More Deaccessioning Thoughts from Dobrzynski

Judith H. Dobrzynski shares "a few more impressions, based on developments and discussions since [the] publication of her op-ed in The New York Times on Jan. 2.

It's sad, but true, that several people on both sides of the issue told me that I was "brave" to propose something at odds with the official AAMD/AAM position. It was as if I had voluntarily touched the Third Rail of the museum world.

This sentiment was borne out at the Brodsky bill roundtable: People are afraid to discuss the very possibility. There was almost no dissent (except for objections to an unfunded mandate) until, at 1 p.m., two hours after the Committee on Tourism, Parks, Arts and Sports convened the roundtable, Brodsky satisfyingly looked around and said it was the last chance for people who differed with him to speak up. Only then did people rise to the mike to disagree or question the bill, and only then did the rumbles in the audience begin.

More troubling still, one thing I've learned since Jan. 2 is precisely how little trust exists in the museum world. Directors don't trust their trustees; trustees don't trust one another; many trustees don't trust their directors. I knew there was some amount of mistrust -- but I didn't know relations were this bad.

Museum directors -- even some you think are strong -- fear their trustees, finding it hard to disagree with the powerful ones, ever. (I know, I know, trustees provide the money, and directors work for the board, but absolute obeisance is unhealthy.)

While it's no secret that trustees join boards because they contribute money or art, too many trustees have little interest in art -- maybe none. If they're there only for the prestige and the power, I blame the nominating committee and the board chairman.

More Deaccessioning Thoughts from Dobrzynski

Another Assemblyman Aims to Make Deaccessioning Illegal

Staten Island Assemblyman Matthew J. Titone aims to insure that cultural institutions do not sell off some assets to stay open and afloat. Deaccessioning to keep the doors open and the lights on will soon be illegal in New York State, if a new bill co-sponsored by Assemblyman Matthew J. Titone (D-North Shore) gets passed. Titone hosted a round-table discussion this month with 80 curators and administrators from all over the state. Some, like Historic Richmond Town, already have in-house regulations that protect collections. Others don’t. “We must always ensure that the public and future generations enjoy the enormous resources of our great state’s cultural and historic institutions,” says Titone. “This law will help protect that heritage.”

Via SIlive.com

Another Assemblyman Aims to Make Deaccessioning Illegal

London's ICA Could Close by May

London's ICA staff members have been told that a financial deficit currently at around £600,000 ($967,000) might rise to £1.2m ($1.9 million) and if radical steps are not taken the ICA could be closed by May. According to the ICA director, without a wholesale restructuring, the ICA could be the first major British cultural organisation to fall victim to the recession. Via The Guardian.

London's ICA Could Close by May

When Will the AAMD Get Their Massachusetts?

We saw last night in Massachusetts what happens when those in power don't listen. The AAMD met recently and changed nothing regarding their stance on deaccessioning. As jobs and exhibitions continue to plunge off museum cliffs due to the recession, is the AAMD deaf and blind to the obvious? Is this the AAMD mirroring Obama, focusing on wrong issues at the wrong time? Donn Zaretsky calls this meeting "breaking news." Via Artinfo.

The hot topic at this year's mid-winter meeting of the Association of Art Museum Directors in Sarasota, Fla., attended by more than 125 museum heads from 35 states and three countries, was the same as last year's: deaccessioning. The association's Deaccessioning Task Force has concluded that “works cannot be deaccessioned to provide funds for operating or capital purposes, and such funds may only be used for the refinement and expansion of the collection.”

When Will the AAMD Get Their Massachusetts?

Salvador Dali Museum May Be Forced to Use Art as Collateral?

The new $36 million Salvador Dali museum under construction in Tampa, FL is scheduled to open in January 2011. All but $6 million has been raised from federal, state, city and private funding. But money for the project will run out this spring without a new source of funds. The museum will be forced to take out loans using art from the Dali collection as collateral if the tax dollars or new contributions don't come through soon. Via St. Petersburg Times.

Salvador Dali Museum May Be Forced to Use Art as Collateral?

Chief Executive of Getty Trust Against Deaccessioning

Today's NY Times includes a letter to the editor from James N. Wood, president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust. Wood respectfully takes issue with Dobrzynski and raises some important--and frequently unmentioned--consequences to deaccessioning.

To raise substantial amounts of income, you must sell good, and thereby potentially important, works of art. The smaller the amount raised by sales of works of art, the more this solution becomes stopgap. If a long-term solution is to be achieved, not only must substantial amounts be raised, but also the money must be put into an endowment with an annual spendable rate that preserves the principal.

The unintended consequences could well include a change in the board’s perception of its fiduciary responsibility to one more focused on asset management than philanthropy. Human nature has shown us that if there is an accepted alternative to giving one’s own money, many, if not all, will seize it. And potential and past donors of works of art will be uncertain as to the future use of their gifts.

While I agree with Wood, I'm not so sure that these valid considerations would not be within the mindset of deaccessioning arbitrators. Remember that Dobrzynski was keen in asking that the arbitrators have not only artistic and legal expertise, but nonprofit governance expertise as well. Surely in better economic times deaccessioning arbitrators would not allow, much less facilitate, the fire-sale of Warhols and Picassos simply because board members failed to "give or get."

Wood's full letter here.

Interesting thoughts nonetheless.

Chief Executive of Getty Trust Against Deaccessioning

Am I Right? Or Am I Right?

Drowning in debt, the Fresno Metropolitan Museum is closing today, indefinitely.

The exhibits and assets inside the building will all be auctioned off to pay back creditors... sold at auctions in big cities, like San Francisco and New York, [hoping] the pieces will earn 50–to–60 cents on the dollar, on the auction block. The remaining Met employees have until the end of this month to clear out the building.

One down, 9 to go.

Am I Right? Or Am I Right?