Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Museum Funding-Fundraising

The Städel Museum Expands: Four Reasons To Note

In the last few days, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt has opened its doors on an expansion that’s significant for a couple of reasons. 

First, the art: The Städel has long been known for its great collection of Old Masters. Now, with the completion of new galleries designed by the architectural firm schneider+schumacher (of Frankfurt), it is showing Western art of the past 700 years. The new space, almost 32,300 square feet, doubles the area available to show the Städel’s holdings. Although the museum has collected some contemporary art in the past, two recent acquisitions – 600 works from the Deutsche Bank collection and 220 photographs from that of the DZ Bank — plus many major donations and some purchases have added what the museum says is 1,200 new contemporary works to the Städel’s collections. About 330 works are on view in the current hanging.

Second, the locale: these new galleries are all located underground, beneath the museum’s garden. They’re invisible from the outside, yet they still soar more than 26 feet in some places, allowing the presentation of big works. The ceiling is supported by juts 12 columns, and the galleries are lit naturally by 195 round skylights, each nearly 5 feet to about 8 feet in diameter, that form a distinctive pattern in the garden. Not that many museums have pulled off such a feat — most just enlarge their footprint, which is not necessarily a good thing. The grassy garden remains pretty much in tact.

Third, the cost: how did the Stadel manage to build these galleries and renovate its old building for less than $72 million at today’s exchange rate? I couldn’t find an exact comparion, but that sounds low to me — especially because the construction was  underground.

Finally, the funding: 50% of that total came from foundations, corporations and individuals. The rest came from the city and the state. Private largesse may be traditional in the U.S. but it’s new to Frankfurt, new to much of Europe. It shows that, whether people like it or not, government support for the arts in Europe is not going to be enough in the future. The museums I speak with in Europe are all talking about emulating the U.S. model, which has its own problems.  

But Max Hollein, the Städel’s director, has worked in the U.S., at the Guggenheim, and he’s said he learned how to raise money here. “One shouldn’t take a ‘no’ as a ‘no,'” he told Der Spiegel. “Rather, it is a sign that the question has merely been formulated wrong.” That article continues:

In Frankfurt, the bankers and collectors like this attitude, even if they insist that the art culture in Germany is very different from the US. But the mindset comes across when they refer to the museum as a “good product” — a comment that many German art lovers would find profoundly profane.

One collector sent Hollein, who had been persistent in his requests, a postcard with a picture of a vulture on it. Nevertheless, she donated four important paintings. The approach clearly works here in Frankfurt, even if it would be unthinkable in other, similarly wealthy German cities such as Hamburg.

I commend the rest of that article to you, if you’re at all interested in Hollein’s thinking.  

Hollein visited with me in New York when he was here last year, and explained some of the legal questions/arrangements that had to be settled before various donations were accepted. Good for him for working things out. And he’s not shy about gimmicks either — selling yellow rain boots to supporters of the museum, who wear their support in public, for example. (He’s shown in some photos wearing the yellow boots.) So while this transition isn’t always easy, above and beyond asking people for money, it’s done.

And by the accounts I’ve read so far, it’s a job well done.

Here’s a link the the museum’s press releases on the expansion, which are full of more details.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Der Spiegel

 

 

Tax Policy: Changes To Lose Sleep Over?

Should the arts community worry, again, about U.S. tax policy? Seems that way. In his 2013 budget proposal, released this week, President Obama again took a swack at the tax deduction for charitable contributions — and that will hurt the arts.

The issue is all bundled in with whether or not the rich pay enough in taxes. The President’s plan would limit the total of all itemized deductions for charity, medical expenses and mortgage interest to 28% of  income for couples earning more than $250,000 a year  and singles who earn more than $200,000 a year.

This is the fifth time this administration has offered this proposal, and it has failed to get far each time. But charities and other non-profits have had to wage opposition campaigns. And they may have to do it again, given the pressure to lower the deficit in an election year. According to Philanthropy News Digest, “the cap would reduce the deficit by $584 billion over ten years.”  PND also says:

Charitable giving by wealthy donors could also be affected by another proposal in the administration’s budget: households with more than $1 million in earnings annually would be required to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes — the so-called “Buffett rule,” named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has argued that it makes no sense for him to be subject to a lower marginal tax rate than his secretary. The provision would replace the alternative minimum tax, which originally was designed to prevent wealthy Americans from escaping taxation by taking advantage of loopholes in the tax code but today affects a growing number of middle-class Americans.

Why Obama continues to press this point seems to be a matter of politics. PND noted, “the president pledged to push reforms that would not ‘disadvantage individuals who make large charitable contributions.’ ” How he would do that is very unclear.

Last year, The Chronicle of Philanthropy weighed in on the subject (several times). Citing two different studies, it pegged the amount of giving that would be lost under the proposed rule at between $1.7 billion to $3.2 billion a year in one study by the Tax Policy Center and alternately at $2.9 billion to $5.6 billion a year, according to a study by Joseph Cordes, an economics professor at George Washington University.

