tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68105952071377956192024-02-20T16:44:16.184-06:00CoaccessionThoughts on developing the Coaccession system to implement the Coaccession method.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-70553384759959020702013-06-01T23:59:00.000-05:002013-06-01T23:59:19.101-05:00Why Fight?Coaccession was inspired by fights between archaeology professionals and amateurs. Go back a ways and there were no professionals... but that didn't keep amateurs from fighting over access to sites and possession of finds. Professionals arose to refine the fights. Professionals say collectors and collections stimulate looting, damaging sites. Actually, plows do more damage than looters, and farmers don't bother with artifacts because professionals have made archaeological sites and artifacts not worth protecting for the folks that live there.<br />
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Richard Stroup and Matthew Brown of the Property and Environment Research Center came up with proposals that would use the value of artifacts to engage property owners and users in preservation. Certified artifacts with documented provenience are worth more than orphan artifacts, so if archaeologists and collectors could get along, they could protect sites and artifacts more effectively together. The trick is giving archaeologists access to sites and to artifacts when they need them, while letting collectors collect the artifacts when archaeologists would otherwise store them. Stroup and Brown said museum archaeologists -- professionals -- could document provenience, research artifacts, and when artifacts were ready to go on the shelf, sell them to collectors with a proviso that museums could buy them back when they needed them... at the original sales price! That creates an obvious financial problem which I set out to solve... <br />
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The whole story of developing that solution is mostly in snippets here and there, mostly in emails in one account or another. The important point is that fights still arise, and Coaccession still offers a good tool to help folks get along. Bruce Edward Walker mentioned me in passing while discussing one of the latest fights. That mention seems a good occasion for some public commentary! <br />
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.mackinac.org/18687" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.25s ease, color 0.25s ease; color: inherit; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.25s ease, color 0.25s ease;"><span class="balance-text">DIA Gins Up PR Battle Against Kevyn Orr</span></a></span></h1>
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Posted by<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.mackinac.org/bio.aspx?ID=470" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.25s ease, color 0.25s ease; color: inherit; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.25s ease, color 0.25s ease;">Bruce Edward Walker</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>on May 30, 2013 at 10:10am*</div>
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Seems you don’t want to be the guy who tells the Detroit Institute of Arts that its treasures are in jeopardy if the city winds up in bankruptcy.</div>
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<i>No kidding! </i></div>
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In typical shoot-the-messenger style, the DIA is spinning a story that Detroit Emergency Financial Manager Kevyn Orr actually wants to sell the city-owned artwork to settle a portion of the Motor City’s $15 billion debt.</div>
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<i>Spinning furiously! </i></div>
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A convenient story, but entirely untrue. Orr merely informed the DIA that its collection — valued from several billion dollars up to $50 billion by some estimates — wasn’t protected should the city file Chapter 9. A word to the wise, it is said, should be sufficient. However, the DIA chose once again to play public relations instead of conscientious art stewards by throwing Orr under the bus.</div>
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<i>Actually, Orr told the DIA to protect Detroit's artworks... but not the way the DIA wants to! </i></div>
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Orr is not the first person to bring up the possibility that DIA’s Van Goghs and Turners could end up on the auction block in the event of bankruptcy. One extremely astute writer pointed out this very same <a href="http://www.mackinac.org/17413" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.25s ease, color 0.25s ease; color: #008899; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.25s ease, color 0.25s ease;">possibility</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>last August when the DIA successfully spent $2 million it claimed it didn’t have to convince residents of Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties to fork over a 10-year, 0.2 millage.</div>
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<i>And an extremely astute commenter pointed to the method Kevyn Orr would tell the DIA to use! </i></div>
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The millage is funding an endowment for operating costs, which in part protects those high salaries enjoyed by the upper echelon of DIA employees. It’s sadly irresponsible, but true, that the DIA waited 127 years before seriously endeavoring to build an endowment fund. Adding insult to injury, they dinged recession-weary metro Detroiters to cover their negligence — and made no effort whatsoever to address the unprotected assets housed on Woodward Avenue.</div>
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<i>In the DIA Founders Society's defense, they expected city and state funding to substitute for an endowment through many of those years. Of course, when the raise that defense, smart folks say it's better for them to keep quiet and leave the others wondering!</i></div>
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This last is especially galling as the DIA continues its management laxity by declaring presumptuously that creditors cannot seize the museum’s works in the event of a bankruptcy. An angry creditor might just convince a bankruptcy judge otherwise.</div>
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<i>No doubt! </i></div>
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Failing in their first strategy, the DIA can deploy the same emotional tactics that helped pass last summer’s millage. Namely, declare that the DIA’s very existence is in peril as has happened repeatedly in the past. After working Michigan residents into an existential frenzy, the DIA can then implore Lansing politicians to preserve intact the DIA collection by purchasing it from Detroit using taxpayer dollars.</div>
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<i>Not very likely with the DIA collection's vast market value! </i></div>
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Nowhere in these scenarios is the Michigan taxpayer off the hook for the privilege of roughly 400,000 DIA visitors annually. Yes, the DIA is a “gem” loaded with “priceless treasures” and all that melodramatic yada yada with which your writer — neither Philistine nor Neanderthal he — in fact agrees. However, much of that art is owned by a city awash in so many shades of red ink it makes a Henri Matisse painting seem monochromatic by comparison.</div>
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<i>Cash is king</i>!</div>
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Reality sometimes trumps aesthetic considerations for both individuals and art institutes, and the DIA should be no exception. However, it’s doubtful that any politician would allow DIA assets to be sold off on their watch.</div>
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<i>No politician will want to fund a buyout -- it's just too expensive! </i></div>
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Neither is it likely that the DIA will be privatized in much the same manner as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, to the extent that the building and artwork aren’t owned and operated by the Windy City’s Park District, the Art Institute of Chicago. More’s the pity.</div>
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<i>Those started private and stayed that way. No local or state government could afford them now! </i></div>
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And<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://coaccession.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-coaccession-enthusiasts-view.html" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.25s ease, color 0.25s ease; color: #008899; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.25s ease, color 0.25s ease;">Coaccession</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>— a method of selling shares or “covenants” in museum artwork while the institution maintains it in its permanent exhibit — developed by self-proclaimed Evanston, Ill., “art finance innovator” Mark White, Ph.D., will remain untried and therefore unproven.</div>
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<i>Actually, Kevyn Orr has called on the DIA to sell artwork covenants to protect the artworks -- to Coaccession! -- and complained that they haven't done so. </i></div>
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The DIA probably will continue to chug along in much the same manner it has for the past century, completely oblivious to the economic realities crashing, like the subject in Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus,” to its doom. As W.H. Auden observed of the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Bruegel,_Pieter_de_Oude_-_De_val_van_icarus_-_hi_res.jpg/370px-Bruegel,_Pieter_de_Oude_-_De_val_van_icarus_-_hi_res.jpg&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Icarus&h=182&w=277&sz=1&tbnid=yV8nI3HlwYRfHM:&tbnh=160&tbnw=243&zoom=1&usg=__5_izYfvOr4Xk430Zpw0zPwXkxnY=&docid=m6h2wFcpeiHBYM&itg=1&sa=X&ei=YJOmUYC_B4jYyQHJkID4Dg&ved=0CJYBEPwdMAo" style="-webkit-transition: background-color 0.25s ease, color 0.25s ease; color: #008899; text-decoration: none; transition: background-color 0.25s ease, color 0.25s ease;">painting</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in “Musee des Beaux Arts:”</div>
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<i>Not unless Detroit comes up with billions in cash (which is just what the DIA can let it do!)</i>.</div>
