Re-examining deaccessioning at the Albright

Expect me to go on about this for a few days before coming to a (personal) conclusion...

We'd all agree: The Albright-Knox deaccessioning is all about money. But I think the story here isn't so much about the A-K's desire to make some scratch in the hot art market - though that's unquestionably clear - but about what happens when regional economic realities collide cultural spending. Rust Belt museums take note: What we're seeing in Buffalo isn't just a debate over deaccessioning, it's a debate over how to stay vital. Is it more important for contemporary art museums to increasingly be as they were, or for them to continue in the spirit of their mission?

First, a quick historical rundown: The A-K is a small, historically significant museum based in a city that has gone from being prominent and wealthy, to being an economic backwater in just two generations. Buffalo is one of a handful of cities in America with fewer residents in 2000 than in 1900, and more than a quarter of the city lives below the poverty line. One percent of the Buffalo area's workforce evaporates each year -- the only workforce in New York state that isn't growing.

Meanwhile, the A-K is probably America's best modern and contemporary art museum with the least money, the smallest fundraising base, and the least-likely-to-improve donor community. (Last week I asked A-K director Louis Grachos what the museum's last six-figure endowment gift was. He laughed and then sighed. He didn't know, but said that it had been a long, long time. And that there was no prospect of fundraising on that level in the imaginable future.)

The A-K's budget hovers mostly in the $6.5-to-$7.5 million range, about one-fifth the size of, say, SFMOMA. However, thanks to restricted endowments mostly established 50 years ago, the Albright manages to spend about $900,000 a year on acquisitions of contemporary art, almost 15 percent of its total expenditures. For those of us who think that collecting institutions - and not just wealthy collectors - have a role in preserving the art of our time, that's a pretty good thing.

Then again, it has to be - the museum doesn't have any other options. A few years ago, after a traveling blockbuster from Washington, DC's Phillips Collection was a financial bust, the museum decided that it had to go out of the blockbuster business. Instead it would emphasize its collection with its exhibitions, and it would take smaller, less expensive, less flashy shows. In short, it would offer collection shows based on what Grachos says has always been the museum's core mission: the art of its time.

Tomorrow: Irony of ironies.