Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Detroit Mess: The Stadium Versus The Art Museum

Ok, I exaggerate: The two are not really connected. But the news the other day that was posted online at the Wall Street Journal’s Money Beat Blog is rather astonishing in the context of the Detroit bankruptcy, which threatens the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection.

NHL Lockout Economic Impact HockeyBefore I tell give you the quote, big hat-tip to Hyperalleric.

Here’s the story:

As Detroit settles in for a long, tortured trip through bankruptcy court, the public financing deal for a new arena to house the Red Wings will likely skate by intact….

Michigan’s state legislature approved Wednesday a $450 million bond offering that would form the public backbone of Ilitch’s Holding’s $650 million entertainment center and development district near the heart of downtown Detroit.

The bonds will be floated by the Michigan Strategic Fund, which handles all of the state’s private development funds. The public, $283 million portion of the bonds will come from the Downtown Development Authority, which earmarks a slice of downtown property taxes for reinvestment there. They both have investment-grade credit ratings and function independently of Detroit’s city government, which makes their involvement in the deal important. Detroit’s credit rating is somewhere between junk status and radioactive.

“This isn’t a source of money that can be redirected to the city,” [Brian] Holdwick [executive vice president for the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation] said. The private portion of the MSF bonds will come from Olympia Development of Michigan, which is run by Red Wings owner and sports-and-pizza mogul Mike Ilitch.

Ok, I get that — but does Holdwick understand the optics of this? In the midst of a city that may, or may not, be willing to strip its glorious art museum of its treasure, the state will help build a new stadium?

I will only cite for you evidence that stadiums never live up to their billing: here’s an article from 2002 by economist Alan Krueger: The High Cost and Low Benefit of Sports Subsidies. Here is: As Stadiums Rise, So Do Costs to Taxpayers. I could go on, but the evidence is clear: these things do not ever deliver the benefits they promise.

Hyperallergic cites different evidence. This is not unclear.

Sports fans, judging by comments, are all for it. I cite one sane commenter:

Something I haven’t been able to find through using various search engines, is, what the heck is wrong with their current stadium that justifies wasting money on a new one?…

The evidence rests.

 

Knoedler Gallery Reveals Its Tales — At The Getty

By complete serendipity, I stopped in to look at the Getty’s blog, called The Iris, today — and here’s what I found: a post from yesterday saying the part of the Knoedler & Co. Gallery archive is processed and “available for research.” Some finding aids have been posted online already.

knoedler_hermitageThe Getty purchased the Knoedler archive — 1,300 linear feet — just last October, and took possession in December. So this is speedy work. It covers the period from about 1850 to 1971, and included “letters, telegrams, albums, sales books, stock and consignment books, card files on clients and art works, rare photographs, reference photo archives, and rare books,” among other things. Here is the Getty’s description. The contents have organized as follows, and you can see what is processed (updates as they happen).

Series I. Stock books: Available now
Series II. Sales books: Available now
Series III. Commission books: Available now
Series IV. Inventory cards: August 2013
Series V. Receiving and shipping records
Series VI. Correspondence: In process
Series VII. Departments
Series VIII. London and Paris offices
Series IX. Other financial records
Series X. Photographs
Series XI. Research files
Series XII. Catalogs and ephemera

So what has the archive revealed so far? The Iris post, by Karen Meyer-Roux, focuses on Knoedler’s representation of Andrew Mellon in the purchase of treasures from the Hermitage.

From Leningrad to Washington, via New York (Knoedler), London (Colnaghi), Berlin (Mattiesen Gallery), and Moscow (Mansfeld), agents and dealers communicated by telegrams and negotiated the collector’s purchase. Stock books and sales books document the purchase of the 21 paintings that Mellon acquired through this chain of intermediaries. The entry in the sales book shown below [at left here] lists a commission charged by Knoedler for two paintings in the sale, Botticelli’s The Adoration of the Magi and Rembrandt’s Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife.

There’s more tale where that came from (including the reluctance of Hermitage staff to part with van Eyck’s Annunciation, though I think it merely shows documents for things we already know from biographies of Mellon. But the post has wonderful pictures, and a welcome promise in the last line:

The GRI plans on digitizing a portion of the stock and sales books to increase their access for research.

 Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Getty

“Invite Congress to Visit Your Museum Week”

I must be in a good mood, or something — after praising Graham Beal last night, I’m going to now praise the American Alliance of  Museums. They are advocating “Invite Congress to Visit Your Museum Week” for Aug. 10 through 17, and I think that is a great idea.

CA0Q1D94AAM hasn’t just come with the idea — I gather, but am not sure, that it has staged these weeks in the past — it has laid out for everyone to see a How-To guide. Among the recommendations:

Step 3: Follow Up with the office after sending the invitation.

Call the local office to find the name of the scheduler and call or email to follow up:

“I’ve recently sent an invitation for Rep./Sen. ________ to visit my museum in August. Can I speak with your scheduler about this request?”

You can find the office’s local contact information, or visit the Congressional website for local contact information. We recommend starting with the local office, but be aware that every legislator has their own scheduling process, so you may need to flexible. Be specific about why you are calling and what you are asking the legislator or staff to do–namely, visit the museum.

And:

Step 8: Make your case. Complete an Economic Impact Statement and Educational Impact Statement so you can share them during the meeting.

This How-To is so good that it includes a sample timeline and recommendations for follow-up.

And — icing on the cake — AAM has separately published Ten Rules for Engagement: Getting Involved In the Political Process.

Clearly, Congress has not been in the mood to support culture of late. Personal contact can help, and it certainly can’t hurt if it’s done properly. Kudos to AAM for helping out.

 

 

Bonus Post: Detroit Isn’t Fresno

I hate to be repetitive, but again I have to hand it to Graham Beal, director of the Detroit Institute of Art, who just seems to be doing most things right during this horrible period. In today’s New York Times, he responded very appropriately to an article comparing its situation with that of struggling museums.

Since I missed the letter, until Charlotte Eyerman posted it on Facebook, I will quote a little of it here and link to it here:

To compare the thriving Detroit Institute of Arts with the shuttered Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art and Science and the existentially challenged South Street Seaport Museum is, to say the least, a stretch.

Thanks to the passage last year of a regional property tax that emphatically affirmed this institution’s value to our region, the D.I.A.’s financial situation is more secure than it has been for 40 years….

…After two months of hectic coverage, I call upon journalists to resist the temptation to jump to disaster scenarios or to make the D.I.A.’s singular and highly complicated situation part of a broader story about the structural challenges faced by museums in general.

Or, as I said last week:

New York Times has an article about the closing of the Fresno Metropolitan Museum, which over-expanded and had to close in 2010 — offering it as a template for, or lessons relevant to, the situation at the Detroit Institute of Arts. I don’t think so. They are just not comparable.

Further, it’s a little dangerous to mix them all up, imho.

 

Toledo Museum Lights Up On Its Own

Earlier this year, I let news from the Toledo Museum of Art pass without notice, but now I’m going back to it. It’s not about art; it’s about the environment.

big buildingThe museum said that after 20 years of green initiatives, its main building (left) went completely off the electricity grid and actually returned excess power it was generating to the electrical system on May 21. For a 101-year-old building, that’s a real achievement.

Using what the museum calls “sustainable energy practices such as solar power, energy-efficient lighting, micro turbines and chillers,” the museum has cut operating costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. Electrical usage in the museum’s main building has been cut by 79%. According to the press release:

The latest addition to the Museum’s green arsenal is a 360 kilowatt-hours (kW) solar canopy installed over a large portion of the newly renovated main parking lot. The canopy provides nearly double the renewable energy than the solar arrays on the roof of the main Museum (the roof project alone, started in 2008, ranks as one of the largest solar panel installations in Ohio). The electricity generated by the system will provide up to half of the 250,000-square-foot building’s needs on a sunny day, and will cut annual grid consumption by almost a quarter.

Led by Carol Bintz, chief operating officer, and Paul Bernard, director of the Museum’s physical plant, TMA is the only museum in Ohio – and one of only a handful in the nation – to institute these practices.

Bernard also said that “It only took two months for some of the changes to start paying for themselves.” You can read more details on Toledo’s green initiatives here. A publication called Building Green covered the accomplishment, and provided a few more details, here.

I know, this isn’t as sexy as other posts, but it’s important nonetheless.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Toledo Museum