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In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away<br />Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may<br />Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,<br />But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone<br />As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green<br />Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen<br />Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,<br />Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.</blockquote>
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<i>Kevyn Orr has their attention, and they'll kick and scream until they finally understand how to save themselves with Coaccession...</i></div>
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Not for the expensive delicate ship that is the DIA any long-term solutions that don’t include public monies and political arm twisting that they’ll either lose artwork or shutter completely. Instead, the museum will damn the torpedoes, Kevyn Orr, or anything else disappearing in the green water as it sails calmly on.</div>
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<i>They'll understand... hopefully soon! </i></div>
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* <a href="http://www.mackinac.org/18687">http://www.mackinac.org/18687</a> </div>
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Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-31797948218072481562012-12-09T23:59:00.002-06:002012-12-10T00:09:13.436-06:00A Coaccession Enthusiast's View<i>Mark White reconceives Laura Berman's column</i><br />
<b>"Theorist suggests DIA riches will fix city"</b><br />
<i>original posted at Detroit News, DECEMBER 4, 2012 AT 10:10 AM</i><br />
<i>reconception posted blogspot.com, DECEMBER 9, 2012 AT 11:59 PM</i><br />
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Do the riches of the Detroit Institute of Arts make the city solvent? Would putting them to work save them from risk?<br />
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These crucial questions — which defy conventional rules of museum practice and ethics, but might nonetheless help Detroit's renewal — animate many of Mark White's waking moments.<br />
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White, a finance Ph.D., thinks originally and profoundly about museum finance. A theorist and inventor, he recognizes that starting up his novel methods will take iconic artworks at a willing major art museum.<br />
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For the last year, he has been a fixture on blogs and discussion boards here as he tries to raise awareness around how to solve Detroit's fiscal crisis and protect DIA artworks with his masterpiece idea: Put the capital riches locked in iconic works of art to work by selling shares in the artwork's appreciation to individual investors, while the major museum keeps rights to the display and physical custody of the works.<br />
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He calls this Coaccession, and he's devoted so much effort to Detroit because the many, many billions of dollars in its DIA can fix the City's finances, and by doing so save its DIA collection from default and dispersal. "The DIA is the only museum with the complete package," he told me.<br />
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He lives in Evanston, Ill., and has schooled himself remotely on the institute and its relationship to Detroit's misfortune. He's contacted Detroit officials, drawn up documents, consulted lawyers and answered objections. What he hasn't done is sell his concept to Detroit yet.<br />
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White gained museum experience as a board member of the Evanston History Center, but it's far too small to bring Coaccession to fruition, and he can't afford the bigger boards around Chicago. Eden Pearlman, the museum's executive director, says the EHC has no iconic artworks to make all the lawyers, accountants, appraisers, curators, etc., affordable as they work to start Coaccession with White's guidance.<br />
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Still, she recognizes a certain visionary gleam. "I do think there's something there," she says. "This may be one of those ideas where later we all wonder why we were so set against it."<br />
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She's talking about the opposition to even to talking about this idea, which runs deep among museum people because museums want to be like churches: Aspiring to higher values than material ones. Unfortunately, this leaves many churches and museums sitting atop vast idle wealth while they're surrounded by unmet needs. White is the skunk at the garden party when he points this out.<br />
<br />
White thinks a city with this kind of wealth will have to put it to work, unlike a church or a museum. A city's first obligation is to its residents, not its art collections and gold fixtures. Thus, his interest in the city of Detroit and the DIA.<br />
<br />
And as Detroit lurches toward bankruptcy, his questions, which once seemed wildly inappropriate, are merely provocative. Can the city declare itself insolvent if it owns billions of dollars of art? The vast majority of the DIA's collection is city property, much of it purchased with city funds in the 1920s.<br />
<br />
Imagine city residents faced with eliminating police service and firehouses, while city leaders insist on protecting Detroit's museum collection instead of its residents, acting as if an unbreachable wall seals residents off from using the many, many billions of dollars the city keeps invested in its DIA Van Goghs, Renoirs and Rembrandts.<br />
<br />
No such wall exists, so White expects city leaders will eventually use those Detroit financial resources invested in artworks -- Bing's Billions, he's called them -- to pay for priority services. But rather than selling Detroit's artworks to collectors and museums around the world, White wants Detroit to sell investments in DIA artworks hanging on DIA walls. He says Detroit should have its Monet and money too.<br />
<br />
Bankruptcy lawyers and museum officials will tell you nobody knows what might happen, or what might be possible, if the City of Detroit defaults on debt obligations. DIA spokeswoman Pam Marcil says, "Those are uncharted waters. It's all speculative." The museum's code of ethics, absolutely prohibiting it from selling art to raise funds, has no force of law. Its 20-year-contract with the city expires in 2018, letting Detroit sell art for cash now with delivery then, or Coaccession art for cash now and keep it on DIA walls.<br />
<br />
White wants to move Detroit's discussion beyond museum morality and emotion to municipal morality and emotion. There, lives have to come before art, so Detroit must put its financial resources to work. Fortunately, White knows that saving Detroit lives doesn't mean losing Detroit art.<br />
<br />
He notes that Detroit takes a chance either way. Innovators, he points out, are frequently wrong After years of working with experts, seeing others developing innovations with similar goals, and then seeing artwork shares actually start trading, he said in a telephone call, "I could be a crackpot, but I think I'm a genius." Detroit should hope he's right.<br />
<br />
Coaccession@gmail.com<br />
Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-89704340607021886692012-12-08T22:15:00.001-06:002012-12-08T22:16:16.662-06:00A Municipal Ethicist's Point of View<i>Mark White's rewrite of Laura Berman's </i><br />
<b>"Theorist suggests DIA riches will fix city"</b><i> </i><br />
<i>original from Detroit News, DECEMBER 4, 2012 AT 10:10 AM<br />rewrite on blogspot.com, DECEMBER 8, 2012 AT 10:15 PM</i><br />
<br />
If the city defaults, could the riches at the Detroit Institute of Arts be at risk?<br />
<br />
Bankruptcy lawyers and DIA officials will tell you nobody knows what might happen, or what might be possible, if the City of Detroit defaults on debt obligations. DIA spokeswoman Pam Marcil says, "Those are uncharted waters. It's all speculative." The museum's code of ethics absolutely prohibits the DIA itself from selling art to raise funds, but it's the city's art, not the DIA's art. The museum interprets its 20-year-contract with the city to preclude city sales of art or alternative agreements or arrangements, but a municipal default hasn't tested this contract, which expires in 2018.<br />
<br />
This question — could the riches at the Detroit Institute of Arts indeed be at risk? — animates many of Mark White's waking moments.<br />
<br />
White, who has a Ph.D. in finance, is an iconoclast of museum finance: a theorist who wants to overturn traditions, innovating with a willing arts institution.<br />
<br />
For the last year, he has been a fixture on blogs and discussion boards here as he tries to create awareness around the risks to Detroit's DIA art collection. His alternative to save the art? Put the capital riches created by iconic works of art to work for Detroit, raising billions of dollars by selling shares in DIA artworks to individual investors, while letting the city keep rights to the display and physical custody of the works.<br />
<br />
He calls this Coaccession, and he's gotten hard pushback on it. "What I haven't found is a museum executive director willing to sign on," he told me. "They recognize it transforms their finances, but they can't get past museum 'ethics.'"<br />
<br />
White, who lives in Evanston, Ill., focuses on the DIA's relationship to Detroit's misfortune because he thinks municipal ethics should guide Detroit arts policy. To put Detroit's artworks to work, he's researched various alternatives and drawn up documents, consulted lawyers and other experts, and answered objections to his own Coaccession method.<br />
<br />
White is a board member of the Evanston History Center, where he's been learning more about museum collections and policies. Coaccession is on hold there. Eden Pearlman, the museum's executive director, says she worries about a potential conflict of interest and the museum isn't in dire financial straits.<br />
<br />
But she recognizes a certain visionary gleam. "I do think there's something there," she says. "This may be one of those ideas where later we all wonder why we were so set against it."<br />
<br />
Museum opposition even to talking about this idea runs deep, because museums claim to be like churches: They aspire to higher values than material ones. In an age when everything from warehouse receipts to orange juice has become a commodity, art museums claim to offer a sense of refuge. Like so many churches in Detroit, though, museums may have to innovate to keep everything together. Many have failed.<br />
