Probably it should have been no surprise that Bill Koch went right to the nuts of the matter.
The occasion was a Museum of Fine Arts press breakfast for "Things I Love: The Many Collections of William I. Koch." The show, complete with two America's Cup yachts on the museum lawn, has sparked a flareup in the long-running controversy over Malcolm Rogers' directorship of the MFA. The Koch exhibit - featuring masterworks, yachts, ship models, outdoor sculpture, Old West paraphernalia and even a few empty wine bottles - is seen by some as just the latest example of Rogers' penchant for flashy, shallow, pop-styled exhibits, a la the recent display of Ralph Lauren's cars.
When he took the mike from Rogers this morning, however, Koch bottom-lined it in a manner we might have expected from such a plain-spoken and competitive gazillionaire as he. He said his purpose in loaning his collection to the MFA is "to help Malcolm bring the Museum of Fine Arts into the modern age and realize that it is a place of entertainment - outstanding and wonderful educational entertainment, but still a place of entertainment. (The MFA) has to realize that to keep people coming in."
It wasn't quite "Curate this!" but under the circumstances, it was close.
Koch hardly looks the dashing, ruthless, quotable sort, unlike that other America's Cup motormouth, Ted Turner. He's tall, but with his casual plaid shirt, khakis and wavy white hair, he might be your grandfather or your favorite uncle. But don't be fooled. After Koch won the America's Cup in 1992 aboard America3, he bought vanquished rival Il Moro di Venezia. And this morning, he and Rogers both sure to point out that the two boats are positioned so America3 is winning the silent race on the MFA's lawn.
Koch was unfazed by this morning's "Furor Ahoy" article on page one of the Globe. "I'm sorry, actually I'm glad it's caused a lot of controversy," Koch said, "because the more controversy - Who said it? George Bernard Shaw? Any notice is a good notice except an obituary notice." (Rogers said it was Oscar Wilde.)
Like much else in Koch's 20 minutes of candid, off-the-cuff remarks, the line brought titters from Rogers and Koch's extremely well-groomed and rather bullish press aide, who sat together just in front of the podium. But the two men seemed to be trying hard to look delighted throughout, and Koch more than once joked that they were wishing he'd shut up.
Rogers might or might not not describe the MFA as Koch did, "a place of entertainment that...has to compete with the Red Sox, the Patriots and the movies." But his smile looked just a touch frozen as Koch described a study that showed the typical MFA patron is a 57-year-old woman and related in some detail his "very frustrating" pre-Rogers tenure on the MFA board. Perhaps some of the trustees and patrons then are still around now - and Rogers needs them for his nine-figure museum expansion plan.
(Rogers couldn't get a break today. Outside the museum's western entrance, where Robert Indiana's Koch-owned LOVE sculpture rested, Rogers was getting no love from the museum guards with whom he's embroiled in a contract dispute. As the press rolled up for the Koch reception, they unfurled a large banner that said, Malcolm Rogers makes more than $500,000 a year, why is he taking money from his low-wage employees?)
Certainly Koch's press aide can't have been delighted that it was Koch himself who brought up his long-running, excruciating and unseemly legal squabbles with his brother and other family members over, as Koch himself put it, "money and power." He raised the issue to explain why he's not leaving his art to his kids.
But Koch seemed to delight most of the audience with his blunt if softly spoken comments. There was, for example, a story about one of the large Fernando Botero sculptures on display outside the MFA, the buxom nude "Woman Smoking a Cigarette" (above). Koch said he'd nicknamed it Roseanne because some of his San Diego neighbors at the time complained that it was ugly. And he said he wanted to turn it around so she was mooning them. But he was busy competing for the America's Cup and it was just too much work to get a crane in. The rich are different than you and me.
But hey, Joel, how's the art? Well, a lot of it is pretty fabulous. The Impressionists on display are gorgeous, from a couple of large Monets to a tiny Degas pastel, "Ballet Dancers." I especially liked a couple of small Winslow Homer paintings of boys in boats off Gloucester. And the 20th century room features a couple of great 
Picassos and a stunning trio of female nudes, including Modigliani's "Reclining Nude," the exhibition's signature work (seen at left with Koch). They hang together behind a marble torso from 1st or 2nd century A.D. Greece. If Koch truly keeps this stuff in his homes in Palm Beach and Osterville, as it seems, he lives a rich life indeed.
On the other hand, between those two rooms was one full of western art and memorabilia - Remingtons of rugged cowboys, a case of old firearms, a Billy the Kid wanted poster. You can argue, as Koch did, that this "macho" material will improve Rogers' demographics by bringing more men into the museum. But it was a jarring transition to say the least. Looking at it all - the yachts and the models, the guns and the Remingtons, the Monets and the Picassos - I was reminded of the scene at the end of "Citizen Kane" where the great man's vast and jumbled lifetime of acquisitions is being packed up after his death.
But after hearing Koch talk about nearly each and every one of the items on display - leading our tour himself, he was still working his way through the western room when I left to catch a train - it's clear that Koch really does love this stuff, he's not piling it up just to satisfy his ego. And if your Rosebud is a ravishing Modigliani nude, well, that's maybe not so bad.
(The exhibition is on display at the MFA tomorrow through Nov. 13 in the Torf Gallery and other locations inside and outside the museum. It is included in normal museum admission charges. Photos courtesy of the MFA; artworks depicted from the collection of William I Koch.)
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