CultureGrrl

It's official: The NY State Board of Regents' Cultural Education Committee this afternoon voted in favor of revised rules (described here), which would prohibit most museums and historical societies in the state from using deaccession proceeds to defray debts, operating expenses, and most capital expenses. The proposed revisions will go before the full board at its meeting tomorrow. [UPDATE: James Dawson, chairman of  the committee, told me that the committee's vote was unanimous and that tomorrow's approval by the full board is a certainty.]

This reverses the original proposed amendment, which would have allowed such proceeds to be used to satisfy debts. This was to be considered as a last resort, to forestall bankruptcy proceedings that could result in liquidation of collections.

In fact, even the most financially desperate institutions do have other assets besides collections that, in worst-case scenarios, could be exploited before collections are touched---endowment funds and real estate, for example. Rather than liquidating collections, failed institutions should, if possible, transfer objects held in the public trust to other public institutions.

We hope, even in these challenging times, it never comes to that.

Speaking of which, the board of LA MOCA meets tomorrow to discuss how to address that institution's financial and administrative crisis. Selling works from the collection is one of several ideas that have reportedly been proposed.

In light of unequivocably strong statements deploring the recent National Academy sales by both the Association of Art Museum Directors and the American Association of Museums, selling art to address operating deficits should be a non-starter. Excommunication by its professional peers could only exacerbate MOCA's woes.

Ford Bell, president of the American Association of Museums

A forcefully worded letter sent Friday by Ford Bell, president of the American Association of Museums, to the NY State Board of Regents may well have been crucial in turning the tide against the Regents' now aborted proposal to allow museums and historical societies to sell collection objects to defray debts. (Christine Anagnos, deputy director of the Association of Art Museum Directors, whom I contacted for a copy of any letter that group may have sent, informed me: "AAMD has not released a statement.")

Below are excerpts from Bell's ringing manifesto:

It is precisely because we are in difficult times that we must keep our professional ethics about us, for it is by sticking to our ethics when times are bad as well as good that we earn the public trust. This is particularly true when the subject is museum collections....With a private collection, you may be able to see it today, but you have no assurance that you will see it tomorrow. With a museum, you have the assurance that its collection will be available to the community for generations to come....

An analogy we use is that allowing a museum to trade its collection to cover operating debts would be like allowing a financial fiduciary, such as a bank, to raid assets it holds in a trust to cover a hole in its own balance sheet. This would be inconceivable. It should be equally inconceivable for a museum to raid the assets placed in trust with it....

Any New York museum accredited by AAM which avails itself of this emergency provision [allowing deaccessions to pay debts], should it be adopted, would face immediate review of its Accredited status and probable loss of Accreditation.

"You helped focus everyone in the field on this," Dewey Blanton, head of media relations for the American Association of Museums, told me this morning about the decision of the NY State Board of Regent's Cultural Education Committee to withdraw its Emergency Amendment that would have allowed museums and historical societies to sell objects from their collections "for purposes of obtaining funds to pay outstanding debt."

Blanton credited my emergency post last week about this amendment with helping to spur AAM (which sent its comments to the Regents on Friday) and other concerned members of the museum community to send statements objecting to the state government's proposed validation of desperation deaccessions.

The newly revised language of an amendment to Regents' "Rule 3.27 Relating to Museum Collections Management Policies," which David Palmquist, head of museum chartering for the NY State Board of Regents, forwarded to Blanton in a new draft dated today, states the following:

In no event [emphasis added] shall proceeds derived from the deaccessioning of any property from the collection be used for operating expenses, for the payment of outstanding debt [emphasis added], or for capital expenses other than such expenses incurred to preserve, protect or care for an historic building which has been designated part of its collections.

[You can find the new draft of the amendment by going here, and scrolling way down, past the language of the original amendment, to the section titled, "AMENDMENT OF THE RULES OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS."]

What's more, the new proposed guidelines (to be considered by the Cultural Education Committee this afternoon) are now even MORE stringent than the deaccession guidelines of the Association of Art Museum Directors. AAMD lists criteria that "might be contemplated" by museums considering disposals. Its deaccession suggestions are not mandatory, a loophole that I have previously criticized.