<br />
What White needs to prove his concept is a museum that faces higher risks from standing pat with its traditions than from developing the art finance innovation that White's research has designed. Thus, his interest in the city of Detroit and the DIA.<br />
<br />
And as Detroit lurches toward bankruptcy, his question, which once seemed wildly inappropriate, is merely provocative. Can the city declare itself insolvent if it owns billions of dollars of art? The vast majority of the DIA's collection is city property, much of it purchased with city funds in the 1920s, and vastly appreciated since.<br />
<br />
Imagine city residents faced with eliminated pensions and slashed police service, while city leaders and DIA officials act as if an unbreachable wall seals those residents off from the vast city resources -- billions and billions of dollars -- invested in the Van Goghs, Renoirs and Rembrandts that hang on DIA walls .<br />
<br />
No such wall exists. Municipal codes of ethics absolutely let cities sell art to raise funds. The DIA's 20-year-contract with the city can be interpreted to let the city sell art today for delivery in 2018, or to use Coaccession -- which wasn't even a gleam in anyone's eye in 1998 -- to put Detroit's artworks to work now.<br />
<br />
White wants to move the discussion beyond just the morality and emotion of museum ethics, and start talking about the morality and emotion of raising funds for municipal priorities like avoiding default and funding public safety.<br />
<br />
White admits that Detroit takes a chance if it innovates. Innovators, he points out, are frequently wrong. "I could be a crackpot," he said. Musing on the telephone about all the experts he's consulted, the markets he's studied and the many risks Detroit faces from just standing pat, he continues: "But I think I'm a genius."<br />
<br />
Coaccession@gmail.comDr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-32197909695005242682012-12-06T01:43:00.000-06:002012-12-06T01:43:04.933-06:00An extended response to Laura BermanLaura Berman took a certain tone and posture in her column. Here's my extended dissection:<br />
<br />
Detroit News<br />
December 4, 2012 at 10:10 am<br />
Laura Berman
<b> </b><br />
<b>Theorist suggests DIA riches will fix city</b>
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>Indeed!</i><br />
<br />
If the city becomes insolvent, could the riches of the Detroit Institute of Arts be at risk?<br />
<br />
<i>The riches of the Detroit Institute of Arts make the city solvent, but a solvent debtor's default poses its own risks. Those same riches, though, can fix the City's finances.</i><br />
<br />
This taboo question — which defies all conventional rules of museum practice and ethics — animates many of Mark White's waking moments.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>Primarily because this not-taboo question — which defies no conventional rules of municipal practice and ethics — drives Detroit's finances, and I'm convinced my research can turn Detroit finances in a better direction.</i><br />
<br />
White, who has a Ph.D. in economics, is the Dr. Frankenstein of museum finance: a theorist who wants to perform his first experiment on a willing arts institution.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>"... Dr. Frankenstein of museum finance?" Nice touch, that. "A theorist who wants to perform his first experiment on a willing arts institution?" A bit more neutral. But what about a Detroit default experiment? Have we lost sight of other experiments so quickly? How about context?</i><br />
<br />
For the last three years, he has been a fixture on blogs and discussion boards as he tries to create enthusiasm around his mad scientist idea: Free the capital riches locked in iconic works of art by selling shares in artworks to individual investors, while allowing the museum to keep rights to the display and physical custody of the works.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>"Create enthusiasm?" How about inform an unknowing public? "Mad scientist idea?" Another nice touch! "Free the capital riches locked in iconic works of art?" Well, I say put artworks to work for the public, so bad, but not too bad. "Selling shares in artworks to individual investors, while allowing the museum to keep rights to the display and physical custody of the works." Finally, something we agree on!</i><br />
<br />
He calls this "coaccession," and he's gotten little respect for it. "What I haven't found is a museum executive director willing to sign on," he told me.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>"He's gotten little respect for it?" From museum executive directors, no, but then, the museum crowd has some strange ethics -- for them, growing their collection's financial value trumps everything, including, in Detroit, public safety funding. It's that trump that make them generally unwilling to sign on. I explained that context, but context didn't make it into this atypically-short column. Space problems?</i><br />
<br />
Although he lives in Evanston, Ill., and has never been inside the DIA, White has schooled himself on the institute and its relationship to Detroit's misfortune. He's drawn up documents, consulted lawyers and answered objections.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>"Has never been inside the DIA?" So? Should I then not school myself on the institute and its relationship to Detroit's misfortune?</i><br />
<br />
White is a board member of the Evanston History Center, where "coaccession" has been rejected. Eden Pearlman, the museum's executive director, says the museum would have a conflict of interest and isn't in dire financial straits.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>"Coaccession has been rejected?" News to me. I thought Eden Pearlman had it on hold until the right moment.</i><br />
<br />
But she recognizes a certain visionary gleam. "I do think there's something there," she says. "This may be one of those ideas where later we all wonder why we were so set against it."<br />
<br />
<i>If "later we all wonder why we were so set against it," it might be because language like "Dr. Frankenstein" and "mad scientist" introduced it to us...
</i><br />
<br />
Opposition even to talking about this idea runs deep, because museums are like churches: They aspire to higher values than material ones. In an age when everything from warehouse receipts to orange juice has become a commodity, art museums offer a sense of refuge.<br />
<br />
<i>"Opposition even to talking about this idea runs deep." There we can agree!! "Museums are like churches: They aspire to higher values than material ones." Yes, but it's Detroit's art, not the DIA Founders Society's art. Detroit aspires to help its people stay safe and healthy... or is supposed to. "In an age when everything from warehouse receipts to orange juice has become a commodity, art museums offer a sense of refuge." In an age when every Detroiter runs a risk of mugging and murder, growing the investment in an art museum's collection as fast as possible -- which has absolutely nothing to do with it offering a sense of refuge to the public -- shouldn't necessarily be an overriding priority.</i><br />
<br />
What White needs to prove his point is a truly desperate or unusually risk-friendly patient for this first highly experimental operation. Thus, his interest in the city of Detroit and the DIA.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>Well, yes. Stumbling toward financial meltdown, Detroit can run my experiment, or it can keep running the DIA Founders' experiment. So far, the DIA Founders haven't even tried justifying their "ethical" policy preference of keeping many, many billions of Detroit dollars invested in assets that generate no cash. Capital appreciation may be fine for museum ethics, but Detroit has bills to pay... or else!</i> <br />
<br />
And as Detroit lurches toward bankruptcy, his questions, which once seemed wildly inappropriate, are merely provocative. Can the city declare itself insolvent if it owns billions of dollars of art? The vast majority of the DIA's collection is city property, much of it purchased with city funds in the 1920s.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>"His questions, which once seemed wildly inappropriate?" For a museum, sure, but not for a City that owns a museum! Detroit should have always thought practically about both the market value and cultural value of its artworks.</i> <br />
<br />
Imagine if city residents are faced with eliminating pensions or police service, while acting as if an unbreachable wall safely seals off the DIA's Van Goghs, Renoirs and Rembrandts.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>Who's acting? City residents? No, they'd rather keep pensions and police service, especially if funding those innovatively can also keep DIA artworks safer. It's City leaders and DIA Founders who act like there's no connection between artworks and City finances!</i><br />
<br />
Alas, no such wall exists.<br />
<br />
<i>"Alas?" For whom? City residents want police service and artworks on DIA walls. City leaders and DIA Founders want to endlessly grow the capital Detroit invests in its museum collection. Coaccession lets </i><i>DIA artworks hanging on DIA walls earn funding for</i><i> police service</i><i>. True, the financial value invested the collection would grow more slowly then, or perhaps not at all, but residents would have city services plus access to artworks, so they would certainly be better off.</i><br />
<br />
Bankruptcy lawyers and museum officials will tell you nobody knows what might happen, or what might be possible, if the City of Detroit defaults on debt obligations. DIA spokeswoman Pam Marcil says, "Those are uncharted waters. It's all speculative." But the museum's code of ethics absolutely prohibits it from selling art to raise funds. Its 30-year-contract with the city has also been interpreted to preclude selling art or entering into a "coaccession" agreement.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>"Those are uncharted waters. It's all speculative." That comes from a group with fiduciary duties to avoid uncharted waters and speculation. Given this uncertainty, maybe making the museum's code of ethics yield to the municipal code of ethics is a better course. The City's 20-year-contract (not 30) with the DIA Founders need not preclude Coaccession agreements if both sides agree to amend it for the good of Detroit's residents... and its art collection too!</i><br />
<br />
White wants to move the discussion beyond morality and emotion.
