Cezanne for Sale

A Proposed Museums Bill in the New York State Legislature seeks to impose limits on how a museum’s collection can be used as collateral to generate revenue. Specifically the Bill seeks to make it illegal for any museum to sell artwork in order to use the money for overhead, operational or facilities costs. The argument by those who support the Bill is that deaccessioning collections is not a valid way to keep the doors of the museum open, and that guidelines need to be put in place to deal with museums that seek to sell art to stay in business.

One of the problems as I see it is that the Association of Art Museum Directors already prohibits the use of revenue from the sale of collections for anything other than acquisition of different pieces or restoration of a collection. The Association is a national organization with a great deal of leverage, and it seems to me that they are capable of governing the situation and appropriately dealing with offending museums. Additionally, each museum most likely has a large Board of Directors whose job is to act in the best interest of the organization and its constituents in the community. I would assume that an entire Board would not collectively take action that would be harmful to their collections and the patron base, unless there was a dire need to use the money for operations or facilities.

These two safeguards should be enough to guide museums on this issue, without the New York state government getting involved. I see this as an instance where government does not need to get bigger, but instead let the systems already in place regulate these matters.

Foundation and corporate support of cultural institutions is decreasing, museum overhead costs are often high, and gaining the support of individual donors is always a challenge in a recession. All of these factors and many more make it hard for museums to continually operate, cover overhead, and preserve and maintain what are often outdated, historic structures. Additionally the sponsors and supporters of the Proposed Bill aren’t offering many other viable solutions for museums that are cash strapped and in need of money for overhead—some in our federal government have actually suggested that allocating money from the recent stimulus plan to arts organizations would be irresponsible and unfair to the common working American. I feel as though, in very tough economic times, the Board of Directors for a museum has the right to decide on the best way to stay in business and serve the community—even if it means weighing the options of selling pieces of its collection.