The Regents' revised proposed guidelines, to be considered at today's meeting of the Cultural Education Commitee, are more forceful. They state that "an institution may deaccession an item or material in its collection ONLY [emphasis added] where one or more" of the following criteria are met: The item is not relevant to the institution's mission; it no longer "retain[s] its identity" (presumably because of condition problems); it is lost or stolen; it is a duplicate not needed for research or educational purposes; the institution lacks the ability to conserve it.

Palmquist told me that he had received "a ton of comments" about the now aborted emergency amendment. Aside from the concerns of museum professionals, there's another reason why the change is no longer on the table: As Palmquist himself had indicated to me on Thursday (before the language was redrafted), the "emergency" that prompted the amendment no longer exists. The original draft was designed with the serious financial difficulties of Fort Ticonderoga in mind.

As Richard Richtmyer of the Associated Press reported yesterday:

Fort Ticonderoga last summer said it wanted to sell some of its works -- including a painting by Thomas Cole thought to be worth millions---to help erase about $2.5 million in debt.

The decision by James Dawson, chairman of the Regents' Cultural Education Committee, to withdraw the original amendment stemmed partly from Fort Ticonderoga's recent fundraising success. "Since the emergency has been removed, we don't need to do it," Dawson told the AP.

Nevertheless, the Regents may soon revisit this issue. Dawson told Richtmyer:

In the fiscal climate the country and the state we are in right now, we can see additional cultural institutions coming into fiscal crisis, We need to have a procedure for dealing with that.

Renderings of the new Tyler School of Art

You can hear me now, in a brief soundbite about the new Wolgin Prize in the Arts, to be awarded by Temple University's Tyler School of Art, which is moving next month to new digs (above) designed by Houston architect Carlos Jimenez:

This is a prize with lots of money, but (as of today) no director, nominators or jurors. We are promised that the nominators will be "an international panel of fine arts leaders."

Will an artist of international stature be interested in a $150,000 award that carries with it a show at this country's 14th-ranked art school (according to U.S. News & World Reports)?

The Hugo Boss at the Guggenheim, the Turner at the Tate...and now the Wolgin at the Tyler?

This could be one of those prizes that confer more benefits on the giver than the recipient. The university's press materials quote real estate developer Jack Wolgin saying that a prize like his "attract[s] a lot of attention" and is "an economic engine...There are some great economic benefits for the city....My goal is for the prize to be an incentive for good work."

As I've stated previously, the kind of artist's award I'd like to see, which could offer a more powerful "incentive for good work," is the restoration of National Endowment for the Arts' fellowships, which used to provide validation and financial benefits to artists at a time in their careers when they really needed this kind of support.

Given the intense interest in this topic, I'm going to print in full the letter sent today by Carmine Branagan, director of the embattled National Academy, to museum directors who are members of the Association of Art Museum Directors, in which she asks AAMD to "rescind its public censure" and reconsider its deaccession rules. I should note that the views of the letter writer do not represent the views of this blogger. But I believe that the National Academy's arguments deserve a fair airing:

December 11, 2008

Dear Museum Director,

I am writing to directly address the reasons for the National Academy of Design's decision to deaccession, and to strongly express our concern about the AAMD's practice of publicly censuring organizations in crisis.

Some time ago it became clear that the National Academy was in dire financial straits and would not survive unless bold steps were taken. The decision to deaccession was reached only after all other options, including efforts to launch a fund raising campaign and to sell the Academy's home on upper Fifth Avenue, were exhausted. There is no question that without deaccessioning, one of the oldest arts institutions in New York City, one that has played a vital role in America's cultural landscape for 183 years, would have had to close its doors forever. It is unthinkable this is what the AAMD intended!

To sell four pieces was a protracted and carefully considered decision that the Academy's membership voted overwhelmingly (181 in favor, one against, one abstention) to support. This decision was reached in conjunction with a long-range financial and programmatic plan that places the Academy's historic collection of American art at its center. A large portion of the Academy's permanent collection has not been available to the public, and now the Academy will have the funds to put this culturally and historically significant collection on regular exhibition, to implement public programs and to continue investing in infrastructure that supports these efforts.

The Academy's governing body and staff undertook an analysis of internal operations and governance from top to bottom. We are all inspired by the new possibilities and are committed make the significant changes required to create an effective governing structure that will sustain the Academy into the future.

