SHOCK!!! RENOWNED NEW YORK ART CRITIC JERRY SALTZ HATES NELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART BLOCH BUILDING!!!

Today, the tragic Kansas City inferiority complex which defines life in this wicked little town is about to get much worse.

To wit . . .

RIGHT NOW: RENOWNED NEW YORK MAGAZINE ART CRITIC JERRY SALTZ TOTALLY TRASHED THE BELOVED BLOCH BUILDING @ THE NELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ART!!!

Background provided by AWESOME TKC TIPSTERS . . . "Jerry Saltz, famous NY art critic was invited to speak at the Nelson Art Gallery….leaves KC…and proceeds to go on FB and skewers the Nelson Art Gallery!"

Mr. Saltz uses the recent Bloch building addition to the Nelson-Atkins campus as a focal point of criticism for museums across the nation.

His polemic starts simply enough:

A Pox on your House By Jerry Saltz

Highlights that should be of interest to Kansas City residents:

"It is more tragic testimony, if any were necessary, to how those who genuinely care about and love art have become a marginal minority when it comes to museum architecture. The Bloch is all lobbies, ramps, ridiculous angles, emptiness, atria, and almost no art. I walked more than two football fields to reach the art. And this space is three floors tall.

More and the main point of the essay by Mr. Saltz:

"The Bloch addition encapsulates how architects have transformed museums into replacement cathedrals that are terrible drains on museum funds and that must be maintained at enormous annual expense, in perpetuity, making them vulnerable to every economic tick. Before most of these useless spaces are torn down in the future, our descendents will look back at us and wonder what we were thinking, how we did this to art, and our natural resources."

Update: That criticism rings true but I also think it's worth noting that the place still looks like a Butler Building to locals who don't have refined few of architecture.

The Jerry Saltz verdict on the Kansas City Nelson-Atkins Museum Bloch building that's especially loved by this town's 1% who really just visit the place to schmooze.

"Steven Holl failed. His building proves he does not care about art. It's main content is hubris, wealth, the desire to be thought of as 'an artist.'"

Now . . .

THIS CRITICISM IS DEVASTATING FOR KANSAS CITY'S ARTS COMMUNITY BECAUSE IT'S BASICALLY A TOP RANKING NEW YORK ART DUDE MOCKING THIS TOWN'S McMANSION APPROACH TO IMPRESS THE CULTURAL ELITE!!!

Here at TKC we've had similar criticism of the building but this SHOCKING ART WORLD SMACKDOWN OF KANSAS CITY is kind of like somebody outside the family picking on a sibling. . . Nobody likes it.

Still, this perspective from an art world power player reveals a perspective on a local arts institution that doesn't care about the opinion of cowtown snobs and is sure to bruise the egos of local high society types who mistakenly believe that Midtown KC is akin to Manhattan NYC.

Developing . . .