Letter to a Friend
Hi Bob,
I am NOT at all among the community that dislikes Dale Chihuly. I have met Dale and exchanged holiday cards with his family for some years. I enjoy his work and think entrepreneurial art is a real part of the mix. I enjoy the work of Ai Weiwei and did enjoy Christo until he turned into a single trick pony. Hell, at worst Dale is a performance artist … I think he would tell you that himself. That is not a bad thing!
Nor do I see anything wrong with building a museum that honors local entrepreneurs. Seattle’s Museum of Flight is reflective of the role Boeing has played here and I would LOVE to see a bigger role for Microsoft in the Seattle Science Center. Have you been to Boston’s Computer Museum? In some ways like the Museum of Glass, the Boston museum celebrates companies like Wang and Polaroid. The Museum of Glass is a great example of the same thing applied to Pilchuck and Chihuly. Though I suspect MOG would be a lot better of financially here than in Tacoma, I am glad that MOG gives us all a better reason to visit Tacoma.
I also fully understand the mix of private and public funds that we need to make the Center a great place .. though I think it already is that! There is a somewhat similar issue in re the Space Needle .. a private business that operates as a concession in a public park. The Needle is a tourist attraction and the Space Needle company is providing an amenity. Of course similar arrangements apply to lodges and tourist facilities in our National Parks.
The difference here is the presumption that Dale’s own work is so special that we, the citizens of this city, should honor HIM with a museum for his own work. Why? Seattle has a tradition of great art … Jacob Lawrence, Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Bill Holm, Marvin Oliver, Tsutekawa, Minor White, Edward Curtis .. all of these, along with Dale, are part of a heritage that I treasure. I have a friend, Ginny Conrow, who is a potter here. Ginny is recognized around the world as a great porcelain artist. With all that, isn’t it sad that the Wrights (who collect Chihuly as well as owning the Space needle) are going to use a public park to promote their guy? Why not name a museum honoring NW art after Dale and feature his work alongside others?
One of the worst feature of this story, is that apparently Chihuly and the Wrights are not donating any art to the Center. Given Dales’ propensity for enormous public art, why haven’t they made an offer to create donate a sinature work?
I guess my angst over this issue is classist. As a middle class guy who loves art, I feel used by the Wrights and their presumption that money = taste. Unfortunately, the Wrights ,and most of Seattle’s other art patrons, are not the Medicis. The Chihuly museum is a reflection of a Seattle that is too nouveau riche to celebrate its own traditions.
BTW, I am posting this essay also on The-AVE. You might go to the blog there if you want to comment in a more public manner.