Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Museum Funding-Fundraising

What To Make of The Christie’s Evaluation

Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s emergency manager, held up release of the report made by Christie’s to him yesterday, which totted up the value of works in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts that were purchased by the city: he was testifying in court, his office said, and he wanted to review it before release. He needn’t have bothered. I got it this morning, reviewed it and found virtually no surprises. The valuations were all there, in ranges, as promised — for the fair market value, not auction estimates.

vanEyckIn some cases, contrary to previous reporting in respected publications — e.g., see this article — auction estimates would likely be less, not more. That’s the way the game is played. (A lower price encourages bidding.)

Here’s the link to the final report of values.

And here is Christie’s word of caution:

In order to determine the appraised value, Christie’s appraisers used the “market data approach,” which compares the subject work to similar works and makes appropriate adjustments. The lower number in the value range for each work we appraised represents a conservative price at which the property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller in the relevant marketplace, and the higher number in the range represents the most advantageous price at which the property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller in the relevant marketplace. Christie’s has made no assumptions about the sale process, nor did we take into consideration any commissions, buyer’s premiums, or potential financial agreement between the buyer, seller and/or venue that would affect the final price realized. We have not assumed any volume discounts.

In other words, the Christie’s document is not gospel — it does not guarantees any of these prices. Putting all of these works on the block at one time would likely be too much for the market to swallow (the air gets thin — as do the bidders — above a certain figure, especially in categories that are not contemporary).

If anything, as I wrote last week, this report, and the options for monetizing the collection without selling, should lower Orr’s expectations, not raise or solidify his stated desire to get $500 million in a “contribution” from the DIA.

Here’s how the Detroit papers are covering this development: The Free Press article and the Detroit News article. One very sad thing: the comments on press articles continue to show outright and total misunderstanding of the issues, the values, the alternatives.

Photo Credit: Van Eyck’s St. Jerome, estimated at $4 million to $6 million

Magical Thinking And The DIA

For weeks now, no months, I’ve been struck by the magical thinking that surrounds the Detroit bankruptcy-Detroit Institute of Arts situation. People are asserting opinions and notions that they want to be, rather than looking at the circumstances that exist — on both “sides” of the issue, if I may characterize them as sides.

Detroit-Institute-ArtsThat thought was behind an article I’ve written that is published in today’s Wall Street Journal, headlined Delusions in Detroit (though, truth be told, I’d have said Delusions About Detroit, because they’re not confined to the Motor City). My rationale:

These and other delusions are influencing decision-making, and that is a dangerous game. Before any decisions are reached, these half-truths and untruths must be shown for what they are and discarded.

I won’t elaborate on those in the article here — please just click on that link — because, believe me, several other things I had to say, or other pieces of my arguments, never made it into my article or are on the cutting room floor. Here are a few other points I wish I had had the space to raise:

  • I don’t know enough about Michigan politics to understand why the governor rescued Belle Isle, an island in the Detroit River that is home to the aquarium, a yacht club and other attractions, but the state leased it from Detroit for 30 years. But nor do I understand why the terms of the deal were acceptable. It saves $6 million in costs to the city each year, but the state provides no revenues to pay down debt. Imagine if that deal had been extended to the DIA. Problem solved..
  • Everyone seems to believe that the DIA can simply tour its collection to raise money, though proceeds would be pretty meager, as I write in the article, quoting two totals (one from the DIA’s own recent tours and one from the recent tour of masterpieces from Kenwood House). Need I remind people that such tours subject art works to inevitable wear-and-tear that might soon be intolerable? Any movement of paintings and sculptures involves risk to their integrity; too much movement is deadly. When I was at the DIA about 18 months ago, Graham Beal pointed out the toll on van Gogh’s Self-Portrait, the museum’s most-requested work. It just has to stay home for a while, and perhaps require conservation (unless that’s been done in the interim).
  • Another method of monetizing the collection involves proposed partnerships between cash-rich museums and the collection-rich DIA, but as I point out the one between the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Nagoya, Japan, achieves other purposes, but adds little to the MFA’s revenue stream. But here’s another reason to doubt the viability of this idea: Just last month, a deal between the Art Gallery of Western Ontario Australia and the Museum of Modern Art (details here) fell apart half-way through its three-year tenure — even though more than 230,000 people had visited the MoMA exhibitions since the series was launched last year. Citing high insurance costs and lower-than-expected ticket sales from the MoMA shows, the AGWA said the partnership was “no longer financially viable.” Here’s the letter from the museum’s director, Stephano Carboni, and here’s a report on it.
  • What about those for-profit groups that organize and tour money-making exhibitions, most notably the treasures from the tomb of King Tutankhamen show. Well, I couldn’t actual numbers for that show — which probably made profits as well as added revenues to the museums who showed it. Nonetheless, the stock of the company involved, Premier Exhibitions, Inc., sells for $1.14, close to its 52-week LOW of $1.03. Given that kind of loss in an up market, the outlook does  not look sound.
  • A variation on the philanthropists’ rescue scenario would have rich Michiganders buy the DIA’s works and retain ownership, placing the treasures on “permanent deposit” at the DIA. This has an upside: At some point, the owners might become donors and reap an increased tax benefit if the work appreciates. But legally, there’s no such thing legally as a “permanent loan,” lawyers tell me. In recent years, British galleries have struggled to pay for paintings long on deposit from families of the Dukes of Sutherland and Rutland, for example, but put in play when the lending family decided it needed cash.
  • A question for Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and the governor, as they consider ways to get value from the DIA and, inevitably, harm it: Will any of the creditors dissolve if they don’t get paid, as the museum would?
  • As I keep pointing out, yes, the passage of the millage rescued the DIA from financial jeopardy last year, but remember that the museum has no debt and operates in the black.

