"Private collection shows are an insult to scholarship and curators"
One of the oddest things I’ve seen in a museum was the first paragraph of a wall text at the 2008 exhibition “Los Angelenos/Chicano Painters of LA: Selections from the Cheech Marin Collection” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It explained, in unusually honest terms, why the exhibition was on view at one of America’s major public art museums. It said that the collector’s celebrity (and resulting wealth), not the art, was the basis for the show. This explanation of the reason for the show was an unintentional, but specific, insult to the artists whose work was on view: “You’re only here because of your association with a Hollywood star.” The exhibition was an embarrassment... - Tyler Green
Link Full Text, "Turning museums into vanity spaces", Tyler Green, The Art Newspaper
