Albright-Knox Post Mortem: A Complete Defeat
On the Wall Street Journal's "Leisure & Arts" page today---coinciding with the first day of a series of auctions of 207 objects from the collection of the Albright-Knox Gallery---former museum administrator Tom Freudenheim publishes his second WSJ piece decrying the sales. (Here's his first piece, in which he described the importance to him, as a boy growing up in Buffalo, of the earlier, non-contemporary works in the collection that have now been deemed disposable.)
A quasi-journalist nowadays, Freudenheim managed to crash the no-press barrier at the recent museum members meeting where the sale was debated, because he is a longtime Albright-Knox member. In today's piece, he gives an inside view of that meeting and debunks the notion that "this failing Rust Belt community can raise money only by divesting itself of its cultural capital because there's no new wealth to tap. In fact, I've...been told that there are massive fortunes in the region, many of them made locally."
This underlines an important issue that is all too common to the sorry sagas of museum deaccessions: They are an easy expedient for trustees and administrators who aren't doing their job of adequately supporting their institutions with their own gifts and through energetic fundraising.
Freudenheim writes:
Some of those millionaires [in the Buffalo area] are even trustees of the museum. In the old days, writing big checks to support acquisitions and other museum programs was considered every board member's first responsibility. Today, it seems, they prefer to cash in the gifts of earlier generations.
Freudenheim also raises questions about today's museum officials' overruling the considered judgment of their predecessors: "A significant number of the [deaccessioned] masterpieces...were quite intentionally purchased by previous distinguished directors," he notes.
Having lost the battle, he nevertheless optimistically opines that "this storm in Buffalo might be just the beginning of a revolution in which the public begins to reclaim its rights to public institutions and demands an accountability that museum directors and trustees will ignore at their peril."
But the Buffalo example provides little evidence of this so-called peril: The trustees and director appear to have gotten away with their raid on the collection, with the support or acquiescence of most of the local community. The Battle of Buffalo, it seems to me, was nearly a complete defeat.
We need the Michael Govans of this world---respected museum directors who are not afraid to lead the charge against deaccessions---to begin to set things right. The only other hope is that State Attorneys General begin forcefully intervening on behalf of the public for whom museums hold their collections in trust.
So far, there are few signs that either of these things are going to happen any time soon.
Categories:
About
KEEP CULTUREGRRL BLOGGING! Please Contribute (Secure transaction via PayPal): (You do not need to have your own PayPal account: Click the "continue" link at lower left of the donation page.)
ADVERTISE on CultureGrrl MUSEUMS, GALLERIES, AUCTION HOUSES, ART PUBLICATIONS, ARTS PROGRAMS---Please go here and click the "CultureGrrl" box to place an ad. For more information on advertising, e-mail here. more
LEE ROSENBAUM
I'm a veteran cultural journalist who writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal's "Leisure & Arts" page. I've been a regular cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC). I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at Columbia Law School, the University of Iowa and the annual conference of the Museum Association of New York, and on museum governance and cultural property issues at Seton Hall University. more
Contact me
Click here to send me an email...
moreBlogroll
About Last Night
Art History Newsletter
Art Law Blog
Art Observed
The Art Tribune (France)
Artblog.net
Articulations (Smithsonian)
Artopia
Design Observer
A Don's Life
Edward Lifson
Exhibitionist (Boston)
Eye Level (SAAM)
Foot in Mouth (dance)
Greg.org
LA Observed (Los Angeles)
Looking Around (Time)
Looting Matters
Modern Kicks
New Curator
NewYorkology--Architecture
NewYorkology--Museums
NYC Opera Fanatic
Opera Chic
Slog (Seattle)
Tropolism
Walker
AJ Ads
AJ Arts Blog Ads
Now you can reach the most discerning arts blog readers on the internet. Target individual blogs or topics in the ArtsJournal ad network.
Advertise Here
AJ Blogs
AJBlogCentral | rssculture
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
rock culture approximately
Laura Collins-Hughes on arts, culture and coverage
Richard Kessler on arts education
Douglas McLennan's blog
Dalouge Smith advocates for the Arts
Art from the American Outback
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
No genre is the new genre
David Jays on theatre and dance
Paul Levy measures the Angles
Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture
John Rockwell on the arts
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
media
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Martha Bayles on Film...
classical music
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
Bruce Brubaker on all things Piano
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
publishing
Jerome Weeks on Books
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
visual
Public Art, Public Space
Regina Hackett takes her Art To Go
John Perreault's art diary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog

Leave a comment