Smaller Art Shows, Fewer Parties, No More Biscuits

Here are at least three other reasons why anti-deaccessionists are wrong.

LA’s struggling Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) announced on May 19 that it
was laying off Brooke Hodge, its curator of architecture and design, and
cancelling its long-awaited Morphosis exhibition, among other moves to help
balance its budget.

As part of a restructuring “needed to create a sustainable operation,” the
museum has reduced its staff size by 17 positions, including 12 full time and
two part time jobs. Along with a round of layoffs earlier in the year, MOCA has
now let go of 40 staff members in 2009.

More from the Architect's Newspaper here.

In other news, Christopher West, curator of the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art for the past five years, has been let go by the organization, while the museum’s cofounder, Jeremy Efroymson, has returned to the helm of the museum. More from the Indianapolis Star here.

Lastly, according to New York Magazine, "[t]he recession is taking a toll on the Met: to cut costs, the Fifth Avenue museum is going to start playing host to some smaller art shows — and fewer parties. 'The economy has totally changed, and we’re not immune,' says new director Thomas Campbell."

Cutbacks have been everywhere at the museum, Campbell adds. On top of the previously announced job cuts and closures of some Met-museum gift shops around the country, there have been catering cutbacks: "We no longer serve biscuits to the trustees."

Smaller Art Shows, Fewer Parties, No More Biscuits

New York Museums Urge Deferral on Brodsky Bill

This letter, written on June 1, 2009, to Assemblymember Richard Brodsky and Senator Jose Serrano, urges deferral on any legislative action pertaining to the proposed "Brodsky Bill" affecting New York State arts institutions and organizations. It also urges them to consider the negative consequential effects of this bill. The letter is signed by numerous institutions and organizations, among them the Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

New York Museums Urge Deferral on Brodsky Bill

National Gallery of Art Deaccessions Painting

The National Gallery of Art has made out like bandits in a recent deaccession stemming from a legal dispute. More from Clancco.

National Gallery of Art Deaccessions Painting

Guggenheim Director Pro-Deaccessioning

Arts and culture blog, Real Clear Acts, has a very interesting interview between Maxwell Anderson and Guggenheim Director Richard Armstrong, which incidentally, and self-interestedly, supports my position (and that of Donn Zaretsky), that limiting deaccessioning and peppering it with punitive measures will only close and bankrupt arts museums and institutions.

Armstrong contends:

People have to be practical. They have to be pragmatic. They have to stop being righteous. They have to stop being proud of the fact that the museum died, but the collection is intact. That's where we're headed, I'm afraid, in a number of provincial places.

Guggenheim Director Pro-Deaccessioning

NY's Committee on Art Law Opines on Brodsky Bill

The New York State Assembly is considering a bill, A6959, which will "create rules for deaccessioning of items in a museum'scollection and ... regulate the use of funds from disposed items."

A summary of the bill:

• Legally defines what have been 'working' terms for museum collectionsand collection management policies.
  
• Requires each museum to adopt and publish a binding collection manage-ment policy and mission statement.
  
• Each museum shall accession all items in its possession that areconsistent with its mission statement and collection management policy.
  
• Items may only be deaccessioned if certain criteria have been met;either that the item is inconsistent with the mission of the museum, theitem has failed to retain its identity, the item is redundant, theitem's preservation and conservations needs are beyond the capacity ofthe museum to provide, or the deaccession of the item refines thecollection per its collection management policy.
  
• Any museum disposing of an item must make a 'good faith effort' tosell or transfer the item to another New York State museum.
  
• Proceeds from the disposal of deaccessioned items may be used for theacquisition of another item for the museum's collection, and/or for thepreservation and protection of an item in the collection, proceeds maynever be used for customary operating expenses.
  
• The Board of Regents will have the authority to enforce the provisionsof this law.
  
• Additionally, the board of regents is authorized to study and reportto the Governor whether or not museums should include buildings in theircollection.
  

A full version of the "Brodsky bill" can be read here. For background information on this bill, read Art Info's "New Bill Seeks to Make Deaccessioning Illegal in New York."

The New York City Bar's Committee on Art Law has written a three-page letter (pdf version) to NY State Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky asking for some clarifications to the bill as well as some suggestions as to its applicability. The letter also asks for two practical clarifications: "What would be the time-line for compliance with the proposed legislation? And what would be the penalty for non-compliance?"

NY's Committee on Art Law Opines on Brodsky Bill

In The News

The Star-Ledger's Kelly Heyboer writes on deaccessioning during tough economic times. Her article, When times get tough, should museums sell their art?: Bloggers on 'deaccessioning,' cites us as well as some other notable voices on deaccessioning, including Donn Zaretsky and NY State Senator Jose Serrano.

The Deaccessioning Blog is also quoted in a recent student note by Kristina Gordon of John Marshall Law School, entitled, "Where Is My Monet? Museums and Donors Lose An Important Incentive for Fractional Giving." (Thanks to Donn for the heads-up.)

In The News

Behold, the Man!

A reader e-mailed me last week (when I was in gorgeous Barcelona) and asked why I didn't update this blog more often. He pointed out, rightly, that there was much writing going on relating to deaccessioning. I agree. So why the slothness?

Well, for starters, although there is quite a bit of writing on deaccessioning it certainly isn't good, much less rigorous. Put a chimpanzee in front of a laptop and in due time he, or she (for the politically correct), will type the words "deaccessioning," "wrong," "bad," and if we're lucky, and feed him, or her, enough bananas we may even get "in the public trust." Like much (critical) art writing these days, the writing on deaccessioning is heavy on the cream and light on the caffeine.

So, take it as my philanthropic duty to not pass on meaningless diatribe on why art is so precious and why art is not a business; on why art belongs to a community and why it shouldn't be treated as an asset or commodity. In due time these folk will enter the age of enlightenment, perhaps not due in part to their own rational capacities, but rather due to the economic forces that some of us have come to accept as devastating and unprecedented.

Until then, I will point you to the man who I believe plays with a full deck of cards and isn't missing a single screw. His name is Donn Zaretsky, from the Art Law Blog, and his new, precise, and RATIONAL argument (not against deaccessioning, but rather for an expanded application of it) can now be read in the recent issue of Art in America.

Enjoy, and stop asking for crumbs. I'll post when the pie is ready!

Behold, the Man!