Mile-High Musings on Arts, Culture, Creativity and Philanthropy

I recently gave the keynote talk for the Colorado Wyoming Association of Museums annual conference in Boulder, CO. This is the text of my remarks (you will understand the picture after you read the piece): In thinking about what to speak to you about today, since you are all experts in museums and I am more of an observer of museums, I decided what might be most helpful is to share my personal reflections, based on my experience and a lifetime of interacting with museums. There is probably nothing I can tell you about the technical aspects of operating a museum, dealing with curation, conservation and management that you don’t already know. I grew up in New York City, in Manhattan, with parents who while not working in the arts where stereotypical New York City culture vultures. From a very young age I was being taken to museums – MoMA , the Met , Museum of Natural History , the Whitney , Guggenheim . I also grew up in an era when even New York City public schools had regu...

After getting started with a survey of notable cultural/museum gift shops in Philadelphia last week, I am continuing the tour with a survey of my favorite shops in New York, where I spent so much time in my career (not to mention money in museum gift shops!). This list is in no particular order. I will admit, have been been back only irregularly for the past four years, so apologies if something is out of date. Feel free to post comments with suggested corrections/additions and I will do my best to update. MoMA - The Museum of Modern Art's gift shop is really a suite of shops. There is the MoMA Design and Book Store at street level at the museum, and there is a bookstore in the museum. Across the street from the museum is the larger MoMA Design Store that features the Muji "store within a store."  There is also a SoHo store in NYC and a Tokyo store. I happen to be a HUGE fan of MoMA's design store. An incredible assortment of the best of both contemporary and...