It looks like San Francisco is questioning John Buchanan in the same way we Portlander's were for years before he left. The problem is that museum directors shouldn't be preempting their curators, they are two very different jobs and from our experience in Portland most would say that John was very hand's on. To quote the late Gordon Gilkey a curator who predated but passed away before Buchanan's term finished at PAM, "he's a damn micromanager." I like the idea of Gordon having the last word.

Tyler Green has been all over this and I remember our first phone conversation about John distinctly... let's just say everything I mentioned about JB's style has come to pass. It is no secret that the serious contemporary art community in Portland really had a bone to pick with him. Still to John's credit he did create the current Rembrandt show (which isn't fluff at all), the transformative Greenberg Collection aquisition, and allowed the Miller-Meigs series of contemporaty shows at PAM to happen. Maybe John can turn it around?

Still, it is a fact... by the time he had left for San Francisco Portland had outgrown him.

and Tyler Green posts about our new director, his posted about both John Buchanan and Brian recently.

http://www.artsjournal.com/man/2007/09/qa_with_portlands_brian_ferris.html