I have not yet seen a study accessing which kind of charitable deduction would suffer most, but I have heard some talk that as the wealthiest households tend to donate most to the arts, earning social capital in return, the arts might suffer most.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of MainStreet.com

 

 

 

Five Questions For Jay Xu, A Year After The Asian Art Museum’s Near-Bankruptcy

It was just over a year ago that the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco got itself out of trouble, when the city fostered a five-party agreement to restructure the museum’s debt. At the time, I also wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal suggesting that, while circumstances did add to the museum’s troubles, perhaps it wasn’t all that wise to get itself into high finance.

All that is behind the museum now. In fact, last September it re-launched with a new logo (which requires an explanation, alas) and a new mission, as covered in The New York Times. And it has been acquiring works, one outlined here.

It seemed time to check in with the museum’s director, Jay Xu, who was hired in 2008. A native of Shanghai, Xu became curator of Asian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003, after heading the Seattle Museum’s department of Asian art and serving as curator of Chinese art theres for seven years. He also worked at the Shanghai Museum, and earned a master’s degree in art history from Princeton and worked as a fellow in Asian art at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Earlier this month, I sent him Five Questions – here are his repsonses.
1) 2011 was supposed to be fresh start for the museum, a reinvention with new branding to reach new audiences: it’s early days, but given attendance so far, will the 2011-2012 attendance number be closer to the 187,000 last year or the 300,000 average?
We plan to be above 200,000, which, according to benchmark data from AAMD, is relatively high compared to museums of similar budget and exhibition space. In our case, lower attendance over the past 18 months is a result of reducing the number of exhibitions. We chose to emphasize unique, first-of-their-kind exhibitions (Shanghai, 2010; Bali, 2011; Maharaja, currently), and have them on view for a longer period, in order to maintain a balanced budget during the economic downturn. If you present a third fewer major exhibitions per year, you’re naturally going to see a corresponding impact on attendance. Still, our Shanghai exhibition was our third most popular exhibition in the past nine years. Maharaja is tracking close to that. We’ll return to a more robust exhibition schedule this year.

Our membership base has stayed steady over the last 18 months, and the most recent visitor surveys suggest that there’s stronger visitor satisfaction, which was one of the goals of our rebranding project.

2) In your blog, you mention that all three current exhibitions show “traditional and contemporary artworks side by side” – do you see that continuing with all special exhibitions going forward or are you striving for some optimal mix?

Where appropriate, we will seek to incorporate contemporary elements. Our next two shows—both organized by us—will have strong contemporary components. Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past (May 18–September 2) is our first really comprehensive effort in presenting contemporary art. Taking Asian spirituality as its theme, Phantoms is curated by Mami Kataoka, chief curator of Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum; she has partnered with our curators in juxtaposing new and traditional works. The show will fill our special exhibition spaces, and spill into our collection galleries.

The second show, Out of Character: Decoding Chinese Calligraphy (October 5–December 30), features 45 examples of Chinese calligraphy—some dating back to the 14th century, together with an original commissioned work by contemporary artist Xu Bing that will respond to one of the calligraphies. The show also includes paintings by Brice Marden, Franz Kline, and Mark Tobey borrowed from SFMOMA.

3) What is the museum’s financial situation now – is the total principal owed still $98 million, what has the museum had to pay in interest this fiscal year, and is the museum operating in the black?

"Maharajah" - Courtesy of the Asian Art Museum

Museum operations are always in the black. Our general operating budget is separate from our debt servicing. Contributed income from supporters remains strong. Our recent gala for the Maharaja exhibition drew 630 guests, and netted more than $750,000—the most successful fundraising event in the museum’s history.

We instituted a $5 surcharge for recent special exhibitions, which allowed us to maintain a consistent level of earned income despite fewer visitors due to the reduced exhibition schedule. We are now able to eliminate the surcharge for our next two exhibitions. It’s important to remember that revenue from ticket sales only makes up 5-8% of our annual budget.

The loan facilitated by the City of San Francisco to restructure our debt is $97 million, over a 30-year term with a 4.6% fixed interest rate. The principle begins to amortize beginning with the second year of the loan, beginning February 2012.

4) Of the $20 million the museum must raise (stated in the 2011 agreement with the city), how much has been raised so far?

We’ve hired a national capital campaign consulting firm to help us determine the scope of a fundraising campaign, one that potentially goes beyond the required $20 million. A larger campaign would allow us to strengthen our endowment, plus pursue new programs. The consulting firm will complete its planning study early this year. Our partners at City Hall have been kept up to date on this plan.

5) So many museums around the U.S. are expanding their Asian art offerings – we’ve seen several terrific special exhibitions of late, as well as expanding permanent collections – to respond to population change. What can the Asian Art Museum offer that they don’t?