Without reservation, we are assuring the museum community that the National Academy will uphold the highest professional standards in all aspects of the exhibition, preservation and interpretation of its collection. The Academy also adheres to the strictest guidelines in the care of any work of art loaned to the institution for exhibition. The Academy's reputation in this regard is flawless. We will continue to strive only to the highest standards.

We sold paintings that had not regularly been in the public domain in order to achieve exactly what the AAMD states is the role of a museum: "to enhance the conservation, exhibition and study of the collection which we recognize is the essence of a museum's service to its community and to the public." Two paintings have been sold (Frederic Edwin Church, "Scene on the Magdalene" and Sanford Robinson Gifford, "Mt. Mansfield, Vermont") and possibly two more will be sold (John White Alexander, "Portrait of Mrs. Hastings" and Robert Blum, "Japanese Beggars") in order to save over 7,300 and to ensure the future of the Academy itself.

It is also important to note that the two paintings that have sold went to a private foundation that regularly places works on public view. The Academy clearly and proactively articulated to the AAM and to the AAMD, in advance of the sale, the reality of its financial situation. We also made clear that the Academy is not an acquiring institution and presented detailed plans to use the proceeds of the sale to make the collection available in a manner that has never before been possible. Based on their criteria for deaccessioning we concluded we had no choice but to withdraw from their accreditation programs.

Without question, the guidelines of both the AAM and the AAMD are important and contribute to the well-being of cultural institutions. However, we believe that the AAMD's action to censure the National Academy so aggressively, while offering no constructive alternative or flexibility, has only harmful and negative results.

We live in a world of unintended consequences, but there is only one outcome of the AAMD's unrelenting and punitive position of public censure: making it significantly more difficult for the Academy to recover and to survive. Is there truly no better way? Being denied the opportunity to borrow works of art will be devastating to the Academy.

With this letter, we are asking the AAMD to rescind its public censure of the National Academy and to reconsider the narrowly focused and inflexible rules that place the very institutions they value at serious risk. I would welcome further discussion with you regarding any of these matters.

This is an issue on which the AAMD, AAM and museums in New York State will surely want to take IMMEDIATE action, by e-mailing comments to David Palmquist, head of museum chartering for the NY State Board of Regents. (He will forward comments to the board):

The NY State Board of Regents is primed to take action this Monday and Tuesday to approve an Emergency Amendment Relating to Museum Collections Management Policies. (To read it, go here, click on "Cultural Education," and then click on the third item, which is the "Emergency Amendment.")  

In the words of the proposed amendment, a state-chartered nonprofit museum or historical society (and most such institutions in the state are required to be chartered) would be permitted, "with the approval of the Board of Regents, to sell or transfer items or material in its collections to another museum or historical society for purposes of obtaining funds to pay outstanding debt, and thereby provide an alternative to the institution's bankruptcy or dissolution, and the possible loss or liquidation of a collection because of debt."

This runs directly counter to the American Association of Museums' deaccessioning guidelines, which are embodied in the state's current rules (scroll down to: 6---Collections Care and Management, e, vi---Deaccessions):

Proceeds derived from the deaccessioning of any property from the institution's collection...[may] be used only for the acquisition, preservation, protection or care of collections. In no event shall proceeds derived from the deaccessioning of any property from the collection be used for operating expenses or for any purposes other than the acquisition, preservation, protection or care of collections.

Palmquist told me that he has heard of some 10-25 institutions that are considering desperation-deaccessions because of pressing financial circumstances. He feels that in situations where an institution might be forced to declare bankruptcy and liquidate its entire collection, limited deaccessioning is the lesser of evils.

At its meeting in Albany this Monday, the Cultural Education Committee of the NY State Board of Regents, which oversees chartered museums and historical societies in the state, will consider the proposed desperation-deaccession amendment. The full Board of Regents is expected to vote on it Tuesday. If approved, the amendment will become effective Dec. 19 and remain in effect for 90 days. The amendment is then expected to be presented to the board for adoption as a permanent rule, at its March meeting.

Museums had very little notice that this change was contemplated: Palmquist first notified chartered museums and historical societies about the amendment in an e-mail sent yesterday. A statement (linked at the top) by the State Education Department about the proposed changes is dated Dec. 1.

Palmquist told me that the National Academy, which has just secretly deaccessioned two important paintings, is not subject to the Regents' oversight and deaccessioning guidelines, having received its charter directly from the state legislature in 1858. The Regents did not receive their power to charter until 1890.

