There have been three disturbing things happen during the Winter Show from my point of view as an exhibitor. They are equally unsettling and although my show has been better than last year, it by no means qualifies as a success.
The first thing is the paucity of decorators that I have seen attending the show. This is a travesty.
The second is that I learned that the head curator of European Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art did not know of “Museum Night” nor was she invited to the show.
Lastly, I was contacted by “Southern Accents” a lifestyle magazine that is doing a spot on New York One tomorrow morning to lend them some antiques. The editor I talked to was unawares that the Winter Antique Show was in progress.
This situation is unacceptable. If this was a major corporation, heads would roll or it would be out of business. The answer, of course, is publicity, but nothing is quite so simple. Show management is juggling a host of problems, the most pressing of which is a new landlord. But the show, called venerable by the “New York Times” yesterday is slipping. For venerable read any of the following including, old fashioned, fuddy-duddy and irrelevant.
Is the show the best that it can be? I don’t think so. It needs a great deal of effort from people with a clear vision of what the show should look like both next year and in ten years and in fifty years. The work to change things needs to start immediately.