The Gibbes Museum of Art on Meeting St. has been looking to the future since Todd Smith took over as director just over a year ago.
A Now! exhibit of contemporary work by young artists featured digital photography, video art and macrame scultpures last October. This Summer, the Rotunda has been filled with another piece of video art, the Citadel-set Like Tears in Rain by Janet Biggs.
But right next to it is a distinctly old-school Rodin exhibit, full of dark dramatic sculptures by the famed French artist. And it’s the sculpture show, not the new-fangled video installation, that’s been controversial. The Rodin works were cast after his death - he gave the French Government permission to do it - calling into question the validity of art when it’s reproduced. It looks the same but is it as important as the real deal, created while the artist was alive? Â
Today (Aug 12) if the last day to catch Rain and Rodin. The Gibbes is open from 1-5 p.m. on Sundays; admission ranges from $5-9.
One Comment
The Gibbes Museum’s so-called Rodin: In His Own Words exhibit contained 35 non-disclosed reproductions with 29 being outright -FAKES- posthumously reproduced between 1925 and 1995 some eight to seventy-eight years after Auguste Rodin’s death in 1917.
Dead men don’t sculpt.
In otherwords, this exhibit was a knowing misrepresentation of a material fact or truth to induce someone to his or her detriment which is one legal definition of -FRAUD-.
Respectfully, it is a massive conflict of ideas to state: “calling into question the validity of art when it’s reproduced.”
By definition, rule of law and laws of nature, a work of visual art is created by the artist and a reproduction is a copy of a visual work of art done by someone other than the artist.
Finally, the Gibbes Museum director and the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation are either fools or they think the public are fools or both when they pass off second-generation removed posthumous -FAKES- with counterfeit “A Rodin” signatures, not to mention editions not limited to twelve as promoted and other serious questions of authenticity.
Normally, to find an exhibit of this stature, one would go to a museum gift shop.
In closing, these museums and wealthy foundations may dominate perception by the public but someday the public’s suspension of disbelief may fade and when that happens the manure will hit the fan.
Gary Arseneau
artist, creator of original lithographs, scholar & author
gwarseneau@hotmail.com
garyarseneau.blogspot.com