Palmquist said that discussions began yesterday about the need to "rationalize the system," so that its deaccession guidelines would apply to all nonprofit museums and historical societies, whether or not they were originally chartered by the Regents. Those discussions, he said, were initiated in direct response to the National Academy disposals.

The Cultural Education Committee's discussion on the amendment (open to the public but not to public comment) will be held Monday, 2:45-4:15 p.m., in Room 146 of the Education Building, 89 Washington Ave., Albany. The meeting of the full Board of Regents on Tuesday (where the vote on the amendment will be taken) will be on the 5th floor of the same building.

Jack Wolgin

I got a heads-up yesterday from Temple University's Tyler School of Art about today's annnouncement of the astonishing new Jack Wolgin International Competition in the Fine Arts, which will award a whopping $150,000 annual prize to "a professional artist of international stature." The winner's work is to be shown at the art school's new facility on Temple's main campus in Philadelphia. (Tyler moves next month from Elkins Park, a Philadelphia suburb.)

If all goes according to plan, I'll be opining on the radio about this improbable, munificent prize, which trumps even the Japan Art Association's $140,000 Praemium Imperiale. Later this morning, I'll be talking with Alex Schmidt on WHYY, Philadelphia Public Radio (91 FM). I'll post the podcast on CultureGrrl after it becomes available on the station's Arts & Culture website, or you can listen live here, by clicking in the upper lefthand corner.

Wolgin, a Philadelphia real estate developer, says he wants to "make a statement to the world about Philadelphia as a great city for the arts." He's certainly making a statement about trying to attract distinguished artists to show their work at Temple.

Better late than never, the Wall Street Journal's esteemed architecture critic, Ada Louise Huxtable (above), administers a good spanking to the NY Times' Nicolai Ouroussoff, in her much-awaited review today of architect Brad Cloepfil's reclad and reconfigured Museum of Arts and Design.

As you may remember, Ouroussoff in September consigned Cloepfil's just completed MAD to his list of New York buildings that should be "candidates for demolition."

Without naming him, Ada Louise implicitly targeted Ouroussoff in her pointed and perceptive appraisal in today's WSJ of the reclad and reconfigured Edward Durell Stone-designed museum building that she had famously described at the time of its opening in 1964 as "a die-cut Venetian palazzo on lollypops [sic]."

She began today's MAD dash by bashing "the reviews [that] have set some kind of record for irresponsible over-the-top building-bashing." (Ouroussoff's demolition wish surely wins, hands down, for most "over-the-top.") She then debunked others who, to buttress their arguments for preservation, had created "a mythology of [the Stone building's] architectural significance." And finally, she put the wrecking ball to the preservationists' arguments by noting that the façade was "past reasonable preservation or repair" and the building was "in serious disrepair."

As the doyenne of architecture criticism sees it:

Once the original is gone or beyond salvation you are faking it; when it's lost, let it go and move on...This [Cloepfil's makeover] is a thoughtful and skillful, if imperfect conversion.

Its chief imperfection, in Huxtable's view, is the horizontal picture window for the as-yet-unopened restaurant. That expanse of glass was added over the strong opposition of the architect.

You can hear my previous WNYC radio commentary on the building and its contents here. My comments of Sept. 23 were in harmony with Ada Louise's today: The original building was an iconic, even loved, touchstone for New Yorkers (like me) who grew up with it. But it was not a great work of architecture and it's time to let it go. Cloepfil sympathetically acknowledged our nostalgia by preserving the original's shape and color.

The rest is history...as it should be. But Ada Louise's own history is still unfolding: She's just come out with a new book. Tonight she receives the Museum of the City of New York's Louis Auchincloss Prize, for "writers and artists whose work is inspired by and enhances the five boroughs of New York City."

Write on!

Carmine Branagan, named director of National Academy, New York

The National Academy story is playing out in a confrontational manner that I never would have predicted.

I had anticipated that the Association of Art Museum Directors under its new activist president, Michael Conforti, might kick the Academy out of the fold for flouting its professional standards. The inviolable rule of the association is that proceeds from art sales may be used ONLY to help pay for acquisitions, not to pay the bills.

