Sunday, May 10, 2015

What's next: The Boston Market Museum of Fine Arts?

I have no problem with corporations supporting museums and asking for recognition. Recently when I was in Boston I visited the Boston Museum of For Arts, which was free when I was child, but now has a $25.00 admission charge. This means, of course, that art, like theater is no longer for the poor. The museum, one of the largest in the United States was founded in 1870, and contains more than 450,000 works of art, one of the most comprehensive collections in the world. I don't know how we did it, but as children from Roxbury, a poor neighborhood, we often went to the museum unaccompanied. So even as a child in the 50s I was exposed to the great art of the world. Admission was free then. During my recent visit, it still had the same magic: All the paintings I loved as a child are still there: The Sargents, the Van Goghs, the Winslow Homers,  and John Singleton Copley's terrifying masterpiece Watson and the Shark. As I said at the beginning I have no problem with corporations announcing their support for such worthy institutions as museums, but I was completely offended this year to see that the Bank of America, not content with a sign or plaque had apparently insisted on having their name permanently carved into the marble at the entrance to the museum. I happen to detest the Bank of America anyway for their low business practices and their many rip-offs for which they have been repeatedly sued. But I take special exception to the vulgar act of adding their name to the facade of one of the most admired museums in the world. 

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