Art: What Martin Roth's obits shockingly left out

When I heard that Martin Roth died, I read all the obituaries I could find.  It was as if I felt that by reading accounts of his life his early death would be less shocking. He would have loved them. From the Guardian to the Independent and Telegraph and across the Atlantic, too, in the New York Times all was praise for his short reign as Director of the Victoria & Albert Museum. Nice, I guess, but for me disturbing. Not a single obituary mentioned the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum. You know, the art and objects. It was as they do not exist. Why then would there be any discussion of Martin Roth’s role in preserving, studying, displaying and/or expanding them. The conclusion was as terrible as it was obvious: Art and objects of art don’t much matter.  A look at what they tell us does matter will follow but first:

As what is in the V&A; the reason for its creation and existence, was not thought worth a mention, there was no point in mentioning Martin Roth's relationship with those employed to maintain, study and increase it. As one does not wish to speak ill of the dead, that may have been just as well; many curators were not Martin Roth fans.  

Maybe the fact that I liked Martin Roth (see previous post) and respected what he achieved in Dresden led me to feel that the anger of V&A’s curators was off target. I reckoned that it ought to have been aimed at the Trustees. Martin did what they hired him to do; he was expected to replicate his success in Dresden. Evidently, when the Trustees were kids they all cut class on the morning their teachers explained about how you can't compare apples and pears.

At Dresden's State Art Collections, Martin Roth was an Admiral overseeing a fleet of 12 (now 15) ships. His job was not to run the State's Armory, Green Vaults;  Old Master, Modern Art, Porcelain or Folk Art collections. Each of these museums has its own Captain responsible for its contents and a staff that reports to him or her. Martin was responsible for strategy, conquests, publicity, raising money. . He revelled in it. Also, he was very good at it.  During his 10 years there he became a figure on the international culture stage; Dresden was reborn as a great culture capital. The splendor of its collections was a revelation and joy.  

When Martin came to London he worried that people might have trouble accepting him as the first German to head an important British museum.  He did not appear to have any doubts about his job description. He arrived an Admiral and that is what he remained. The result was that the V&A became a ship without a Captain; some would say it was minus an anchor, too. I had no idea until I read the obituaries that for a lot of people in the art world this did not seem to matter. Evidently, there were more important things. Consider, for a representative example, this snippet from a laudatory obit in the FT:

  “Roth’s outward-looking approach was reflected in bold plans for new outposts for the South Kensington-based museum. V&A Dundee, Scotland’s first museum of design, is due to open in 2018, and V&A East is planned for the QueenElizabeth Olympic Park in east London.”  And there was more to praise, much more:

  

 In the Guardian, the current Chairman of the V&A Trustees, Nicolas Coleridge, is quoted saying that Martin Roth raised “the international profile of the museum. Initiatives under his leadership included a presence at the Venice Biennale, the expansion of the museum to China, Dundee and east London, the founding of the V&A research unit, and the opening of restored galleries devoted to European arts and crafts of 1600-1815.”  Hurrah. Hurrah?

Yes, while Martin Roth was Director, the number of visitors rose to 3.8 million. There was such high demand to see exhibitions devoted to David Bowie and AlexanderMcQueen that the museum had to extend its opening hours--even through the night. Also no. The number of curators shrank. Acquisition budgets ditto. More cuts were promised. Talk became more bitter; the voices of staff were not heard; their concerns ignored.

Okay bitching is one of the perks of being on staff. But sometimes it is more than a ventilating system. The New York Times obituary described Martin Roth as “a path breaking curator in Britain.” Where was the editor that day? He was not a curator of any kind in Britain--nor at Dresden’s State Art Collections for that matter. The Big Picture was his department. 

In London, at lunch with Martin one day, I mentioned that V&A curators were discontented; that they felt they could not get their views across. He simply had no idea what I was talking about; what they wanted from him. They knew where he was. It was up to them to make themselves heard. I didn’t think he was being arrogant. He just didn’t get it. 

In the absence of a focus on their contents, museums become brands. The V&A, a magnificent museum is marketed; opens branches, sells franchises. Its success is measured by counting the number of feet through the door; the amount of media coverage, celebrities coming to its parties and awards of course. A successful museum director is someone who grows the brand. What's so dreadful is that this is not happening in small pockets here and there; that it is what's called trending. What so awful is that is now normal to think more about the packaging and selling of museums than what is in them.

I don't like it. I wish it would stop.

Remembering Martin Roth--and Dresden

It was only last Autumn that Martin Roth, then a vigorous 61- year old, left London after five years as Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum and returned to Germany. There cancer, reportedly diagnosed soon after he arrived, felled him fast. He died on August 6.  When I heard the announcement on the BBC news I was shocked and also sad. I’d known and liked Martin for 15 years. 

