We Don't Need Curators Any More: We Have Banks

Darned if reading "And Now, An Exhibition From Our Sponsor," the article by Robin Pogrebin that ran in Sunday's New York Times (link), didn't put me in a bad mood.

It described how many museums -- small ones in particular, with less wherewithal, like the new Millenium Gate Museum in Atlanta, at left -- were eager to show exhibitions drawn from the collection of Bank of America, packaged (ok, curated) by the bank, and sponsored by the bank. Since B of A began this practice -- a marketing tool -- in 2007, it has placed nearly two dozen shows, and has another 16 set for the next two years. "And," the article says, "there is a waiting list."

J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, Deutsche Bank and UBS also regularly lend out shows drawn from their collections, but none has perfected the turnkey exhibition idea as much as B of A.

Now, the banks' position is totally understandable: the practice works, drawing new customers and creating good will in the community. But the comments of several museum directors -- complacency personified -- are less explicable to me. Only Glenn Lowry, head of the Museum of Modern Art, and Richard Armstrong, head of the Guggenheim (whom I've criticized here for displaying his inner cowboy vis-a-vis museum practices), seemed to be dubious. Good for them.

Even more surprising was the neutral response of John Ravenal, the curator of modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts who recently became president of the Association of Art Museum Curators.