Deaccession: Debt vs Diversity

Deaccession: Debt vs Diversity

Sabre Crow and Kai Webb

 

In these covid-times, we have been faced with many challenges including beloved zoos, museums, libraries and other public spaces being closed and/or restricted. We have also seen a huge recent display of activism towards the racial and social injustices that are being played out all around our country. How do the two connect? One unfavorable word, deaccession. Deaccession is “the permanent removal of objects and/or art from a museum’s collection” (Beatty, 2018). In the art world, deaccession, while it isn’t banned, it is highly frowned upon. Deaccession is the same type of technique that was used in the 19th century to obtain these works of art in the first place. Many museums use the excuse that they are selling these pieces to make room for new or different works of art that show more diversity within their galleries. “The Baltimore Museum of Art, are selling works and using those funds to improve the diversity of artists in their collection” (Beatty, 2018). Many museums are shifting the focus away from the art itself though. “The Berkshire Museum, will use the proceeds from the sale of 40 art works to carry out museum operations” (Beatty, 2018). And they’re not the only ones. “Trustees at the Delaware Art Museum are trying to pay off a $19.8 million debt for a building expansion and replenish its endowment” (Blair, 2014). In some examples, the museum is in more of a pickle than others. Whole cities like the city of Detroit have tried to rely on deaccession to help repair their community-wide crisis. After the city of Detroit declared bankruptcy, their biggest asset was the Detroit Institute of Arts art collection. What is being sold must be carefully monitored. For many of these museums, including the Detroit Institute of Art, their most profitable works of art are the ones that draw in crowds to keep the building open in the first place. Director of the Detroit Institute of Art, Graham Beal stated, “during the depression, when the DIA almost closed, there is no talk of selling art whatsoever…If they had, they would have sold their new Van Gogh, the first Van Gogh to enter a U.S. museum or the same with our great Matisse. We wouldn’t have them now” (Blair, 2014). The concern among higher-ups in the art museum community is that museums are using these sales to promote diversity in their collections and hide their own financial sins. Though deaccession for pure profit is more popular, some museums are looking at how diversity could seriously benefit their collections. “In the U.S., breaking from the white male canon has been an explicit goal of some regional and university museums. A study conducted by artnet News and Art agency; Partners found that about 21 percent of the works acquired by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University over the past decade (132 of 628 pieces) were made by African American artists. The average in 30 major American museums over that same period hovers beneath 2.5 percent” (Schneider, 2019). Deaccessioning can be beneficial. Many museums have made the decision to deaccession art pieces by white creators, specifically white men as the demographic has the most representation in most aspects, and represent art from Black artists and other artists of color. “FOR GENERATIONS, African American artists have not received anywhere near the institutional and market recognition experienced by their white peers. In terms of acquisitions, many museums are attempting long-delayed corrections," (Valentine, 2019).

In the summer of 2019, two museums - San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Springfield Art Museum of Springfield, Missouri - have taken the plunge after Baltimore Museum of Art, which deaccessioned in 2018, to make the swap for African American and Black artists’ works. Baltimore Museum of Art deaccessioned work from seven white male artists. Baltimore’s curators deaccessioned art pieces by Andy Warhol, while still holding some of Warhol’s strongest works, specifically to broaden the representation for women and artists of color. San Francisco’s art museum received works from ten Black and Brown contemporary and modern artists. Those additions were funded by the sale of an untitled 1960 painting by Mark Rothko. Springfield Art Museum accessed one work of which its funding was acquired through a settlement.

Second, all cultural institutions in the US are going through an overdue corrective moment, a reverberation of postmodern consciousness propelled lately by a host of overlapping social movements, including Decolonize This Place, #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and more.

Museums have a responsibility to document not only aged, historical classics, but as McClellan of Apollo Magazine wrote, “Museums need to stay with the times.” Though this radical deaccessioning began in years prior, now more than ever, with the racial climate of the United States presently considering police violence and the protests following the murder of George Floyd, Black representation in museums is imperative.

Some may view this as pandering to the politically correct. But American art museums have a moral responsibility and historical mandate inscribed in their charters to reach the broadest possible public; in too many cases they haven’t been living up to their commitments. Museum collections should reflect the community they serve; in too many cases they don’t, a point underscored by a recent report that 85 percent of artists represented in US museums are white. Fostering diversity and inclusion is more than the right thing to do. Studies have shown that diversity is essential to any organisation’s success. It is also a matter of economic survival in the face of rapidly evolving demographics in the American population. Diverse collections allow museums to present more inclusive stories that are relevant and meaningful to increasingly diverse audiences.

As of recently in 2020, due to the pandemic and closure of museums, there have not been new instances of museums participating in the deaccessioning of art by white males. However, there has been a major increase of visibility of art created by Black, Brown, Indigenous, and women artists. My hope is that as things begin to evolve and as time passes, art museum curators will buy art from these individuals as it is their duty to document these major events currently happening.

Citations 

 

Beatty, Bob. “The Deaccessioning Debate in Museums.” Hyperallergic, August 6, 2018. https://hyperallergic.com/453416/the-deaccessioning-debate-in-museums/

 

Blair, Elizabeth. “As Museums Try To Make Ends Meet, 'Deaccession' Is The Art World's Dirty Word.” NPR. NPR, August 11, 2014. https://www.npr.org/2014/08/11/339532879/as-museums-try-to-make-ends-meet-deaccession-is-the-art-worlds-dirty-word

McClellan, Andrew, Lawrence Rothfield, Ewan Lamont, and Name *. “Why Deaccessioning Isn't Always Bad News.” Apollo Magazine, June 4, 2019. https://www.apollo-magazine.com/modern-art-museums-deaccessioning/.

 

Schneider, Tim. 2019. Review of Western Museums Have a Surplus of Art by White Men. Now Some Are Selling It Off to Correct Their Historical Biases. Artnet News. artnet World. May 15, 2019. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/deaccessioning-to-diversify-1547881.

Valentine, Victoria L. “Museums Are Swapping Paintings by White Male Artists for Works by Black Artists, Filling Historic Gaps in Their Collections.” Culture Type, July 6, 2019. https://www.culturetype.com/2019/07/06/museums-are-swapping-paintings-by-white-male-artists-for-works-by-black-artists-filling-historic-gaps-in-their-collections/.