<i> </i><br />
<br />
<i>I want the discussion to contrast the morality and emotion of growing the City's artworks investment as fast as possible with the morality and emotion of helping fund public safety. </i><br />
<br />
Innovators, he points out, are frequently wrong. "I could be a crackpot," he said, in a telephone call. "But I think I'm a genius."<br />
<br />
<i>Innovators are indeed frequently wrong, and I could indeed be a crackpot, but years of vetting my method with experts in many different fields -- precisely to find out if I'm a crackpot -- have led me to think I'm a genius... or at least to think I had an ingenious inspiration. I guess there just wasn't space for that context.</i><br />
<i> </i> Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-54306224267958147972012-12-05T23:59:00.000-06:002012-12-06T01:43:59.761-06:00Pixels in Detroit!<a href="http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121204/OPINION03/212040341">Laura Berman's Coaccession column</a> beautifully captures the museum crowd's reaction to art finance innovation, but then, to the museum crowd, growing an art collection's financial value trumps public safety. The column's important point was the Pam Marcil quote. The DIA Founders Society board has a fiduciary duty to fulfill, and where's their plan for a Detroit default going? "Those are uncharted waters. It's all speculative." Well, that's a great plan. Who's got the more dangerous experiment, Coaccession or plain accession?Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-34858255056331127502011-12-04T20:37:00.004-06:002011-12-07T23:28:08.463-06:00Serve the stuff or the people?In response to <a href="http://aaslhcommunity.org/historynews/history-museums-objects/">Rainey Tisdale's question, Do History Museums Still Need Objects?</a>, <a href="http://aaslhcommunity.org/historynews/fundamental-values/">David Crosson asks “Are we here to serve the stuff or the people?”</a><br /><br />My comment was this:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The City of Detroit owns the Detroit Institute of Arts. The DIA collection has many, many billions of dollars of financial value as well as priceless cultural value. Given Detroit's fiscal crisis, would the people choose to keep the DIA collection intact and give up essential municipal services, or would they cut the DIA collection (10%? 20%? 80%? 90%?) and use the funds to maintain services and jumpstart a recovery? That would be a very stark choice if those were indeed the only options. Fortunately, Detroit can have its Monet and money, too, with Coaccession:</span><br /><br />http://www.indiegogo.com/Artworks-supporting-the-arts<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">With the capital income that financial value could produce in an endowment, Detroit could fully fund the arts that created the value as well as the essential services that let Detroit residents stay near it.</span>Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-27834421166776978142011-11-17T16:46:00.003-06:002011-11-17T16:59:01.281-06:00“Being Part of the Solution in Detroit – Read All About It”A. Alfred Taubman is a retailing genius. He's also the president of Detroit's Arts Commission. Here's hoping he'll recognize a spark of genius in Coaccession, because if he and Detroit Mayor Dave Bing lead a movement to mobilize the financial value of Detroit's most valuable asset, they can generate the funding to capitalize on Detroit's opportunity for an arts-led renaissance.<br /><br />If he reviews the comments submitted to <a href="http://www.thresholdresistance.com/blog/">his blog</a>, and decides to learn more about this one:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The City of Detroit faces a fiscal emergency now. The Detroit Institute of Art’s collection has enough financial value to resolve the City’s current financial problems and still establish a very substantial endowment to support the arts and humanities. Detroit should mobilize that financial value as long as it can do so without compromising the collection’s cultural value. Coaccession offers Detroit the best tool for accomplishing that goal and funding programs to raise its people’s literacy, numeracy and artistry.</span><br /><br />... perhaps you'll see Detroit's assets funding Detroit's renewal.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-55615064981951463882011-10-12T11:45:00.002-05:002011-10-12T11:51:39.078-05:00More than appreciationCritics at Flickr prompted me to offer a hypothetical example of Coaccession at work:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">At the German Gymnasium at Kings Cross in London during the London Street Photography Festival, the Vivian Maier Museum shows up with negatives that are usually in storage. A couple shows up with a baby in a pram. The VMM would like to run more programs, but all it has are negatives, and all they generate is capital appreciation. The couple would like to send the baby to a street photography course in 16 years, and while they have investments that will finance the course, each year they have to pay taxes on their investments' dividends and interest income before they reinvest it to keep saving for the course. So, the VMM Coaccessions℠ a negative to the couple. They cash out the investments and buy possession of the negative, subject to VMM's cultural rights. VMM invests the cash and uses the dividends and interest to finance programs. In five years, the winner of the VMM outsider curator contest wants the negative to make a print -- financed by dividends and interest the negative's financial value produced -- for a show. The couple happily send in the negative, knowing the show will enhance its provenance, letting their first-grader attend a better course in eleven years. The print made, VMM returns the negative to the couple. The time arrives for the baby's course, the couple sell their conditional possession to a fellow saving for retirement, and baby, thanks to all the capital appreciation, learns street photography at VMM. And it all started at the German Gymnasium at Kings Cross in London during the London Street Photography Festival.</span><br /><br />As I asked the critics then, would that be so bad?Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-77997930733473132612011-09-04T13:02:00.003-05:002011-09-04T13:14:41.930-05:00The Authenticity BusinessAt the American Association of Museums LinkedIn group, a question, "What is the 'business' of museums," prompted me to answer "authenticity" in my usual roundabout way, which managed to discuss how authenticity creates the value to fund authenticity. As usual, I pointed out how museums capture little of the financial value that their authenticity creates, and thus lack the funding to fully develop the culture value in their authentic collections.
<br />
<br />Given how some folks in the museum community may view Coaccession, I adopted a "Sympathy for the Devil" theme:
<br />
<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">
<br />
<br />Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man who studies wealth and taste…
<br />
<br />Learning that archaeologists wanted to ban private antiquities collections, it occurred to me that archaeologists could protect antiquities better by collaborating with collectors than by fighting with them. After all, many museums where many archaeologists ply their trade were started by or inspired by or added to by private collectors, so there had to be some cooperative potential there. The natural division of labor is archaeologists studying antiquities and collectors possessing them. If archaeologists simply let collectors store antiquities when archaeologists weren't using them, then both sides could be happy. But wait, there's more.
<br />
<br />As well as their cultural value, antiquities have financial value. Museums earn tremendous capital appreciation on that financial value year in and year out. The way museums manage collections today, though, that financial appreciation is completely idle -- huge sums that can't employ a curator, pay a bill or earn a penny in interest or dividends. But if museums shared ownership with collectors, the money collectors paid to own storage rights to collection objects could hire curators, pay bills and earn interest and dividends. With museum endowments incorporating the financial value of collections, collectors would earn the capital appreciation instead of museums, but since museums don't use capital appreciation anyway, they're not out any cash. Financially, it's a perfect win-win. Museums get capital income they need, collectors get capital appreciation they can use.
<br />
<br />Where does all this value come from? Well, you know the entertainment business loves authenticity. They may love a great story even more -- fiction sells great stories that lack the extra added advantage of being true -- but nonfiction can sell even so-so stories thanks to that frisson of authenticity. When Hollywood finds true stories that are great stories, bidding wars result and values go through the roof. Museums own authenticity. It's a great cultural advantage, and enough of a financial advantage to keep many of them going, despite policies that leave that financial advantage mostly idle.
<br />
<br />Curators can and do find great stories amidst the collection's authenticity. Look at the history of forgeries. Some forgers have attracted so much attention for their colorful histories that private collectors and museums are assembling collections of their work -- authentic fakes that are much more valuable, culturally and financially, than forgeries by colorless characters. Curators research and validate cultural value, and it's cultural value that gives objects financial value. Two identical pens from the same manufacturer have completely different values, cultural and financial, if one belonged to a beloved author or politician and the other has an undistinguished provenance. Museums are not only cultural value storehouses, they are cultural value factories where curators mine authentic collections, assembling connections that inform and delight. Add funding for curators with flair and you get added value, cultural and financial.
