EXHIBITIONS BY YEAR
MoMA Staff
Artists
New York Times Review of the exhibition
PUBLISHED
23 February 1986
MUSEUM AND CORPORATION - A DELICATE BALANCE
The opening 10 days ago of the Equitable Tower - the world headquarters of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States - is an event of major artistic importance. It marks a commitment to art on the part of a prominent American corporation that is as generous and innovative as any before. For the Whitney Museum of American Art, the opening of a fourth ''branch museum'' just inside Equitable's main, atrium entrance at 787 Seventh Avenue, and its advisory role in the corporation's art commissions and in the development of the Equitable art collection, marks the culmination of a long courtship. With other branch museums supported by Champion International, Philip Morris and Park Tower Realty, the museum has now wedded its future to corporations. What the Equitable has done is in many ways impressive. Its willingness to commission work without conditions and to underwrite the largest of the Whitney branch museums is a statement of its belief not only in the commercial and promotional value of art, but also in the role art can play in the quality of corporate and communal life. Every one of the large-scale commissions in the new building - by Scott Burton, Sandro Chia, Sol LeWitt and Roy Lichtenstein - is ambitious and worthy of serious attention.
New York Times • Arts • page 1 • 2,689 words