Indiana University professors have offered their take of the Detroit bankruptcy and potential sale of art work. All three professors referenced have art backgrounds, and do not offer a legal perspective, but do provide worthwhile thoughts regarding potential liquidation of assets.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — When the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy this year, the resulting fiscal morass prompted a question that is reverberating through arts circles: What will happen to the Detroit Institute of Arts?
While the institute is run by an independent, nonprofit organization, the city owns the property and much of the art. The Detroit Institute of Arts has said the museum holds its collection in the public trust; that position is endorsed in a formal legal opinion issued by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette that forbids selling the art to settle city debts. The museum has also criticized Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr for hiring Christie’s auction house to appraise part of the collection. Orr has said he doesn’t intend to sell the art and is valuing other city assets as well.
Indiana University has several faculty experts who can provide insight into the topic and the issues surrounding it. Sources may be contacted directly. For further assistance, contact Bethany Nolan with IU Communications, 812-855-6494 or nolanb@indiana.edu.
The following themes are addressed:
Objects part of public trust
Consider social value of collection
Potential sale based on ‘insidious assumptions’Objects part of public trust
For many years, the American Alliance of Museums debated and finely hammered out guidelines and suggested policy regarding deaccessioning. Though a highly contentious subject among museum professionals, the one issue on which everyone seemed to agree was that deaccessioning in order to raise capital was both short-sighted and unethical.Most works that have come into public collections are there because of generous donors who made a decision to forgo the profit that could be gained in the marketplace and instead hand down a legacy to the public at large. But regardless of how an object came into a public collection — bequest, donation from a living donor or purchase — once there it is a part not only of a specific collection but of a public trust.
“To monetize that object at a later point not only displays shortsightedness but it also jeopardizes future gifts. Additionally because of market conditions, any work put on the block will invariably find its way into private hands, thus removing works from public access,” said Frank Lewis, a lecturer in the Arts Administration Program in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IU Bloomington. “It is inevitable that an accountant may only see a number, and often a very large one, in the assets column of a spreadsheet, but what that number cannot account for is the variety of uses to which artworks can be employed and the sense of historical connectedness and often the community pride that such an object engenders.”
Artworks frequently dazzle museum goers because of their rarity and their concomitant financial value, but the real value of artworks lies in the experience of its physical presence. Artworks are an expression of cultural, social and sometimes personal ideas. Their style, material, technique and subject matters are always unique, if not always beautiful, examples of humanity’s search for meaning and relevance.
“We cannot and do not put a price on the history, both good and bad, of the city of Detroit, and the works and their history should be considered equally priceless,” Lewis said. “A small print in the DIA collection depicts Esau selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup. What better parable for the present times could there be?”
IUPUI Newsroom: http://news.iupui.edu/releases/iu/university-wide/2013/09/detroit-arts-tip-sheet.shtml#three
