Do arts organization have an unhealthy relationship with the New York Times? Probably! Tyler Green wrote in the Arts Journal blog about how the NYT and art institutions deals with art news: "In return for receiving stories first, the NYT provides coverage... If the NYT doesn't discover major arts news stories first, it doesn't report on them." Well, yeah—otherwise, it's just kind of embarrassing. While reporting on a story about the National Gallery of Art, he noticed that everyone was holding or keeping off-record the information about their latest major project: "the NGA's chief spokesperson wanted the Villareal item to debut in the NYT."

This week, as NYT reporter Carol Vogel returned from her annual August sabbatical, all kinds of news suddenly, magically appeared in the Times: Ann Temkin's promotion and a Braque acquisition at MoMA, the National Gallery of Art Villareal. (Collusion made obvious: Even after MoMA and the NYT announced the news on NYT.com, MoMA refused to send a writer a press release on the Temkin appointment.)

[Modern Arts Notes]