<br />
<br />When museums start mobilizing their capital appreciation by channeling it into their communities, the capital income that their communities return can help employ the curators that run the factories that mine added cultural value from authentic stored objects. As long as that capital appreciation remains idle, though, museums will underperform their potential. Realizing that, I fine-tuned my archaeological thoughts into a patent-pending business method -- Coaccession -- that divides ownership's bundle of rights so that museums can own the cultural rights they need for exhibition, research, conservation and so forth, while collectors own possession of the shared object only when the museum would otherwise store it.
<br />
<br />In essence, Coaccession's Cultural Titles let museums own exhibition while its Collector Titles let collectors own storage. Storage gives the collector capital appreciation the museum can't use while the museum retains cultural appreciation that it can use.
<br />
<br />Now, some curators will say I'm asking sympathy for the devil here -- letting collectors store objects??? EEK!!! Before letting anyone demonize Coaccession, though, I would ask for a quick reality check. In principle museums do indeed provide the best storage possible for culturally-authentic objects. Lacking principal in their endowments, though, they find they can't employ enough conservators to keep ahead of time's ravages in those compromised storage conditions that they can afford. Coaccession opens a path to a better, I believe, compromise than the existing one. In the new compromise, collectors care for the robust objects in storage while the capital income they add to endowment funding lets museums care better for the fragile objects in storage.
<br />
<br />Mark Wahlhimer did start a really great thread here. Erika Keissner's comment has already hit authenticity squarely on the head when she writes that "The public trusts and relies on museums in a way that they do not rely on hotels and amusement parks," and Tim Walker's right about adding value when he writes about museums with "the ability to actively connect things together, to act as an intelligent fulcrum, hub, centre of consciousness or community energy…" I think Herman Mays misses the mark, though, when he says market forces won't support scholarship. Museums haven't even begun to plumb how to fully capture the financial value that scholarship adds to authenticity, so it's way too early to deny museums access to the enormously powerful forces of the market. Supporting the cultural ideals that Herman and Douglas Worts and so many others rightly espouse while securing the collections as Michelle Moon and others rightly emphasize in the difficult and rapidly changing economic context that Daniel Spock and others properly highlight requires new thinking. I see needed financial resources already existing in the unheralded and unrealized capital appreciation that museum collections produce year after year. I offer a method to tap them while keeping collections together and hope the museum community can find the will to mobilize those resources to support its many, varied and vital missions.
<br />
<br />In sum, as a finance PhD looking at museums from the outside, I'd say museums' business is authenticity, not hospitality. Museums can't tell just any story like the entertainment business can, but they can tell authentic stories and the public values authenticity. If your story's authentic, the public will cut you quite a bit of slack about its greatness. If you can offer the public a great, authentic story, you'll have tremendous demand not only for your exhibitions, but for rights to store your collection, too. Just imagine… people paying you for the right to store your collection for you! If there's anything like folks paying Tom Sawyer to whitewash his fence, I'd say that's it, yet I'd also say it's a great opportunity museums can offer that folks will value both culturally and financially. And hey, Mark Wahlhimer, offering great opportunities is not exactly inhospitable!
<br />
<br />There are those who will worry, of course, that mobilizing the enormous wealth in museum collections will tend to corrupt curators' taste, shifting their focus from cultural value to financial value. I think, rather, that curators will realize that they best serve the financial value that ultimately supports the museum by focusing on the cultural value that underpins its authenticity, but I suspect that won't keep those worriers from reminding the museum community that the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
<br />
<br />Pleased to meet you, hope you bless my name… </span>
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<br />Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-15418809150599754612011-01-05T23:12:00.008-06:002011-01-05T23:57:47.750-06:00Artworks supporting the arts<a href="http://www.pixiq.com/article/finding-and-discovering-vivian-maier">Jack Reznicki, reflecting on Vivian Maier's life and passing, wrote</a> <i>"The compelling issue for me with all this is why some truly talented photographers can’t make a living with their photography and are respected and revered after their passing. Why is there not a support system and economy for such work? This case of Vivian Maier is very reminiscent of Eugene Atget and how photographer Berenice Abbott made the world aware of his wondrous and marvelous images of Paris, after he was gone. John Maloof is playing Berenice Abbott to Vivian Maier’s Eugene Atget."</i> The support system for artists, such as it is, consists of artists, schools, dealers, auctions, collectors and museums. Everyone at every level tries to identify and support talent, but they all face strong limitations as to what they can offer. The reason those limits are so strong is the gross financial mismanagement at art museums. They idly hoard tens of trillions of dollars worth of financial value that could produce hundreds of billions of dollars a year in endowment income that could pay for far more curators, exhibits, teachers, studios and additions to their collections. With that funding, the arts economy could far more comprehensively identify and support talent, enriching artists' lives financially and the public culturally.<br /><br />It's hard to blame museums, though. It's more the fault of finance and legal experts who've never given museums managements tools that can mobilize that financial value without diminishing the public domain. But then, it's even hard to blame them. I'm aware of two methods that have emerged to mobilize the vast idle endowments at museums: James Maroney's tenancy-in-common plan and my own Coaccession℠. I stumbled across Coaccession trying to find a way to keep archaeologists from picking fights with collectors, and only later figured it was a financial management tool too (and I'm a finance PhD!). So, James Maroney is the only person I know of who consciously looked for a way that a museum (the Barnes Foundation) could use the financial value of its artworks to enlarge its cash endowment, and his method still involves the incentive incompatibility of putting the artwork in a private investor's hands for only the life of the investor. It took sheer good luck to come up with my incentive compatible method, just as it took good luck for <a href="http://www.vivianmaier.blogspot.com/">John Maloof to find Vivian Maier</a>. But then, life is often that way... progressing in fits and starts from random connections. Here's hoping at least that discoveries lead to progress, onward and upward, rather than one step forward and another step back. With the financial value of artworks supporting the cultural value of the arts, the arts economy's aesthetic explorations can be both broader and deeper. That would be better for humanity than investing much of our money to dig gold up out of the ground only to bury it again in vaults and caches.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-43480773302268692312010-12-14T00:51:00.006-06:002010-12-14T15:47:04.626-06:00Have your Stills and ... ... sour-mash(???) too<div>Dean Sobel, director of Denver's Clyfford Still Museum, says there can't be a deaccession if there's no accession first. As <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_16588672?source=rss#ixzz15IO7CZ1z">Kyle MacMillan reports</a>, Still's widow Patricia had previously sold a handful of the 400 works Still had left to her personally (separate from 2,000 other works he had left to create a museum of his ouvre), and since those works she owned personally and also left to Denver haven't been formally accessioned into the nascent museum's collection, Denver figures it has an ethical opportunity to sell another handful to create an endowment... or at least a not unethical opportunity. Kyle calls its ethicality a technicality on AAM/AAMD strictures, and reports that Janet Marstine agrees it's a loophole that nonetheless passes muster, both for the transparency of the sale and the intention to keep the works together in the public domain by selling them as a group to a museum. <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2010/11/clyfford-still-deaccessioning.html">Judith Dobrzynski</a> is for the sale, and <a href="http://clancco-theartdeaccessioningblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/its-not-deaccessioning-by-any-stretch.html">Sergio Munoz Sarmiento</a> isn't against it, and <a href="http://theartlawblog.blogspot.com/">Donn Zaretsky</a> wouldn't be either, if he got around to commenting on it.</div><div><a href="http://theartlawblog.blogspot.com/"></a></div><div><br /></div><div>That leaves me as odd man out, or perhaps James Maroney and me as odd men out. As I commented at JD's blog: </div><div><br /></div><div><i>As long as Denver has decided to sell, it makes far more sense for them to sell partial titles than full titles. James Maroney's tenancy-in-common plan would get the four works back at the demise of their life estate purchasers (this would be problematic if corporations or other perpetual institutions bought them, of course), while my own equitable servitude Coaccession℠ method would let Denver get them back whenever the Still Museum had an exhibition, a research or conservation project, or some other active cultural use. In the meantime, the partial title buyers could enjoy the paintings whenever they would otherwise be in storage at the Still. If other museums bought them, instead of private parties, the paintings might always be on display or in active cultural use, either at the Still or at the other museum. Actually, artists like Clyfford Still who want to keep their ouvre together could do that culturally with Coaccession, rather than having to keep full title to every painting. His widow might have felt much better about her actions if she'd kept the ouvre intact by retaining Cultural Titles℠ to those works, selling off only the conditional possession of Collector Titles℠.