I last saw Martin Roth last Autumn at a V&A party. Once it was decided that he would no longer be its Director he decided to leave before the very end of his contract..He and his wife were about to head for Berlin.

  “What are you going to do next?” I asked.

   “One thing for sure, I will spend more time in British Columbia,” he said.

     Although he loved it there this seemed improbable.  Martin was too ambitious; his need to scoot around the world to museums and conferences; to hang out with the rich, famous and//or beautiful was much too great for him to relax swaying in a hammock tied to the rough bark of a couple of sky- skimming trees. 

   

Tall and dark when we first met and later a distinguished gray, Martin Roth would have been handsome if there weren’t something sheepish about him. It was as if he were playing the lead in the story of his life without fully connecting with the character.. The plot involved driving fast cars, wearing beautifully cut suits, enjoying fancy company and maybe above all being seen to be a figure on the international culture scene. He relished it yet seemed a little embarrassed by the hot shot, glamorous character he played. . This sheepishness undercut the slickness and vanity. It made him approachable; likable.  Soon I came to admired him, too--not for his performance at the V&A (about which more in the next post), but for his brilliant achievements during the decade before.

Detail from the large jewelled tableau "Throne of the Great Moghul Aureng Zeb " in the Green Vault 

In 2001 Martin Roth became Director General of the Dresden State Art Collections. He was to oversee the reconstruction, restoration and re-display of its 12 museums (there are now 15).  Together they house the greatest surviving Western Princely treasure in the world. There is magnificent armour for men and horses, Old Master and Modern masterworks, important sculpture, the best early Meissen and Chinese porcelain,  an abundance of splendid jewels and objets d’art. There is folk art, too, and much else.  Also there are the palaces in which all this was housed. (Above a small part of the opulent and fabulous "Throne of the Great Mogul" with its bejewelled camels and elephants, diplomats and slaves all passing before Aureng-Zeb seated on a throne at the back of the tableau. It was created in the 18th century by Johann Melchior Dinglinger for Saxony's Elector August the Strong. "Over the top" would have had no meaning for him.  In fact, at first glance it seemed just the right description for this ostentatious piece. After a very few minutes it became a dream come true, a dream I didn't know I;'d had. It made the the far more famous works by Faberge seem derivative. Very well done of course but less imaginative; less brilliant; not thrilling..

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Martin Roth was also charged with making the world aware of Dresden’s splendor. I write for publications with a global reach. That is why I was invited to Dresden in 2002 and the reopening of the first of its exceptional museums: The Porcelain Gallery. From the start he and I had the usual mutually beneficial (exploitative) relationship of museum director and arts journalist. It was richer than that only because Dresden is..

About all I knew before I went was that the  RAF firebombing of the city near the end of the war destroyed it, tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people. It became an empty shell. End of story. The firebombing was a tragedy but it was not the end of Dresden.               

Dresden soon after the firebombing

During the war its princely treasures had been removed and hidden in the hills to the east of the city. Almost all of it survived. Quite a few of its Renaissance and Baroque buildings were flattened but many more survived like a congregation of ghoulish, blackened, stone stalagmites. 

   Dresden was cut off from most of us from the start of the Second World War through the decades of the Communist German Democratic Republic. It might as well have been flattened; its treasures destroyed. The government of a reunited Germany was determined to bring it back to life.

I accepted the invitation to go to Dresden because I am keen about old jewels. I'd been told by people who themselves had not yet managed to see it, that there in its  Green Vault was the best collection to see them in abundance. First of course,t I visited the Porcelain Gallery, which after all was the official reason for the trip.  Quickly and to my surprise I fell in love with early Meissen porcelain especially the magical menagerie of animals from a rhino to a turkey.  I visited the store rooms, too,  and the temporary installations.  Finally I managed to get into the Green Vault which was not on the itinerary. From August the Strong's suites of matching jewels (all diamonds or emeralds, coral or carnelian to Dinglinger's tableau.  Until then if I imagined Paradise it was Arcadian. Ever since it has become populated with wonders made by men. I left Dresden  awed,  excited and inspired.  I went back more than half a dozen times.

There were not so many other foreign journalists as besotted by the State Art Collections as I was. Naturally Martin Roth noticed. And naturally I grasped that it is handy to be friendly with the man who had keys to all that glorious stuff. But there was something else too: Dresden meant a lot to us both if in very different ways and we both knew it.  It was there that Martin became a player; an art star. .It was there that I was given an aesthetic jolt that expanded my consciousness which for all the hype LSD never did.    

I am glad that Martin Roth and I had Dresden to share; sorry not to have him to share it with any more. Sorry, too, if that word can express it, that his adventure in life ended so soon.