Debating deaccessioning

 The museum world is divided about deaccessioning--i.e. selling art to finance things other than the purchase of more art, such as museum operations.

The NY Times has the story:

Selling Art to Pay the Bills Divides the Nation’s Museum Directors. Bitter debate has ensued as museum leaders around the country discuss whether to permanently embrace a pandemic-spurred policy that allows the sale of art to cover some operating costs.  By Robin Pogrebin and Zachary Small

"It started as a stopgap measure to respond to the pandemic, a temporary two-year loosening of an Association of Art Museum Directors’ policy that has long prohibited American institutions from selling art from their collections to help pay the bills.

"But more and more museums are taking advantage of the policy and the association began discussing making it permanent, an idea that, depending on which institution you talk to, either makes perfect sense or undermines the very rationale for their existence.

...

"The longstanding policy — enforced by the museum director’s association and widely embraced by its members — has been that the art owned by institutions was held for the public benefit and, as such, should be mostly retained.

"Some items could be sold — known as deaccessioning — but they were supposed to be artworks that were duplicative or no longer in line with the museum’s mission, and the proceeds were to be dedicated to the acquisition of other art, not to underwriting staff salaries or other operating costs.

...

"The stark differences of opinion among museum leaders were evident last week when the association convened two unusual, mandatory sessions to gather feedback from members about the rules for such sales.

...

"It’s difficult to say what would happen if the association pushed through a policy that was unpopular with half of its membership since issues that have divided museum directors at this level have been rare.

"Many have already lined up on either side of the debate. Campbell, who is now the director and chief executive of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, in an Instagram post warned that “Deaccessioning will be like crack cocaine to the addict — a rapid hit, that becomes a dependency.”

...

"Nonetheless, more than 25,000 people have signed a petition urging the Met to reconsider. “We call on the Met’s board to do the job they signed up for: to give, to support the institution,” says the petition, started by the art critic Tyler Green. “We call upon the Met’s senior staff leadership to resist any attempts to sell off the art the Met holds in the public trust.”

"Some museum leaders worry that donors will be less likely to contribute art if they fear it would be sold, or that formerly generous trustees, seeing the cash available from art sales, may become less likely to donate money."