</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Coaccession makes far more sense than deaccession, and that's true even when the artwork in question hasn't technically been accessioned. Museums that need current income can let collectors have future capital gains on Collector Titles while still maintaining cultural control with Cultural Titles. They don't need to give up all rights to the artwork.</div><div><br /></div>Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-49548708506167281712010-12-12T01:13:00.010-06:002010-12-12T02:21:58.452-06:00Have your Picasso and peonies, too...<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">The Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens <i>surely*</i> wanted to bring Frances Brody's Picasso, “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” into the public domain at their own institution. <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/11/huntington-gift-from-frances-brody-estate-to-exceed-100-million-making-it-largest-ever-in-institutio.html">Francie, a board member, had other ideas.</a> Her greatest love at the Huntington was for the gardens, and she wanted especially to endow their care. Gifting the Picasso to the Huntington would leave the painting's $106.5 million dollar value stranded, contributing art appreciation and capital appreciation to that institution's art collection, but not a penny of income to support its gardens. To cultivate income, her estate sold the Picasso to an anonymous buyer on the open market and gifted the cash to the Huntington. So no Picasso for the public to ponder, but plenty of pesetas for peonies, posies, pansies and petunias.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">Poor Frances apparently knew nothing about Coaccession<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'Lucida Grande';">℠</span>, which would have let the Picasso join the Huntington's art collection while also providing cash income dedicated <i>(ostensibly, at least</i><i>**)</i> to the gardens. Sharing wisely allows many mutual benefits, while an institution's solipsistic greed can isolate and diminish it. Here's hoping the Huntington and other institutions ready better plans for expanding the public domain when similar opportunities arise again.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">*<a href="http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/2010/11/17/las-conflicted-view-of-the-art-market/">Marion Maneker does question</a>: "So which would the Huntington rather have had: the art or the money?"</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><br /></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica">** <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/11/huntington-gift-from-frances-brody-estate-to-exceed-100-million-making-it-largest-ever-in-institutio.html">Jori Finkel does report</a> Huntington president Steven Koblick saying that "using the Brody money for botanical purposes frees up existing funds to address other needs..." Diligent donors don't forget fungibility!</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><br /></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><br /></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><br /></p>Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-70596891007795509902010-08-19T16:23:00.003-05:002010-08-19T16:42:59.192-05:00How to get art out of the basement...<a href="http://www.artletter.com">Paul Klein</a> was good enough to point me to <a href="http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles//21170">Maria Mazria Katz's Art Newspaper coverage of Eli Broad's talk at the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums</a>. Broad's call to get art out of the basement prompted me to comment there:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Broad's right, of course, that museums should exhibit more. The problem is money. Tight public budgets can't get art out of basements -- they already threaten art in education. To reverse the trend toward layoffs downsizing exhibitions and outreach, artworks will have to support the arts. Their financial value in museums is the one realistically available fortune big enough to get art out of basements. Avoiding cultural depletion from deaccession requires new thinking, though. Coaccession™ preserves museums' cultural endowments while creating financial ones. Museums keep the property rights with an artwork's cultural value while selling the right with most of its financial value. This turns capital gains that can't pay for exhibits into stock and bond income that can, so a museum can have its Monet and money, too. Coaccession can start getting art out of the basement now while expanding art in the public domain rather than shrinking it.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/cameron-henderson/15/335/109">Cameron Henderson</a> was perceptive enough to call that a great post. We're both hoping Eli Broad will lead the way toward artworks supporting the arts by Coaccessioning his art collection so its own financial value provides a financial endowment to help maximize its cultural value through expanded exhibitions and outreach.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-19984502824518783162010-05-04T12:44:00.005-05:002010-05-04T15:29:23.830-05:00Needless Pressure on Arts FundingThe Kennedy Center's Michael Kaiser responded early to the Great Recession, organizing <a href="http://www.artsincrisis.org/">a website and team</a> that puts desperate arts organizations together with better-positioned mentors in a noble effort to keep more arts organizations alive through this very rough patch. His recent <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-kaiser/a-fundamental-problem-wit_b_551555.html">Huffington Post note</a> tells how that's been going. Basically, funders have been quite exigent, demanding impeccable arts management performance that at-risk arts companies simply can't provide, even with mentoring. Arts organizations have been going down, and will keep going down unless something fundamental changes.<br /><br />Kaiser points to arts management skills. This makes sense if you take funders at their word that impeccable arts management would get them to open their wallets. If that's just a pretext to deflect attention from the economic pressures funders face, though, all the arts management training in the world won't save a lot of these performing companies. What would save them is a substantial increase in available funds, and as <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-kaiser/a-fundamental-problem-wit_b_551555.html?show_comment_id=46274581#comment_46274581">my comment</a> to Kaiser's note points out, art museums have the financial wherewithal to generously fund the arts embedded in their permanent collections. Deaccessioning or leasing from those collections to generate liquidity would be a mistake, though, now that Coaccession offers a better alternative that lets a museum have its Monet and money, too.<br /><br />It's time for artworks to support the arts!Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-60845202467421569702010-04-09T09:30:00.004-05:002010-04-09T09:46:05.876-05:00Don't deaccession, Coaccession(tm)!Northwestern Art Review publisher Cam Henderson shows through his writings his interest in, among other things, art markets and artists rights, so I reached out to him about Coaccession's role in those areas. That led to an interview over coffee, which led to his NAR post:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nureview.org/wordpress/?p=387">Don’t Deaccession, Coaccession™: The Need for a Radical Transformation of the Economic Management of America’s Fine Arts Institutions</a><br /><br />Cam's youthful enthusiasm shows through quite clearly. I hope it will prove infectious so that artworks can finally start supporting the arts with all the munificence that their vast financial value can provide. Cam certainly seems committed to spreading the meme, and his efforts could be key to converting the views of some powers that be.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-84147763024710190412010-04-02T21:57:00.003-05:002010-04-02T22:12:12.920-05:00Tightening the bonds?Art 21 Blog published my comments on <a href="http://blog.art21.org/2010/03/29/deaccessioning-without-putting-your-mission-up-for-sale/">Maxwell Anderson's deaccession principles</a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Whether today’s curators should be bound by past curators' decisions is debatable (legislators aren’t), but it seems beyond debate that today’s curators should use Coaccession(tm) to care better for an expanded collection.</span><br /><br />Coaccession can let museums reduce deaccessions by reducing financial reasons to have "Items for which the Museum is not able to provide proper storage or care." Cultural Titles(tm) can be forever practically, even if circumstances make undivided titles impractical.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-24604331939610400762010-02-23T11:31:00.004-06:002010-02-23T22:15:41.213-06:00Mobilizing CoaccessionChicago Art Magazine just published my note on Coaccession applications: <br /><br /><a href="http://chicagoartmagazine.com/2010/02/mobilizing-coaccessiontm/">http://chicagoartmagazine.com/2010/02/mobilizing-coaccessiontm/</a><br /><br />My thanks to publisher Kathryn Born and editor Sara Burrows for their interest, encouragement and support. The exercise of preparing the note was quite useful, and I hope for feedback that fine tunes the applications.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-39165068790297642912010-02-15T22:39:00.004-06:002010-02-15T23:18:15.331-06:00Which Moral Hazard?<a href="http://theartlawblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/hazardous.html">Donn Zaretsky</a> and <a href="http://mirushto.blogspot.com/2010/01/agency-problems-and-deaccessioning.html">Michael Rushton</a> went around the block on moral hazards in museum management. <a href="http://mirushto.blogspot.com/2010/01/agency-problems-and-deaccessioning.html"></a> Rushton concluded: "In the end ... I appreciate DZ's point that we just are not yet in a position to say with accuracy whether the costs of the moral hazard I worry about [of a safety net promoting lax management] exceed the benefits from flexible access to funds through deaccessioning in times of crisis. But I will maintain the cost is there, even if, under new, relaxed norms governing deaccessions, the costs would not <em>immediately </em>be apparent. Should we change those norms because of a one-time shock to endowments as a result of the financial crisis?"