But I had never anticipated that AAMD would enforce its censure by taking the unprecedented, punitive action of instructing its member-institutions to deny the Academy loans of art and collaboration on exhibitions. An e-mail to this effect went out yesterday to the 190 members of AAMD, the nation's premier professional organization for art museums.

I certainly never anticipated that the frail National Academy would decide to do battle with the mighty AAMD. Far from resigning, Carmine Branagan, the interim director of the embattled Academy, has just been promoted to permanent director. This after the Association of Art Museum Directors excommunicated the institution for selling two of its most important artworks to put it on firmer financial footing.

What's more, as of today the National Academy is no longer on the list of accredited members of the American Association of Museums, the nation's leading organization for all museums (not just art museums). The Academy withdrew from membership after AAM issued a statement yesterday criticizing it for violating the association's Code of Ethics. That code stipulates that sale proceeds may be used only for "acquisition or direct care of collections."

Dewey Blanton, AAM's press spokesperson, yesterday told me that the association's Accreditation Commission had planned to review the circumstances surrounding Academy's deaccessions. The Academy's withdrawal preempts that review and the removal of accreditation that it might have engendered.

Branagan today told me that she was about to send a letter to AAMD, arguing in favor of deaccessioning in desperate circumstances. She said that, "from the point of view of institutions around the country that are struggling," the letter would address "how we should be pulling together."

AAMD's speedy action, taken after a unanimous vote by 16 of its 19 trustees, could have the paradoxical effect of hastening the demise of an institution that had sold works in a last-ditch attempt to prevent its demise. The Academy's future exhibitions and programs will be seriously hobbled, as will its ability to raise funds. Instead of deaccession-or-die, it could now be deaccession-AND-die.

I have never credited the deaccession-or-die argument and I still don't. That was Fisk University's justification for its attempt to monetize its Stieglitz Collection. When it was instructed by a judge not only to keep the collection but to get it back up on public view, it somehow managed to raise funds the old-fashioned way, allowing it both to display the collection and to keep the university afloat. I believe that deaccessioning is the easy way out, even more tempting today as museums grapple with Dow-ravaged endowments and distressed donors.

But there has been considerable push-back (including here, here and here) against AAMD's strong action. Branagan surprised me today when I called her (not expecting her to pick up), by saying that she thought that my coverage of this issue could actually serve the worthwhile purpose of "giving us the opportunity to discuss this in a way that could be constructive." She said that she has been "getting calls from many people who are in shock at what they did."

As for those who are in shock at what Branagan did, here's an excerpt from yesterday's AAM statement:

When a museum starts trading its collection for financial gain, rather than for strictly scholarly reasons, it ceases to honor its resolution of permanence and begins to function more as an art or antiques dealer with not-for-profit papers of incorporation than as an institution in service to society for the long term.

Perhaps Branagan should peruse AAM's Finding Calm in Crisis: A Museum Survival Guide.

First page of Peru's complaint against Yale, filed Friday in U.S. District Court (click to enlarge)

Remember when Yale and Peru had supposedly reached an accord, more than a year ago, over artifacts excavated in the early 1900s by Yale scholar Hiram Bingham III?

That was then. Now Peru is suing.

Paul Needham of the Yale Daily News today reports:

The Republic of Peru has quietly filed a lawsuit against Yale, officially turning a nearly century-long dispute over the rightful ownership of Inca artifacts into a legal battle, the News has learned.

Peru's 31-page complaint, accompanied by some 26 exhibits, was lodged in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday by the Washington law firm that has represented Peru since last fall....

Peru now seeks "the immediate return of all such property as well as damages that it has suffered on account of Yale's persistent breach of its obligations and profit at the expense of the people of Peru."

Opponents to the tentative accord had included Eliane Karp-Toledo, the wife of Peru's first indigenous president, who sharply criticized it last February in a NY Times Op-Ed piece, asserting that "Peru's sovereign right to the entire collection is not acknowledged, and it is clear that Yale would keep a significant proportion of the materials."

Yale's general counsel, Dorothy Robinson, told Needham that she still hoped the dispute could be settled amicably.

I think they already tried that. When Robinson made that comment, the university had not yet been served with the papers. Judging from the first page, reproduced along with Needham's article, the arguments are anything but amicable:

Yale is wrongfully, improperly, and fraudulently detaining this property and has refused its return.