A-K deaccessioning: Mistake after mistake

To the best of my knowledge the gallery didn't address this point until I raised it. "In terms of the pre-modern material, the curators have worked hard to maintain key objects that they felt were helpful in telling some stories," Grachos told me. "There's a cycladic figure that our curators and such like to refer to in terms of its relationship to early modernism, so we kept certain objects in the collection. They were objects we felt we could utilize in terms of educational opportunities but that weren't central to the mission. So we didn't do a complete deaccessioning of everything that was not in the realm of modernist thought and the evolution of modernist thought, and we were also very conservative in that we wanted to [keep] our Hogarth or our David. These were artists who were starting to lead to something that came in the 19th-century, and we could see the seeds of how things were starting to change through the collection."

(Grachos' response echoes the argument made in a 1979 collection catalogue quoted by Christopher Knight in the LA Times: "The acquisitions policy of the Gallery has long held that efforts to add certain works which elucidate affinities and parallels with the art of modern times is an important pursuit."

So after initially doing the fair and transparent thing, the A-K has thoroughly muddled along, stepping on its own two left feet at every opportunity. I originally thought that its decision to deaccession was a good idea, an opinion I reached for two reasons: regional economic circumstances and the museum's admirable yearning to remain prominent in collecting recent art.

(It's important to note that there is nothing inherently more noble in collecting the art of the past than in collecting the art of the present. The two offer similar, even equal, educational benefits and opportunities. It is braver to want to be fully engaged with the present than to live in the past. But the A-K hasn't made this point and hasn't found anyone to make that point for it; you'd think the A-K could have found a contemporary museum director or three to pipe up in its defense!)

So, ultimately, I guess I'm still in favor of the A-K's decision. Obviously I don't feel good about it. From day two forward, the museum has bungled and bungled. Certainly the A-K should have first offered its self-declared masterpieces to the Getty, Cleveland, the Met and other major museums in a private sale that could have ensured that its masterpieces remain in the public sphere. (It could -- and should -- still broker such a sale, but now Sotheby's would get a cut.)

Ultimately the strength of the museum is modern and contemporary art and that area has been the museum's focus for decades. Continuing and enhancing their focus on that makes more sense than not. But unfortunately the way the museum has done it has made a difficult process into a painful mess.