“To Be with Art Is All We Ask”: The Inaugural Robert Rosenblum Lecture At The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Launching the annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture series, curator and writer Sir Norman Rosenthal joins Jeffrey Deitch, newly appointed director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in lively conversation. This program draws its inspiration from the wide-ranging career of Robert Rosenblum (1927–2006)—former Stephen and Nan Swid Curator of Twentieth-Century Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Henry Ittleson, Jr. Professor of Modern European Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. His celebrated work included projects on Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, and even the depiction of dogs in art.

Norman Rosenthal was born in Cambridge, United Kingdom, in 1944. He studied at the University of Leicester, undertaking postgraduate studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University College London and at the Freie Universität of Berlin. From 1977 to 2007, Rosenthal was Exhibition Secretary of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in charge of loan exhibitions. Among the significant exhibitions that took place during that period were Robert Motherwell (1978), A New Spirit in Painting (1981), Sensation (1997), Apocalypse: Beauty and Horror in Contemporary Art (2000), and Georg Baselitz (2007). At the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, he was co-responsible for the groundbreaking exhibitions Zeitgeist (1982), Metropolis (1991), and The Age of Modernism: Art in the 20th Century (1997). Since leaving the Royal Academy, he has been working as an independent consultant to and curator for museums, private institutions, and individuals worldwide. Rosenthal was knighted in 2007.

For over thirty years, Jeffrey Deitch has been a dealer in modern and contemporary art, and an art advisor to private and institutional art collectors. In 1996, Deitch opened Deitch Projects. This space, which will close in May 2010, has produced more than two hundred and fifty projects by contemporary artists. Prior to opening his own art advisory firm in 1988, Deitch was a Vice President of Citibank where he spent nine years developing and managing the bank’s art advisory and art finance businesses. Before joining Citibank, he was the Assistant Director of the John Weber Gallery in New York, as well as a curator at the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts. A 1974 graduate of Wesleyan University, Deitch received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1978. As an art critic and exhibition curator since the mid-1970s, Deitch has contributed to Art in America, Artforum, Arts, and other publications, and served as the first American editor of Flash Art. In January 2010, Deitch was confirmed as the new director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,

“To be with art is all we ask” is a quote by Gilbert and George, artists whom Rosenblum knew well. This is the inaugural program in a series facilitated by the Robert Rosenblum Fund. Jeffrey Deitch, David Meitus, Jane Rosenblum, Sir Norman Rosenthal, Angela Westwater, and the donors to the Robert Rosenblum Fund are gratefully acknowledged for their generosity.

FREE to students with RSVP and ID.

For tickets, please call the Box Office at 212 423 3587, Monday–Friday, 1–5 pm.

In the event of a sold-out program, standby numbers will be distributed on a first come, first served basis beginning at 6 pm. Should seats become available, tickets will be released starting at 6:25 pm. Seats for a video simulcast in an adjacent theater will also be available.