October 21, 2005
I love this New Yorker story on the new New Museum, not least because these charming benefactors have been to Marfa, Texas! Here it is:
BED BATH & BOWERY
Lauren Collins on the best-friend benefactors of the New Museum.
Last Tuesday morning, the empty lot at 235 Bowery (the former site of Bowery Parking, LLC) looked, despite a vestigial chain-link fence, fit for a garden party. To protect guests from th rain, a tent had been erected; beneath it were rows of white, scallop-backed chairs. The occasion was a groundbreaking ceremony for the new headquarters of the New Museum o Contemporary Art. “I’m honored today to be joined by many of our most generous supporters,” Saul Dennison, the president of the board of trustees, said in his opening remarks. “I’d like t take a moment to thank Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg, and Susan and Leonard Feinstein, who sit behind me.” The two couples, the museum’s principal benefactors, could be seen on either sid of the dais
“Which one is Mitzi, and which one is Susan?” a museum staffer, wearing a headset, whispered to a colleague.
“Oh, my God. I’m going to do the same embarrassing thing. I can never remember.”
Mitzi was the one on the left, a convivial grandmother with eyeglasses and short gray hair. She is an art collector from Short Hills, New Jersey. Susan, on the right, had a swingy silver bob and held her chin very high. She was wearing a cherry-red duster, with the cuffs turned out to reveal Burberry plaid. She is also an art collector, and lives on Long Island. Both women had nice nails and large diamond studs in their ears. A couple of years ago, they joined the museum’s board.
In 1971, their husbands, who (along with Mitzi) grew up together in New Bedford, Massachusetts, started the housewares chain Bed Bath & Beyond. Warren was in charge of real estate and finance, and Leonard handled merchandising; the arrangement has stood up ever since. They and their families keep a low profile (although Liz Smith once noted that Mitzi, “a charming lady from New Jersey,” had, at a charity auction, bid fifteen thousand dollars for a luncheon with Bette Midler) and like to travel and dine together; the men, the executors of each other’s will, are known for wearing sweaters to the office. Earlier this year, the four friends made a joint gift, in the range of ten million dollars, to the New Museum’s building campaign. The facility, which will be completed in 2007, is to be named in their honor.
Back on the stage, Saul Dennison finished his welcome. (Before him, Laurie Anderson had performed an original song, by sucking on a pillow speaker. “I get kind of a thrill out of putting electronics in my mouth,” she said.) A Shinto priest in a robe and lacquered clogs approached the stage, chanting, “Saishu kashikomi kashikomi mo mosaku kotabi New Museum of Contemporary Art-i.” (The new building’s architects are the Japanese avant-gardists Sejima Nishizawa.) Susan, looking tickled, mouthed something to her husband. The priest blessed the construction site by sprinkling its four corners with little squares of salted paper. Then the four patrons took their turn shovelling dirt.
After the ceremony, the Feinsteins and the Eisenbergs gathered their umbrellas and raincoats; they were joining other donors for a Chinese banquet on Mott Street, and then going to look at art. Susan and Mitzi explained that although they had no special connection to the Lower East Side, they were thrilled to be there.
Susan: “We have apartments in the city, even though our main residences are in the suburbs.”
Mitzi: “One thing we all talked about is that this museum has the potential to change the whole neighborhood.”
She continued, “I was the first one to go on the museum’s board. Then I got Susan on, and we thought it was so exciting what they were doing.”
“And we got drunk and decided—” Warren said.
“Don’t say that!” said Mitzi.
“They were doing very well, but they needed a push,” Leonard said.
“Oh! We were in your kitchen,” Susan said to Mitzi. “Remember?” She nudged her husband. “We were in their kitchen.”
“Well, I know one thing,” Leonard said. “You weren’t cooking.
“We had all taken a trip to Marfa, Texas,” he went on. “And when we came back that’s when it started germinating.”
“I thought we were out to dinner,” Warren said. He added, “This is one of my proudest days.”
“You have a white thing there,” Susan said to Mitzi. She reached across to her friend’s lapel and picked off a scrap of Shinto confetti.
Issue of 2005-10-24
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October 08, 2005
There is a thief in Marfa...actually in Valentine...who stole 6 purses and 14 shoes (all right-foot) from the Marfa Prada...what I love most is that time is supposed to ravage this "store" and 50 years from now it will be just like one of those Texas or Nevada ghost towns...and who will know at that point what this brilliant concept was anyhow...
VALENTINE, Tex., Oct. 7 - The adobe sculpture called "Prada Marfa" was two years in the making and assuredly incongruous, plopped down in the vast, empty landscape on U.S. 90.
But after a well-attended artists' opening on Oct. 1, the 15-by-25-foot sculpture replicating a Prada store was vandalized on Tuesday night. Six purses and 14 shoes, all for right feet, disappeared.
About 35 miles southeast in Marfa, where the international art community gathers this weekend for the annual Chinati Foundation Open House, the scuttlebutt is that the vandal "was just some jealous Marfa artist," said Charlie Maxwell, a builder who was called in for repairs. Among the area's tourist attractions are square concrete boxes by the minimalist artist Donald Judd.
The Prada sculpture is the work of the Berlin artists Michael Emlgreen and Ingar Dragset. It was produced by Yvonne Force Villareal and Doreen Remen through their nonprofit Art Production Fund, and they said last week that they intended to forgo maintenance and let time ravage the $80,000 sculpture so that "50 years from now it will be a ruin that is a reflection of the time it was made."
But Mr. Maxwell said he repainted the outside - where vandals had spray-painted "Dumb" and "Dum Dum," repaired scratches and refitted a door, to be permanently locked and minus handle, because "they wanted to have it in pristine shape through the Chinati weekend."
The Prada handbags now have cut-out bottoms to obscure links to a security system that, if tampered with, alerts the police in Marfa and the county seat, Fort Davis.
"It's definitely creating a reaction," said Boyd Elder, a local artist. Two cars, one from San Francisco and another from Austin, stopped by while he was talking with a reporter. Mr. Elder said he wants to see more tourism dollars spent in Valentine, whose population has dwindled to 160.
The vandalism "represents the times we're living in," he said, adding that the graffiti and thievery were "a great example of jealousy and envy."
Mr. Maxwell offered an alternative security system: keeping "six or seven choice rattlesnakes inside the store."
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