Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Museum Funding-Fundraising

Was The Corcoran Playing A Game Of Chicken? — UPDATED

The Corcoran Gallery of Art’s plan to test the marketability of its building, and move to the suburbs, hasn’t gone down well with anybody that I’ve heard of.

That includes potential buyers. The Washington Business Journal published a couple of pieces on the theme — to quote one: “Developers in the Washington area are lukewarm at best on the opportunity to reshape the Corcoran Gallery of Art if the museum decides to uproot from its longtime home at 500 17th St. NW. Several real estate experts said the historic building is beautiful and ideally located, just a stone’s throw from the White House. But they said the 1897 building is too old, ill-configured and challenged to draw any real interest from developers to convert the building into offices, shops or residences.”

The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported that artists are mobilizing to oppose the move.

An emergency meeting of artists, convening under the slogan “Save the Corcoran,” began the push-back Thursday evening against plans to consider selling the landmark Corcoran building on 17th Street NW and moving the gallery elsewhere in the area.

But the same story contains an interesting quote from Kristin Guiter, vice president of communications and marketing for the Corocoran, who attended the meeting as a representative of its leadership.

They [meaning the museum’s leadership] have heard the public outcry, and I think everyone should stay tuned.

She also said Corcoran management would be willing to meet some Save the Corcoran members, the Post reported.

That fast? That easily? It makes one wonder if the Corcoran’s board released its sale plan to create a crisis and mobilize the support for the Corcoran it has been unable to galvanize on its own.

UPDATE: Well, this is getting even more interesting: Guiter had apparently quit. Washington City Paper has the story here. It also says that “Starting next week, the Corcoran will hold public meetings about these developments.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Corcoran Gallery of Art

The Corcoran Needs New Thinking, New Management: Look North

Is this the beginning of the end of the Corcoran Art Gallery? Yesterday, Washington’s oldest public art museum, founded in 1869 and opened in 1874, said it may sell the Beaux Arts building it has occupied since 1897 and move to the suburbs, where it can obtain more breathing room for less money. Besides, it said upgrading the existing building to current museum standards would cost at least $100 million and it would still lack gallery space for displaying its permanent collection.

Costs aside, that’s crazy. Why leave all those tourists to the District behind? Didn’t the Newseum try to get visitors to come to Arlington and then decide it had to move to the city?

You can read the full statement from the director/president and chairman of the board here.

An article in the Washington Post has more on the current situation and on the Corcoran’s sad history in recent years, which have been marked by mismanagement and poor leadership. And it provides more on how the board came to this decision, with help from a strategic consulting firm named Real Change Strategies, whose website is not operable as I write this. Real Change Strategies is owned by Martha Blue, a former employee of McKinsey & Co. and Goldman Sachs with an MBA from the University of North Carolina. (Not that I’m blaming her…) According to the Corcoran’s 990, it paid her $609,691 for her advice.

The obvious fact here is that the Corcoran has had no workable, believable vision to sell to potential funders. It has been unable to raise money because there’s little reason for philanthropists to give. Its 990 forms, for fiscal years ended June 30, show a decline in contributions and grants to $4.4 million in the year to June 30, 2010, its most recent filing. That’s the lowest for the past ten years, down from $4.9 million in FY 09; $8.2 million in FY08 and $12.9 million in FY07. The number hovers around $10 million for a couple of years before that — and in FY02, it was $20.4 million (or $26 million in today’s dollars).

You can’t blame that record on the recession. We’ve been through several cycles since then, and in 2002 we were barely out of the 2001 recession (not to mention the impact of 9/11).

The Corcoran has gone through umpty-ump changes in directors, to no avail. Maybe it should simply hand over its management to the National Gallery of Art.

New York had a similar situation recently, when the Museum of the City of New York took over the South Street Seaport Museum at the behest of city government. It’s too recent a move to call it a success. But the Seaport museum too had been clueless, and the city was able to intervene because the museum owed it money.

Memo to whoever can knock heads in Washington: look north; this may be a model.

 

Another Economic Casualty? Baltimore Contemporary Closes

I thought we might have been finished with museum closings for this economic cycle, but I guess not: While few people were paying attention, the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore ceased operation several days ago, in mid-exhibition and apparently with little warning.

Founded in 1989,  the Contemporary started out presenting exhibitions in temporary spaces and in partner institutions like the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Historical Society, Peabody Conservatory and Walters Art Museum. Then, in 1999, it procured a space in downtown Baltimore near the Walters, focusing mainly on area artists. 

A year ago, it started to mount a series of one-week-long solo exhibitions called “The Baltimore Liste.” As the Contemporary’s director, Sue Spaid, told a local publication called the Urbanite at that time, “We decided on the ‘Liste’ model from Berlin because it focuses on younger artists and galleries.” 

That month — May 2011 – the Urbanite wrote, “The Contemporary Museum is packed this particular Friday evening: the young and bohemian smoke cigarettes out front, while the inside buzzes with animated conversations as people enjoy snacks and beer, cameras flash, and artists make faux kiss noises. The gathering has all the attributes of a really great art party.”  (The article has more on the Liste model, too.)

