{"id":1268,"date":"2009-03-05T08:28:50","date_gmt":"2009-03-05T16:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2009\/03\/art_as_collateral\/"},"modified":"2009-03-05T08:28:50","modified_gmt":"2009-03-05T16:28:50","slug":"art_as_collateral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/art_as_collateral.php","title":{"rendered":"Art as collateral"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Met Opera&#8217;s recent admission that their famed Chagall murals are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/03\/04\/arts\/music\/04oper.html\">now providing collateral against existing debt<\/a> raises anew a fundamental business question: is art an asset for a cultural institution? An asset, as you likely know, is any item of economic value owned by an individual or corporation, especially one that could be converted to cash. Assets come in all flavors &#8212; from liquid (very close to cash) to capital (harder to convert to cash). And any thoughtful enterprise will understand all the assets under its control, and when those assets should be strategically converted from one form to another.<\/p>\n<p>Museums are constrained to a particular answer to this question by their certification process and their standards of practice (that answer is &#8220;yes its an asset&#8230;but tightly wrapped in a promise of stewardship&#8221;). Cultural institutions outside the museum world have a more difficult calculus, as they are constrained only by public opinion and bank officials (and sometimes the demands of the artwork&#8217;s donor).<\/p>\n<p>There were all kinds of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/the-pros-and-perils-of-the-emb.php\">controversies surrounding Brandeis University<\/a>, of course, when it seemed to be claiming the art collection of the Rose Museum as a convertible asset. And there are likely to be more such struggles as arts organizations seek to restructure debt and access credit in a world of shrinking cash flow. When the money gets tight, and the banks come calling, many such groups are left with one significant asset in their arsenal &#8212; their cultural artifacts. Very tempting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Met Opera&#8217;s recent admission that their famed Chagall murals are now providing collateral against existing debt raises anew a fundamental business question: is art an asset for a cultural institution? An asset, as you likely know, is any item of economic value owned by an individual or corporation, especially one that could be converted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}