Confession: I have bouts of magical thinking, too: I wish that analyses like mine in the WSJ and this one would convince Orr to lower his sights regarding the “contribution” he expects from the DIA — or better yet drop the demand altogether. The creditors can take care of themselves, mostly, and alleviating pensioners’ distress depends on the long-term viability of Detroit, which is enhanced by the DIA, not on a fight now over a few dollars per person.

UPDATE: In my article, I refer to a panel at an event sponsored by the International Foundation for Art Research. It has now posted a video of the evening, here.

 

New Donor Gift: Allen & Co. Returns Name To JALC

Now here is something I’ve never heard of: a larger donor is giving back a naming right so that it can be resold.

JALC_font_final_001_620Yesterday, Jazz at Lincoln Center said that Allen & Co., the financial company headed by Herbert Allen that named the Allen Room, one of three performance spaces at JALC, in 2004, was giving back the right, as part of a new campaign, so the room could be resold to a new donor. Here’s what the release said:

As the organization prepares to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Frederick P. Rose Hall in its 2014-15 season, Allen & Company’s innovative philanthropic approach is intended to encourage more charitable giving to jazz.

“Allen & Company’s extraordinary contributions enabled us to complete Frederick P. Rose Hall and were a landmark moment in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s history,” said Managing and Artistic Director, Wynton Marsalis. “Ten years later, through this same selfless generosity, Allen & Company is providing an important means of financial security for the next stage of our growth.”

The Allen Room seats 550 people,  but what makes it special is its view — 50-fit-tall floor to ceiling windows that overlook Central Park. The design shares similarity with a  Greek amphitheater, with the stage below and seats ascending from there. It can be a performance space or a dance floor.

Allen paid $10 million for the rights in perpetuity in 2004, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Now it should bring more.

I suppose JALC would rather have another $10 million from Allen, but I kind of like the give-back too.

 

A Happy Ending For The Once-Besieged Rose Art Museum

What a difference support from the top makes. This weekend, the Boston Globe dutifully went back to visit the Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University, to see how its new director, Christopher Bedford (below), who was hired last year, was doing.

bedford647x260You’ll recall that in 2009, Brandeis’s then-president Jehuda Reinharz wanted to sell the Rose’s sterling contemporary art collection, then valued at some $350 million, to find his way out of the university’s fiscal problems. (See here and here, for example — plus the links in those posts.)

Reinharz left (voluntarily, he says) and Brandeis hired Fred Lawrence to replace him. Lawrence reversed the plan, settled the lawsuit filed by a group of Rose supporters by agreeing that the university would not sell the art, and hired Bedford. Lawrence understood that said the Rose was, or should be, an integral part of Brandeis. And, according to the Globe, he’s done more than that.

For one, he and his wife helped woo a new trustee, Liz Krupp (boldface mine):

Krupp admits she was reluctant. Already a trustee at the MFA, she has also served on the boards of the American Repertory Theatre and Boston Ballet. She and her husband, George, a real estate investor who cofounded the Berkshire Group, have had a gallery named after them at the MFA.

Not long after Bedford’s hiring, he was invited to meet Liz over lunch by Frederick Lawrence’s wife, Kathy. Krupp initially resisted Bedford’s offer to join the Rose board. She was too busy. Then Bedford e-mailed and called. He and Fred Lawrence visited her at home. She couldn’t say no this time.

Sure, Krupp told the Globe that she liked Bedford’s enthusiasm, but you can’t underestimate the effect of the presence of Lawrence and his wife in the process.

But let’s give credit to Bedford, too — he has also recruited artist Mark Bradford for the board, commissioned artist “Chris Burden to install an ambitious, outdoor and permanent work with a $2 million price tag,” and commissioned “Walead Beshty to create a mirrored floor at the Rose that crinkles and cracks under the weight of museum visitors,” the Globe said. More acquisitions are pending — “including works by Whitten, Al Loving, Dor Guez, and Charline von Heyl.” Details about the Burden commission are here.

Attendance, meanwhile, is up, “from 9,145 before he came to 14,303 in the current year.” I don’t know how that compares with 2008 or 2009, whose number was inflated by the crisis. (Paging former Rose director Michael Rush, who can’t be looking back…the Associated Press just reported that “More than 114,000 people have visited the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum in East Lansing in its first year,” the museum Rush now heads.)

I am sure Bedford deserves much of the credit here, but the sea change at the university level seems pretty key to me.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Brandeis

 

In Defense of The Detroit Institute: A Poignant Piece

03art-articleInlineThe Sunday Review section of today’s New York Times had a wonderfully written, heartfelt piece by Susan Jacoby about the importance of art in our lives — and why the people of Detroit, poor or rich, deserve to have the great art that resides in the Detroit Institute of Arts.

It’s built around the Gates of Paradise (panel at right), and it’s so well done that I don’t want to quote it. Just read it, please. Maybe send it to Kevyn Orr and Michigan governor Rick Snyder.