by Jon Lackman | 1 March 2006 | Museums
When many people think of the late William Rubin, they think of the landmark exhibitions he organized for MoMA, but in the latest Art in America Pepe Karmel argues that “His most lasting achievement was the upgrading and expansion of the museum’s permanent collection … he was ruthlessly ready to sell or trade work from the collection to obtain things the museum lacked.” That said, “Rubin’s autocratic management style … tended to aggravate tensions [inside the museum] … Although his response to artistic and musical sensation was as delicately modulated as the prose of Henry James, he generally expressed himself in language as frank as that of Henry Miller.” John Elderfield, writing in the March ARTnews, confirms that Rubin “sometimes attempted to treat those whom he took up as if they [like MoMA's artworks] were [his] children too.” When the young Elderfield met Rubin, “he stunned me by saying that if I stopped wasting my time with art criticism, buckled down and finished my Ph.D., maybe I could become a museum curator.” Elderfield says Rubin may have seemed hopelessly self-centered to some, “yet anyone who really knew him well was not fooled.”
