Albright depending on the kindness of others

The question was a pretty obvious one: How could a collection-focused art museum have so little money for collecting -- and so few hopes for being able to raise money -- but still think it might be able to raise money for a 50,000-square-foot expansion? That was the puzzlement about the Albright-Knox's late-February announcement that it was exploring expansion possibilities. Yesterday I called Albright-Knox director Louis Grachos and asked him to explain all this. Had he suddenly found an angel donor or something similarly unlikely? [Picture]

"Not at all," he said. "There were a number of important initiatives [in our strategic plan] that the board thought had to be activated. The last piece of that puzzle was the hope that they would at the very least break ground by 2012 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the art gallery with a much-needed expansion and a rehabilitation of our buildings.

"Our hope is that the big step we took with the deaccessioning has now empowered this museum to continue. The Albright will always be an collection-focused museum, not an exhibition or programming-focused museum. People who know the collection will travel to see it. Keeping that in mind, a building was a very important component. It's a collection that deserves more space."

No question, I said. I've been to the Albright enough to have a pretty good idea how strong the collection is. The reason I keep writing about the Albright here is because the museum has one of the ten best modern/contemporary collections of any American museum -- and it may rank even higher than that. The A-K's buildings -- the newest of which is 46 years old -- are inadequate.

But what about the money, I asked Grachos. A year ago Grachos told us that the Albright wanted to remain a museum that collected art of the present, and that unless the A-K sold-off art that didn't precisely fit the mission or the history of the museum then it wouldn't have the money to be that. Grachos said that there were no six-figure gifts to be had from his community. I accepted that argument at the time, but now... I mean, has something dramatically, radically, unexpectedly changed?

"We are doing a feasibility study to really understand what we think we can raise in our community," Grachos said. "And also to see what kind of appetite there would be for national foundations and possibly for state funding to help with a capital campaign."

Aha. Now we were getting somewhere. I asked Grachos if it was fair to say that he expected government funding to be a bigger part of a potential Albright capital campaign than we'd seen in recent years. After all, most other recent museum campaigns haven't exactly counted on government funding to be big enough to push the project through.

"Well, let's say I would hope that that were possible, yes," Grachos said. "I know MoMA received substantial funds from New York City in terms of its expansion. I would say most museums can't rely on state or federal funding, but we hope we can excite New York state and some national foundations to support the museums. We certainly feel the collection warrants a better facility. So to answer your question, we would hope, yes. And that would be part of the mix in terms of our feasibility study to see if that's possible. There's so much more emphasis with [the Spitzer] administration on economic growth in this part of the state and a recognition that cultural institutions and cultural tourism plays a role in economic growth in western New York.

"Remember that the 1962 Bunshaft expansion was heavily supported by the state when Nelson Rockefeller was governor. So the feasibility study will determine how ambitious we can be."

I asked Grachos if the museum was in the 'quiet phase' (that's non-profitese for 'we've started raising money for a project but we haven't told anyone with a net worth of under $50 million') of a fundraising campaign. He said no.

I was beginning to understand, but I was still skeptical. Two years ago Erie County took away $500,000 of the Albright's county-sourced operating funding. If the Albright wasn't worth $500,000 to the county a couple of years ago, what local officials were going to go to Albany to argue that the Albright should be a priority for state capital funds?

"It has been restored," Grachos said. "I'm happy to say we were able to restore the amount that we have received over time back to that level. So we took a big hit that first year and then we were lucky. And of course the kind of funding I'd hope we'd look at are the monies available for capital projects at the state level."

Later: Those Gluckman drawings and Grachos on tourism vs. community.

Related: The A-K gently corrects Lee Rosenbaum.