanthropy

Courtney Sale Ross is going for the record books, listing her double duplex at 740 Park for $60 million. You go, girl! Check it out in today’s Wall Street Journal.

This gripepad and pen are familiar with the ins and outs of telling the emperor he’s starkers. But at a certain point, it can get repetitive, so I’ve mostly spared the Metropolitan Museum in recent months. I almost felt bad when Obama-Gets-Osama kept Anna Wintour‘s fashion promo party from dominating the news cycle this week. But the blog Scallywag & Vagabond has written about the Party of Last Monday in a very entertaining way. Suffice to say the post is called “Jerking off with the Metropolitan Museum Gala Propaganda Committee.” NSFW, kids! The image of Yoko and Karl is from … Continue reading →