The Liste was set for a repeat performance this spring. But as a blog called BMoreArt recorded on May 22, visitors who went to the exhibition on the 19th (actually after May 16), were met by “a hand-written sign that said, ‘The Baltimore List has been de-listed until further notice.’ ” A day later came the official notice (right).

The Baltimore Sun caught up with the story last Friday, publishing an article which started out with the odd line that the Contemporary was having a hard time remaining contemporary — though that’s what Liste was all about. Then it quoted another museum director saying ‘There is a passionate base for contemporary art here now.”

Finally, the Sun went to the reason for the story, quoting Bodil Ottesen, the Contemporary’s board president, who said, “We are not shutting down. The museum is ceasing its programs for the time being.” She gave no prognosis, but the Sun noted that Spaid and four museum employees had been “let go.”

Last fall, the Contemporary moved out of its recent home and back into temporary spaces, but trustees have been trying to raise money to refurbish a former gallery spacea on N. Charles St. as its new home.  That plan has been scrapped.

The one positive sign in this story is that the Contemporary had shut down before, in 2003, but staged a new exhibition within months in a temporary space and hired a new director the following year, the Sun says.

Let’s hope.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Urbanite (top), of BMoreArt (bottom)

Brooke Astor Leaves $20 Million To The Met

Whoo hoo! The Metropolitan Museum* announced tonight that the Brooke Astor estate has been settled, and it will receive about $20 million. It will, the museum said in a press release, “be used to support the institution’s curatorial programs and art acquisitions, as Mrs. Astor wished.”

I’m sorry to say that I’ve been out, taking in the AIPAD Photography Show New York at the Park Avenue Armory, and have not had time to reflect on this deal.

But that’s the gist. One sticky point, concerning a painting her son Anthony Marshall sold illegitimately, was resolved this way:

As the settlement makes clear, $3 million of the funds assigned to the Metropolitan are given in recognition of the Museum’s claim for proceeds from the sale of a painting from Mrs. Astor’s personal collection—Childe Hassam’s Flags, Fifth Avenue (also known as Up the Avenue from 34th Street, May 1917). Although Mrs. Astor bequeathed this iconic work to the Metropolitan, it was wrongly sold in 2002.  The painting’s current whereabouts are unknown. The Museum continues to regret that it will be unable to display the work for its public as Mrs. Astor so long hoped.

Here’s a link to the Met’s statement on the settlement.

The New York Public Library and Central Park are among the other beneficiaries.

BTW, the AIPAD show looked good: I can’t say I learned of some stunning new photographer, but there was a lot of excellent work on display.

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met 

 

European Arts Groups Need Money, So Do Ours: A Modest Proposal

Today’s New York Times page one story on arts cuts in Europe addresses something that’s been on my mind for a while. I of course sympathize with arts groups that are having to grapple with sudden declines in the money they receive from their governments. But I’m not too crazy about the phenomenon described near the end of the article, namely:

As a result, some European arts institutions have begun looking for financial support in the United States, courting American companies or wealthy Americans with emotional ties to an ancestral homeland. But that means, as Mr. [Andreas] Stadler [director of the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York and president of the New York branch of the European Union National Institutes for Culture] acknowledged, that “we are also competing with American institutions, which are also hit hard.”

No kidding. Many European institutions have been recipients of American philanthropical largesse for decades – Save Venice, for example, goes backs to 1966, when Venice suffered crippling floods, and has raised more than $20 million from Americans for various projects since. American Friends of the Israel Museum dates to 1968. The Royal Oak Society, which raises money from Americans to preserve historic houses in the U.K., takes in nearly $2 million a year from Americans. American Friends of the Louvre started in 2002, and American Friends of Musee d’Orsay was begun last year. The list goes on, now growing longer in recent years with Asian groups like the American Friends of the Shanghai Museum (founded in 1995).

What’s wrong with this? My concern is that it’s almost entirely a one-way street. Dollars flow to cultural institutions abroad through U.S.-registered 501(c)3 groups making all donations tax-deductible. Very few Euros, shekels, pounds sterling, or yuan are coming this way — though one recent counter-example is worth a mention. In December, the Kennedy Center in Washington announced a $5 million naming gift from Russian investor/philanthropist Vladimir Potantin (above right) that made headline news. In return, the Center plans to renovate its Golden Circle Lounge, with additional funds from The Vladimir Potanin Foundation, and renamed it the Russian Lounge upon reopening next fall. 

I wish he had more company. Until he does, I think we should tinker with the tax code — making donations to groups abroad, when the money flows out of the country — only partially tax-deductible. Say, by half. If many experts are right, that won’t stop the flow, because they say people don’t give for the tax deductibility (we’d see, wouldn’t we?). But other Americans would no longer be picking up the tab.  

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Vespig.Wordpress.com