That’s the question we asked when developing our approach to contemporary art. What can we offer that no one else can? The answer came back to our collection. While many museums have Asian offerings, our museum is one of the few that can present its pan-Asian collection as a comprehensive whole, using standard nomenclature, with themes and storylines that run throughout the museum’s galleries. This comprehensive presentation makes the collection comfortably accessible, providing a rich experience to all museum visitors—from novice to connoisseur to scholar.

We are uniquely positioned to juxtapose, compare, inform, and tell stories with artworks past and present. Our aim is to highlight interconnectivity across time and place, connecting our visitors with Asian art and culture in new, engaging ways. This is what makes our upcoming exhibition, Phantoms of Asia, so compelling, and such a great example of the revitalized Asian Art Museum.

Boston Patrons Shell Out: Two New Endowed Directorships

As I’ve said before, two’s company — so once again I’ll mention something because there’ve been two instances in a very short time.

b9ghvr.jpgOn Tuesday came the news from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston that, for the first time in its history, both the Director and Chief Curator positions were being endowed. Jill Medvedow will now  be known as the Ellen Matilda Poss Director and Karen Molesworth will be the Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

Today, the nearby Peabody Essex Museum announced that its director had also been endowed. Dan Monroe will be the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Director and CEO of PEM, thanks to an eight-figure gift from “the Most Important Collectors You’ve Never Heard Of” — a total overstatement of a headline, which I did not write! They are pictured in their home above right.

Since that article, in any case, the van Otterloos’ collection has been on tour — I saw it again recently in Houston — and the couple is far from unknown.

Their gift is part of the PEM’s $650 million capital campaign, which went public in November. So far, the museum has raised $570 million, $20 million more than announced at the time. All from the van Otterloos? We don’t know. But you can read more here.

At ICA, meanwhile, the gifts are part of a $50 million campaign, more than half of which has been committed — including 10 seven-figure gifts, according to its press office. This will certainly help Boston continue the development of a vibrant contemporary art scene.

Time was, Boston was dogged by a reputation for stingy donors. But these gifts, plus the many given to the Museum of Fine Arts there, as well as the Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Harvard Art Museums — all in the course of a decade — should change that.

Don’t good things come in threes? I’m expecting another big gift announcement any day now.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of PEM

Trouble In Roanoke: The Brand-New Taubman Museum Shrinks

taubman museum.jpgAnother art museum is in trouble: the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Va., which just opened in late 2008, announced its fourth round of layoffs in its less than two years of existence. Current staff numbers just 17, according to the Roanoke Times.

The museum, in downtown Roanoke, with roots going back to 1951, had high hopes. Read from its “about” statement:

At the heart of downtown Roanoke, the new 81,000 square foot Taubman Museum of Art proves an arresting landmark for visitors…As Roanoke’s most contemporary structure, it provides an analog for the city’s evolution from industrial and manufacturing town to technology-driven city….evok[ing] both the drama of the surrounding mountainous landscape of the Shenandoah Valley and the lyrically gritty industrial-era building culture of the great early 20th century railroad boom, when Roanoke came to prominence as a switchpoint city of the new South.

taubman galleries.jpgIts exhibition schedule seems appropriate. But it sounds as if this museum is yet another example of hubris. Again, from the Times:

Since the $66 million art museum opened in downtown Roanoke in November 2008, the institution has struggled financially. The museum underwent two rounds of layoffs in 2009, and a third in February. Mickenberg, who was hired in September, has been working to craft a $3 million annual budget. According to its most recent audit and tax forms, the museum reported $6.8 million in expenses during its first year of operation.

The website refers to a “stellar permanent collection” but gives no details, no information whatsoever about what’s in it (though that press release to which I link describes it in generalities).

Roanoke sits in southwest Virginia, far from other museums. I wish its budget was in line with its expectations, or dreams. It wasn’t: according to an earlier article in the Times,

The radically expanded art museum’s expenses actually exceeded $6.8 million in its first fiscal year, according to a tax filing and external audit recently released by Taubman officials, far overshooting a projected $3.75 million operating budget.

The amount included one-time startup costs, but also payroll for 52 employees, likely more than the museum could have sustained even in healthy economic times.

“Reality began to set in pretty quickly after the opening,” said John Williamson, who was museum board president at the time. “And it’s been a struggle ever since.”

Read more of the oh-so-familiar tale here.

One could chalk this up to human nature: do we never learn?

UPDATE, 9/14/10: Jenny Taubman, who with her husband Nicholas has given millions to the museum — recognized in the name — has resigned from the museum’s board because “she couldn’t give the museum the attention it deserves” and evaded answering the question of whether she and her husband would give more to keep the museum alive. More here, courtesy of WDBJ.

Photo credit: Courtesy Taubman Museum of Art