Keep the Gates of Paradise Open

[Heather]

Dvora found this wonderful article and gave me permission to post it. Please read!



Keep the Gates of Paradise Open

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/opi...

"...parts of the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts might be sold to pay the bankrupt city’s creditors. Government-ordered estimates of the potential value of a collection containing works by, among others, Fra Angelico and Rembrandt, are due from Christie’s auction house in a few weeks.

The ugly subtext here is that certain people — say, poor African-Americans in an impoverished city or someone like me, whose parents never took her to an art museum — are too unworthy to derive any benefit from “elite” culture...."

[[deleted user]]

Great article.

About the subtext, it's always about the elites.

[Lobstergirl]

Hmm.

Excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article:

Last month, Detroit's emergency financial manager notified the DIA that its art is a municipal asset and might be sold to satisfy creditors. The art world is watching to see what happens next.

"This is unprecedented," says Timothy Rub, president of the Association of Art Museum Directors and head of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. "I can't believe anyone is thinking about liquidating this public treasure." The AAMD has strict guidelines that prohibit museums from selling art except for the purpose of acquiring more art.

Under a longstanding arrangement, the DIA's collection and its 600,000-square-foot Beaux Arts building belong to Detroit's city government.

The Detroit Free Press surveyed art dealers and estimated that 38 of the museum's most valuable works could fetch at least $2.5 billion. Speaking to reporters on May 29, Mr. Orr's boss—Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican—refused to rule out the possibility that the DIA would lose its art.

The DIA's origins date back to 1885, when it was opened privately. By 1919, however, the founders had realized that they couldn't run it on operating revenue alone. So they turned the collection over to the city, at a time when civic leaders were optimistic about government stewardship of institutions such as libraries and zoos. The DIA then went through a vigorous period of smart acquisition, catapulting from a regional facility to a world-class establishment.

Despite this success, the museum staggered from one funding crisis to another. City subsidies dried up. The DIA even closed for three weeks in 1975. The state of Michigan took over as its main patron, but by the early 1990s it had pulled back as well. The museum increasingly relied on private philanthropy, and finished a major renovation in 2007. Yet it also laid off staff as recently as 2009.

Last year, the DIA persuaded voters in metropolitan Detroit's three major counties to approve a 10-year property tax to pay for the DIA's operations as the museum works to build its endowment—an astonishing feat in an area with high unemployment and tight budgets, but also a clear demonstration of the public's appreciation for the collection.

"The museum has gone through a long period of struggle, but recently it's been doing everything right," says Jeffrey Abt, an art professor at Wayne State University who has written "A Museum on the Verge," a history of the DIA.

Under a 1998 agreement, the city continues to own the DIA's collection, but a nonprofit organization manages the museum's daily operations. Mr. Beal contends that this puts the art beyond the grasp of Mr. Orr's office. "We need to be clear that the collection is held in public trust," he says.

Yet it's an open question. If Detroit declares bankruptcy, the city's contracts become voidable. Although federal law prevents judges from compelling broke cities to sell assets, the art may still be vulnerable.

"Creditors can really force the issue," said Bill Nowling, a spokesman for Mr. Orr, in the Detroit Free Press. "If you go into court, they can object and say, 'Hey, I'm taking a huge haircut, and you've got a billion dollars worth of art sitting over there.'"

Most art museums own their collections, putting them beyond the ordinary clutches of politicians. Several other major institutions, however, may take a special interest in Detroit's crisis because their collections are owned at least in part by their local governments. They include the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Wichita Art Museum in Kansas.

These experiences suggest that collectors may want to think about whether their donations to art museums will enrich cultural institutions or serve as collateral for governments that can't balance their budgets. "They already ask questions about the longevity of their gifts," says Kaywin Feldman, director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Now they're going to ask more probing questions about ownership."