<br /><br />As my comment there notes (in my characteristically-orthogonal way), <span style="font-style: italic;">"Zaretsky's position [about benefits of flexible access] brings up a more basic question that the moral hazard discussion tends to obscure: shouldn't museums use all their assets to best fulfill their mission? By mobilizing the financial value in their collections, museums can implement programs that increase the cultural value of those same collections -- more exhibitions, research, conservation and engagement.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"This mobilization seems all the more compelling if it doesn't require deaccessions. Partial title sales approaches, like James Maroney's tenancy in common method or my own Coaccession(tm) equitable servitudes system, let museums have their Monet and money, too, so artworks can support the arts without leaving the public domain.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"If museums can let their communities hold their collections' financial value while retaining control over those collections' cultural rights, then maximizing the collections' cultural value in the community seems like the right thing to do. In fact, doesn't fiduciary responsibility obligate the trustees and directors to do so? On what basis do they hold excess financial reserves in a passive form?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"This comment isn't meant to be absolutist about mobilizing finance to elevate culture. I just hope to show that there are other points of view and concerns beyond the moral hazard of deaccession. Museums don't have to deaccession if they use partial title sales. So, once we get past deaccession as a method, why not have your Monet and money, too?"</span><br /><br />Briann Greenfield was great in responding to a comment not even on her own blog, willing to expand her range. I'd love to see Michael Rushton's response to my point, but now that nearly a month has passed, I fear it may be a long while, if ever. I still think it's a good point, which is why I share it here as well as there.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-81070991466838511662010-02-13T00:11:00.003-06:002010-02-15T13:51:09.753-06:00Keeping collections together in bankruptcyThe <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/arts/design/11polaroid.html">New York Times</a> and <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a49VdCIF36ZQ">Bloomberg</a> recently reported on a forthcoming Sotheby's auction offering the cream of Polaroid's photography collection. John R. Stoebner, court-appointed trustee for Polaroid, offered the complete collection to several museums, but none was able to purchase it. Well, it's a lot harder to buy the cultural rights along with possession than it is to buy the cultural rights alone.<br /><br />The trustee should Coaccession the collection, not deaccession it. Museums could bid for the set of Cultural Titles to the entire collection, keeping the cultural rights together under a single owner, while individual collectors could bid for Collector Titles to individual photos.<br /><br />Perhaps <a href="http://nearbycafe.com/artandphoto/photocritic/?p=2705">AD Coleman</a> can persuade the interested parties to propose this to the trustee and Sotheby's. He seems better positioned to get their attention than anyone around here that I know.<br /><br />UPDATE: The hat tip here goes to <a href="http://theartlawblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/theres-really-nothing-like-it-in.html">Donn Zaretsky</a>, but kud0s go to <a href="http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/2010/02/10/polariod-collections-swan-song/comment-page-1/#comment-5461">Marion Maneker</a>, who publishes comments about his posts. I'm glad they finally started catching me up on this.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-36524873913994907332010-02-05T01:47:00.002-06:002010-02-05T01:58:25.452-06:00DePaul tackles deaccessionTime Out Chicago <a href="http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/art-design/82411/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-museum-collections-and-deaccessioning-at-depaul-university-art-museum-art-story">writes about deaccessioning controversies</a> in the context of DePaul Art Museum's <a href="http://museums.depaul.edu/artwebsite/exhibits/good_bad2010/">exhibit of artworks destined for collection-culling deaccession</a> (<a href="http://theartlawblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/as-recession-forces-more-museums-to-cut.html">hat tip to Donn Zaretsky</a>).<br /><br />My comment:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Museums should only deaccession to shape collections. Funding to avoid layoffs and program cuts -- or expand staff and programs -- can come from partial title sales with the Maroney Plan or my own Coaccession(tm) method. These let a museum have its Monet and money, too, so artworks can support the arts. Donors in fact finance care and exhibition via the financial value of donated artworks. Museums must mobilize that to maximize the cultural value of their artworks to their public supporters.<br /><br /></span>Thanks to Time Out Chicago for the 500 character limit. In the middle of the night, external discipline is useful, so the comment is better than it might have been.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-37993103928373324822010-02-03T00:01:00.006-06:002010-02-03T09:48:02.595-06:00What's More Ethical? IIOver at the <a href="http://www.ctculture.org/">Connecticut Humanities Council</a>, <a href="http://www.history.ccsu.edu/fac/greenfield.html">Briann Greenfield</a> graciously responded to my comment on her review of <a href="http://grinnellsmith.com/attorneys/markgold/">Mark S. Gold's</a> discussion of <a href="http://www.aam-us.org/pubs/mn/nothingethicalaboutit.cfm">deaccession ethics</a>. Briann <a href="http://www.ctculture.org/chc/program_resources/hrc/collections/nothing-ethical-about-it.html#comment-48">said</a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mark: Thanks for your comments and for introducing me to "Coaccession." I have to admit that I don't understand the system you propose enough to fully evaluate it. But the idea raises fundamental concerns for me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">In a society in which individual ownership and private wealth is the rule, museums are important precisely because they stand in opposition to the private market place. Museums represent shared culture and a shared public trust. To function at their best, they need to be seen as community resources. Coaccession undermines museums' community role and transforms them into places where wealthy individuals have special rights and privileges over the collection. Museums have fought for decades to shed their image as temples for the elite and to become more inclusive. Isn’t this a step backward?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">In addition, I'm concerned that selling "equitable servitudes" will affect the meaning of the objects in our collections. We want our visitors to value the art and objects in our care for what they can teach us about our culture and our history -- not for how much money they are worth. How will selling possession shares affect museum's collecting practices? Won't curators be influenced to acquire pieces for their profit potential rather than their educational potential?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I understand and appreciate Coaccession as an attempt to support the financial health of museums. We need to pay the bills and keep the doors open -- but we need to do so in a way that doesn't undermine our core values. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">(Posted on January 22, 2010 11:18 PM</span>)<br /><br />My reply follows:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Briann, your engagement on Coaccession is most welcome. This isn't the place for a tutorial on the system, but your fundamental concerns do deserve a response.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">First, the private market place produces the wealth that let museums represent a shared culture and public trust. Coaccession would let museums thrive, putting on many more programs funded by their new endowments. Wealthy individuals would store the most valuable objects, but they're best able to secure and preserve them between exhibitions, research access, and conservation projects. Ordinary individuals could still store culturally-important objects, if not the most financially-valuable of them. This community storage is more inclusive, and a step in the right direction, especially with increased exhibitions and programs letting people see and appreciate the most valuable objects more frequently than when they're just sitting in the museum basement for lack of funds.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Second, cultural value determines financial value, not vice versa. Our visitors care most for the objects that teach most about our culture and history, and that desire raises their financial value. Selling possession via Collector Titles will let museums acquire cultural rights to far more of the art and objects that ought to be in the public domain, and will keep those objects in the community where people can appreciate them between those times when scholars and conservators need access and those other times when they're on display for the entire community to appreciate.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The financial health of museums lets them celebrate our core values more effectively. Genteel poverty or death with dignity should not be the fate of museums when the substantial financial resources in their collections can let them elevate culture more effectively. (Submitted, awaiting posting there. UPDATE: <a href="http://www.ctculture.org/chc/program_resources/hrc/collections/nothing-ethical-about-it.html#comment-51">Posted</a>)</span><br /><br />Here's hoping Briann stays engaged in discussion.