Battling Institutions: A Controversial State of Affairs for the Global Museum Circuit

Last week I discussed the impact of the economic downturn on the creative community, focusing on artistic institutions and their employees. In looking at the Coburn Amendment and its later revision, I sought to examine the state of the economy as it applies to the arts and highlight the necessity of government funding and community donations. This week’s entry continues my investigation into the art market, turning specifically to the museum circuit and its current state of affairs. While museums in the United States and abroad continue to suffer from the collapse of the financial markets, institutions in developing economies are faring slightly better. To reflect these trends, this week's post investigates Brandeis’ controversial decision to move ahead with the closure of its Rose Museum and Iraq’s disputed resolution to reopen its National Museum. In examining the public response to both of these developments, I chose to consider certain arguments put forth by other members of the blogosphere. Donn Zaretsky of the Art Law Blog recently posted an article entitled A Rose is a Rose…Or is it?, investigating current scholarship regarding the closing of the Rose Museum and specifically criticizing an article aimed at attacking Brandeis board members. Similarly, David E. Nye of After the American Century published an article this week concerning the Iraq National Museum, attempting to illuminate some of the controversy surrounding yesterday’s opening.  Focusing specifically on United States' involvement with the institution, Nye's Rumsfeld Wing for Baghdad Museum traces the impact of the Bush administration on the history of the museum. My responses to both of these posts are provided below.

A Rose is a Rose...Or is it?
Comment:
Your article presents an intriguing and unique response to the negative reactions that the museum's closing has prompted (see below, left). While I certainly believe your evaluation of Holland Cotter’s arguments to be accurate, I wonder if you truly believe the assertion that the museum’s closing really “doesn’t seem so bad.” Your article seems to suggest that the closing of the Rose Museum is not entirely a negative development, yet this argument seems entirely based on Brandeis’ decision to maintain the facility as a “teaching instrument.” While a valid point, such an assessment ignores the negative impact the university will likely face as a result of the closure. Not only did the museum provide Brandeis students and its surrounding community with an incomparable collection of art, it also stood as a symbol of the school’s academic excellence and financial strength. The museum's closure indicates growing financial vulnerability, potentially leading to a decline in the school’s funding as donors worry about the security of their investments.  Any attempts at reopening or rededicating the Brandeis museum are similarly threatened with contributors less likely to donate to a university with an obvious ambivalence towards the arts. This lack of concern is reflected in Brandeis’ decision to unilaterally dissolve the Rose Museum, an avoidable conclusion had officials chosen to pull from various departments.

While Brandeis has aimed at compromise, the decision to transform the building into a “hands on” environment seems a weak attempt to reconcile the disastrous initial claim of absolute closure. Your assertion that the building will have “slightly fewer works available than it does now” is unlikely. Closing the museum thus fails to take into account the best interests of Brandeis students or its donors. Not only does the university’s decision stand as a violation of donor trust, but the move has outraged students, resulting in massive demonstrations and pleas for public support. With these sentiments in mind, it is both irresponsible and unconscionable to support the board’s conclusion. Not only does the move threaten the reputation of Brandeis University, but it sets a bad precedent for similar institutions as the world moves forward in the financial crisis. While Cotter’s views were perhaps not aptly expressed, the sentiments of the article are both valid and pointed. Until university museums are no longer viewed as “expendable commodities”, it is likely additional institutions will face similar closures in the weeks and months to come.

Rumsfeld Wing for Baghdad Museum
Comment:
This is a thorough and sensitive analysis of the United States’ involvement in the closing of the Iraq National Museum (see below, right). Underreported by many accounts, your article sheds new light on the 2003 looting spree and the consequences of American inaction.  While I largely agree that the museum has become a “symbol of the Bush era”, your article risks, however, oversimplifying the circumstances surrounding the embattled institution. According to several media reports, robberies were largely an internal issue, likely carried out by museum employees. As such, I would argue that Iraqis are at least equally responsible for the museum's current state of affairs.  Since your post highlights United States involvement, I am curious as to what degree you believe Iraqi officials should be held accountable in the matter. While I do not deny that America's lack of foresight resulted in immediate damage to the collection, the United States' guilt of inaction pales in comparison to Iraq's complicity . In focusing solely on the efforts of the United States, you fail to address the joint effort of Iraq and the U.S. in the handling of the museum. While the recent opening was only partial in its scope,  it seems to signal an attempt by both the United States’ and Iraqi governments to create the illusion of progress, equally in terms of the stability of the region and in the perseverance of its cultural institutions. With these efforts, the governments have been largely successful, many viewers and writers seeing the opening as a step forward in communicating the security of Baghdad.

