Fenster writes:
Never visited the Barnes Foundation when it was in Merion. Got to see the new place in Philadelphia this week. Obviously, the new facility
is not the same as the old one on the outside
but on the inside they’ve arranged the collection to reflect Barnes’ idiosyncratic views.
The old
The new
You get a free audio tour, a good deal of which consists of trying to explicate what Barnes might have been up to in his eclectic selection of paintings, metalwork, objects and furniture and their placement. Alas, since the doctor left no record of his thought process, it’s mostly surmise.
An interesting aspect of how he mixes things up deals with the copious number of nudes.
Courbet’s Woman with White Stockings. The most . . . . evocative of many nudes.
There are a lot of them. And since the paintings are mixed together under Barnes’ secret scheme, they are everywhere. No matter where you go, there they are.
My idea would be to just put ’em all together–the Hustler approach rather than the highfalutin’ Playboy, where you had to leaf through the interview with George Plimpton. So I say, assemble all the nudes together and put ’em on one wall. Well, one wall would not be enough, so I’d squeeze as many non-Renoir nudes as possible on the one wall:
and leave the other wall for the Renoirs.
There is a ton of Renoir nudity. Two tons, maybe even, considering the pulchritude. So I would opt to put all the Renoir nudes together, on the wall opposite the other nudes.
Throw in some hinges, latch plates, trefoils, hasps and escutcheons and you got it babe: a collection!
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
Nice tour. Always wanted to visit.
There’s a doc on Netflix about how Philly big shots finagled the collection out of its custodians’ hands. It’ll make the libertarian in you feel pretty angry.
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Being a philistine, or maybe just having a background in non-profit management, I am much more aware of the legal and political issues surrounding the Barnes than the collection itself. Which is why the trip was overdue. Anyway, that is a good film (The Art of the Steal) and well worth watching. I have used the Barnes as a case study in my teaching in the past and may put up a post on the non-art aspects of the case, which are pretty fascinating. Last time I used the case in a class, the students ended up split just about 50/50 on the move.
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Oh my, great comparison. I would insert that trefoils have become the standard warning symbol, such as radioactive or biological warnings. Sounds potentially appropriate…..
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Having been in the old Barnes building, the interior of the new appears to be relatively faithful to the eccentricity of the original. I couldn’t make sense of Barnes’ gently oddball display preferences the several times I was there, but I think you’ve hit on something by nothing the sheer outrageous tonnage of nudes on hand, and linking it to the old Playboy technique of pornography punctuated by prose. It could be that Barnes had an obsession with naked ladies on a level with that of certain contemporary Uncouth Reflectives, but in a less enlightened era, Barnes had to do somersaults of conscience and intention to repress the actual extent of his interest. It could be that all the wall doodads, and mediocre non-nudes served the function of “serious” articles in his mind’s personal Playboy: distracting both himself and (he may have subconsciously hoped) his public.
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