As of today, the National Academy Museum has moved from hot water, according to the Association of Art Museum Directors, into lukewarm water: the group “suspended” sanctions on the NAM enacted two years ago after it deaccessioned two works of art from its collection and used the proceeds to cover operating costs.
Since December 2008, when AAMD punished the NAM, the museum has been unable to borrow works from AAMD members for its exhibitions.
The NAM has promised not to deaccession works to pay its operating bills at any point in the future.
Nonetheless, the National Academy Museum remains on a five-year probation, and has committed to reporting to the AAMD each year about its progress toward both financial and programmatic goals. According to a press release:
AAMD will lift the probation on the National Academy at the end of five years, assuming continued institutional advancement. The terms of probation were developed by AAMD in order to strike a balance between the negative effects of the sanctions on the National Academy’s operations and future plans, and AAMD’s stewardship of policies and standards to maintain the highest level of professional practice for the field.
Here’s a link to the press release.
I may be back to add to this, with comments, later today.
UPDATE: I’ve had the opportunity to think this agreement through, and it seems fair to me under the AAMD rules. While some critics have called the sanctions too harsh, I disagree — if an organization expects rules to stick, it must enforce in a meaningful way. “First offense,” in the case of deaccessioning, is a meaningless distinction. Most museums would try to do their selling in one episode.
As I’ve written, I believe that there ought to be a process through which museums in true danger of closing, which have exhausted all other possibilities, might petition a state attorney general or an AAMD-sanctioned arbiter or some other adjudicator for permission to deaccession some works to raise money to remain open. See here, here and here.
What I objected to about the NAM’s behavior was its secrecy, secrecy caused by the AAMD strictures.