Nevertheless, this assumed stability was called into question in the weeks leading up to the opening, a point which, though highly publicized, was entirely excluded from your analysis.  It is not insignificant that a group of Iraqi archaeologists recently urged for the cancellation of the opening, citing fears that the artifacts would be placed in an unstable and potentially destructive environment. This sentiment has been echoed by many government officials, anxious for the safety not only of the works, but of museum employees as well. With these objections, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the museum’s decision to move forward with the opening. Do you think officials’ determination will be seen as a sign of the region’s stability or do you think it is a preemptive move in a still precarious situation? As most of the protests have come from reputed scholars, it seems Iraqi officials have been too hasty with their decision and potentially reckless with the collection. While the fault might have initially been with the United States, this lack of concern on the part of the Iraqi government signals comparable culpability, a sentiment which your article fails to acknowledge wholly.

Art in Crisis: Maintaining a Creative Workforce in an Economic Maelstrom

After weeks of negotiations, the Obama-proposed $787 billion stimulus package was signed into law last Friday in an attempt to combat the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Though the bill is comprised of both tax cuts and new spending, one major segment of the economy was almost entirely excluded from the act: the arts. In an effort to "ensure that tax paper money [was] not lost on wasteful and non-stimulative projects," Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn (pictured right) proposed an amendment that aimed at preventing stimulus money from going towards the funding of artistic institutions. Organizations deemed unworthy of stimulus money were parks, museums, theaters and art centers. In a surprising decision, the Senate voted last week 73-24 to approve the revision with bipartisan support. With government working to bailout many other major American industries however, Congress failed to adequately explain its refusal to help one of the nation’s largest employers. While the effects of the yet-to-be enacted stimulus bill are still uncertain, the Senate’s decision to exclude the arts from the deal came as a blow to an already weak market.

Ignoring the deseperate please of arts advocacy groups, Coburn and his supporters defended the initiative by claiming that artistic funding failed to create jobs. However, with an estimated 5.7 million workers facing unemployment, the senator failed to acknowledge that the primary concern of the National Endowment for the Arts has been job creation. As such, the Coburn amendment sought to destabilize an already struggling industry through largely misleading claims. Not only does the industry employ millions of Americans, but also makes up one of the largest sectors of the U.S. economy. With the American economy on the verge of collapse, maintaining the arts is essential to fiscal recovery. Search the web and find a veritable breakdown of the many art institutions amid budgetary crisis. Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is on the brink of financial collapse and has already been forced to cut its relatively small workforce by 32 employees. A private institution, the museum has exceeded its projected annual budget and has been unable to rely on the dwindling donations of private donors. With few options keeping it from closure, museum directors have considered everything from a merger with the government-funded Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to the auctioning of art from its collection. As early as November of last year, Museum Director Jeremy Strick was demanding that "the city step forward and offer the kind of financial support commensurate with the work being done." Unfortunately, MOCA’s dire situation is by no means unique. Hundreds of institutions such as the Austin Museum of Art and the Portland Arts Museum have also been forced into layoffs and budget tightening. Though attendance is steady, dwindling private donations have threatened an industry largely reliant on philanthropic contributions. As a result, endowment campaigns across the nation have been abandoned. The Coburn amendment would thus have only led the artistic community to greater financial disaster, adding to growing unemployment and threatening the future of the market.

Yet while such financial impacts can by no means be underestimated, the effects of the initiative on childhood education would have been equally damaging. In preventing creative institutions from gaining financial stability, Coburn ignored the vital role artistic organizations play in local economies and communities. As Merryl Goldberg of Americans for the Arts wrote earlier this year, "the arts are a field discriminated against and an easy target when times get tough." Yet "the arts are also what communities and individuals rely on in these exact same tough times." As such, more than ever, the arts provide a channel by which to communicate and explore deeper cultural understanding and experience. Exposure to innovative processes not only aids in development but creates a platform from which children may develop both critical minds and cognitive skills. Recent research has found that students who study the arts are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement and three times more likely to consistently attend class. While art is often mistakenly seen as an elite pastime, cultural institutions also allow for easy access to millions of Americans. LACMA alone offers over 400,000 visitors free or subsidized admission annually and, as popular tourist destinations, art museums employ over 250,000 Americans. With contributions of over $14.5 billion to the U.S. economy, the success of art institutions not only signals the profitability of the art market, but of Wall Street as well. An industry dependent on luxury spending, art sales decline when patrons become more frugal. As with every other business, the price of art rises and falls with the Dow.