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-8400563299626647622010-01-28T13:34:00.005-06:002010-02-23T22:20:34.938-06:00The lllinois Arts Endowment<a href="http://www.ilga.gov/house/Rep.asp?MemberID=1188">Illinois State Representative Harry Osterman</a> assembled and moderated an excellent panel for his State of the Arts Symposium yesterday at the Swedish American Museum Center in Chicago. The speakers joining Osterman were <a href="http://www.chicagoartistsresource.org/interdisciplinaryperformance-art/node/19154">Ra Joy</a> of Arts Alliance Illinois, <a href="http://www.state.il.us/agency/iac/">Terry Scrogum</a> of the Illinois Arts Council, and <a href="http://cityinfo.cityofchicago.org/PhoneBook/PhoneBook?page=Employee&EID=%271006927105%27">Michelle Bibbs</a> and <a href="http://cityinfo.cityofchicago.org/PhoneBook/PhoneBook?page=Employee&EID=%2790554537%27">Eva Silverman</a> of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The audience contributed to a lively questions and discussions session, which I led off by discussing Coaccession's potential to contribute a ray of sunshine amidst the dark clouds -- I hope I didn't sound as nervous* as I felt! The speakers ably illustrated the very challenging environment facing arts organizations, and had a number of useful responses, including more advocacy, networking, audience engagement and event promotion. The overall experience was quite valuable.<br /><br />Particularly heartening for me were reactions to my discussion of Coaccession's potential to contribute to the cultural sector's response to its challenges. Osterman noted the cultural endowment at his son's school, while Joy said he'd like to discuss the endowment concept further. No one had a negative word to say. One of the participants even requested that I send along a couple of paragraphs giving the gist of my proposed Illinois Arts Endowment.<br /><br />Here's hoping that Coaccession can indeed contribute substantially to the cultural sector's comprehensive response to the challenges in its changing circumstances. Fortunately, the cultural sector has historically created so much financial value to complement its cultural value that a successful adaptation should be a forgone conclusion. Crafting a creative response is within our abilities with leadership like that shown by Osterman, the panelists and the audience.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The lllinois Arts Endowment</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The State of Illinois has invested in artworks for its buildings and landscapes through much of its history, establishing over the years a public art collection with tremendous cultural and financial value. Extending that history of wise arts investments is essential in these challenging fiscal times, as that strategy will continue to offer the great cultural and financial returns that it has in the past. Fortunately, Coaccession(tm) offers Illinois a way to mobilize its existing investment in artworks to support continuing arts investments.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">By creating investment opportunities in the Illinois public art collection, Coaccession can let Illinois offer the public the same stable store of financial value that has benefited the State through its history, generating proceeds to establish a new pool of income-generating assets that can support continuing investments in artworks and in the cultural sector that enhances their cultural and financial value. Tapping the financial reserves embodied in artworks now can help Illinois extend its history of wise investments.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Coaccession: Artworks supporting the arts.</span><br /><br /><br /><br />* when CAN-TV plays the tape, you can judge how nervous I sounded -- of course, only I know how nervous I was.<br /><br /><br />UPDATE 2/23/10: A good friend saw my discussion point on CAN-TV and thought I sounded fine.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-49337323505955307422010-01-25T10:00:00.002-06:002010-01-25T10:59:47.513-06:00Funding the arts and sciences<a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2010/01/arts-message.html">Judith Dobrzynski</a> reports on a Cincinnatti <a href="http://www.fineartsfund.org/index.php">Fine Arts Fund</a> study finding that people expect the arts to "succeed or fail in the marketplace, without the need for support." This and other findings explain why "people take little responsibility for financing them with public money." The Fine Arts Fund thinks that a better message can change public opinion and generate added money for the arts. But what if the public asks what the arts sector is doing to finance itself?<br /><br />When even museum trustees tend to ask museum directors to sell artworks to support supposedly-vital museum programs, you can just imagine politicians' skepticism toward arts directors requesting more government funding in the face of the current public attitudes ably documented by the Fine Arts Fund. Perhaps a new message will indeed change those attitudes, but that bet's both risky and remote for arts and museum boards across America that now face nearly universal cutbacks and the prospect of rapidly rising closures.<br /><br />In fact those programs truly are vital, but you can't blame the trustees and politicians for wondering a bit when the museums' professional associations insist that death with dignity is far preferable to deaccession and dishonor -- a point the need for <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/opinion/02dobrzynski.html">Dobrzynski's arbitrated deaccessions plan</a> illustrates.<br /><br />So far FASB 116 and uncapitalized collections have mostly kept a lid on debates over existing government support for the arts, but if politicians and the public widely knew what trustees already know about all the money that's sat in basements for years without seeing the light of day, much less the enormous fortunes hanging on the walls, you might see some pretty strong sentiment for cutbacks. These days those appropriations might better head off hunger and disease than ennui and alienation.<br /><br />Rather than hoping the right spin will increase the arts' share of declining public and private discretionary budgets, museum trustees and directors need to decide whether their programs and arts programs generally are worth saving right now with financial value held idle in their mortmain model. If a few deaccessions can make the difference between survival and death for a museum, mobilizing the collection's financial value more fully could fund a substantial increase in programs -- spending that could help the arts sector and the national economy.<br /><br />If growing museum and arts programs now meant a lot of deaccessions, a survival diet would make more sense. But these days partial title systems like the Maroney plan and my own Coaccession method can let a museum have its Monet and money, too. Generations of philanthropists have endowed major art museums with some of the best financial investments of the past century, turning them into repositories of a significant share of the national wealth as well as its culture. Mobilizing that financial value in this cultural crisis doesn't risk our cultural heritage nearly as much as does leaving it idle while hoping, perhaps vainly, for better attitudes and better days.<br /><br />Museum directors like the fundraising argument that exposure to the arts and sciences stimulates the innovation that enhances the nation's wealth and wellbeing. Why, then, doesn't the impetus for financial innovations that can strengthen our cultural legacy come from inside our museums? Artworks can support the arts, so why do the arts lack support? Those allocating public moneys may ask.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-9732919308769308022010-01-24T23:10:00.002-06:002010-01-24T23:15:57.262-06:00Ye Olde Coaccession(tm) ShoppeIf you think two titles are better than one, you can gear up at <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/coaccessionshop">the Coaccession Shop</a> -- open today at Cafe Press! Show the world you're pro-innovation.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6810595207137795619.post-48232147364702132242010-01-22T21:12:00.002-06:002010-01-22T22:58:06.833-06:00New Models<a href="http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/2010/01/18/uber-collectors-v-museums-i-own-it-you-show-it/#more-27529">Marion Maneker</a> points to an <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122619567&ft=1&f=1047">NPR</a> story linking a couple of modern-day Barneses -- collectors who'd rather keep their collection together than gift it to a museum. Don Fisher and Eli Broad have both the money and the collections to endow new museums (or art schools, or whatever form they choose) , but they're departing from Barnes's approach by making long-term loans to existing museums rather than keeping their collections together at their own personally -- perhaps even idiosyncratically -- chosen venue.<br /><br />How many masterpieces are major universal museums missing because their <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2010/01/deaccessioning-op-ed.html#comment-28673">mortmain model</a> doesn't let them mobilize the overwhelming strength of their collections' financial value to acquire these artworks when they're available? Partial title sales -- the Maroney Plan and Coaccession are the methods I know -- let a museum have its Monet and money, too. Once that financial strength ensure the existing collection's cultural value is maximized by museum operations -- exhibitions, research, conservation, administration, complemented by music, dance, theater and other arts in the venue -- there's nothing to stop museums from investing in more Monets at auction and turning around to raise more money with partial title sales. In fact, they could go to auction first and tend to operations later, if they're willing to let down public expectations of the kind of comprehensive experience a museum could and should offer.<br /><br />Maybe existing museums will just let the new collectors' models supersede them. Coaccession is available to any incorporated collecting institution that's open to the public. With it, the financial value of the artworks (or antiquities or specimens or ...) creates the operating endowment to maximize their cultural value. Artworks can support the arts. It's a shame the arts are suffering now in the midst of the great plenty vouchsafed by prior generations of donors -- and held by current generations of prospective donors.Dr. Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14615091282331722833noreply@blogger.com0