Thus, when Americans for the Arts (pictured left) announced a large initiative to try and overturn the amendment, Congress finally awakened to the crisis at hand and recognized the need to provide monetary aid to a weakened industry. On February 13, 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives, overturning the language put forth by the Coburn amendment and giving $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts. In a time when the future of the industry remains in question, such actions are essential in maintaining one of the largest workforces in the U.S. economy and hopefully signal a more sympathetic government towards creative culture. Nonetheless, reviving the art market will take more than a simple increase in organizational funding. Exciting public interest in the arts will once again prove vital. With such a viable and important segment of our economy in crisis, it is imperative that Congress continue its support of the arts, most importantly by seeking to alleviate the negative image the Coburn amendment has cast on the funding of artistic agencies. The designation of the arts as "non-stimulative" has come at a time when creative institutions are struggling most. Recent auctions at Sotheby’s and Christy’s proved disastrous and countless institutions are seeking financial support and face possible closures. Even with the $50 million in stimulus money, questions remain as to the future of the art market and what impact the relatively small sum will have on maintaining the industry's viability.

Though the Coburn amendment was eventually overturned, the bill's brief passage reflects an alarming trend in Washington to overlook the arts. While President Obama has vowed to increase government support of the arts, it remains to be seen whether the new administration will live up to its campaign promises. Just last week, the president of Americans for the Arts pointed to a disturbing trend in the industry's financing, suggesting that government support has actually regressed over the past several years. According to transcripts, “If the NEA had simply maintained its 1979 percentage of discretionary funding, its 2008 budget would have been $613 million.” As of yet, the Obama administration has requested a NEA budget of only $205 million, a sum which includes the $50 million in stimulus money. Such failures continue to impact the success of the industry, despite the invaluable impact the arts bring both to America’s financial sector and educational system. With $29.6 billion in tax revenues and $166.2 billion in profits, artistic patronage not only preserves the creative community but is essential to American financial recovery. Continued insistence on government funding and increased personal donations are both vital in ensuring the success of America's artistic community without further damage to its support system.

Examining the Arts: An Appraisal of the Online Art Community

As two vital forces of daily life, art and society are inextricably linked. While art is shaped by societal developments, visual culture exerts its subsequent influence over impressionable audiences. This blog will consider this exchange by examining society’s impact on artistic development through technological advancement, international conflict, world leadership and the economy. As a new addition to the web community, I am eager to assert these issues in a relevant and timely manner.

To help facilitate these goals, I have compiled a list of resources which will attend to the concerns of this blog (See linkroll, left). To ensure the quality of these sources, I exhaustively searched the internet for the most pertinent art sources available, attempting to communicate a better understanding of the multi-faceted art community. While I encountered some difficulty in locating sites exclusively dedicated to the fine arts, I hope my research will provide an easy source of information for those with similar interests and inquiries.

To this end, I sought to explore both large and small publications. Through the use of Google Reader and other directories (such as ArtsLynx), I was able to expedite my search and select only the most viable entries. While I wanted to avoid including too many general art sources, I found comprehensive sites such as Artcyclopedia and Axis Web (see right) to be excellent platforms from which to perform more detailed inquiries.

For more focused searches, publications such as The Art Newspaper and ArtForum include scholarly news entries which address global concerns while personal blogs (most notably Art and Politics Now and Art Markets Blog) prove extremely informative and easy to navigate when investigating specific art issues. I also thought it pertinent to include charitable organizations which gear towards the concerns of this blog (such as the Community Arts Network and Americans for the Arts.) Though these sites center heavily on community outreach and charitable donations, they also include more focused articles relevant to the art world on a community level.

While this list is by no means comprehensive, it is my hope that the sites I have selected will both accompany and enrich the issues to be discussed in this blog. Though my search produced several potentially relevant sites, in adhering to IMSA and Webby Awards criteria, I was able to select sites which are both easy to navigate and provide a breadth of academic material. Having completed an extensive search, I am satisfied my research has produced the best sites the online art community has to offer.