tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/museum-of-modern-art-29948/articles
Museum of Modern Art – The Conversation
2017-07-06T23:05:43Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/79804
2017-07-06T23:05:43Z
2017-07-06T23:05:43Z
Andrew Wyeth and the artist’s fragile reputation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177147/original/file-20170706-18727-s4bd9y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Andrew Wyeth stands by a creek on his Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania property in 1964.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-PA-USA-APHS457566-Andrew-Wyeth/aee7a88256eb466aaba32a8c8cba6361/66/0">AP Photo/Bill Ingraham</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I vividly recall my first encounter with Andrew Wyeth’s art when I was 14 years old, in the dingy galleries of Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum.</p>
<p>While giants like Picasso painted a world of artistic contrivance, Wyeth seemed to directly confront real life with an immediacy that I hadn’t encountered before. Yes, his drawings, watercolors and paintings seemed to capture the ramshackle character of New England with perfect accuracy. But they were also imbued with a powerful range of emotions: loneliness, the burdens of the past, the fragility of physical things, the struggle against a harsh climate and barren soil. </p>
<p>After this first encounter, I became a true believer in Wyeth’s work. It’s an opinion I still hold, though I’m aware that many others don’t share it.</p>
<p>On July 12, Wyeth would have turned 100. Over the course of his life and into his death, his reputation has weathered a whiplash of ups and downs and polarized opinion. In 1977, when the art historian Robert Rosenblum was asked to name the most overrated and underrated American artists, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/world/americas/16iht-wyeth.3.19430663.html">he nominated</a> Andrew Wyeth for both categories.</p>
<p>How can we explain these dramatic shifts? And what do they say about how critics and artistic movements influence an artist’s legacy? </p>
<h2>A star is born</h2>
<p>From the 1940s to the 1960s, Andrew Wyeth achieved acclaim seldom, if ever, given to an American artist. On three occasions, major American museums acquired paintings he had made, with each purchase setting a new record for a living artist. In 1963, he appeared on <a href="http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19631227,00.html">the cover of Time magazine</a>. Eight years later, Life magazine <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8D8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA1&vq=wyath&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=wyeth&f=false">anointed him</a> “America’s preeminent painter.” </p>
<p>The great connoisseur of Italian art, Bernard Berenson, wrote admirably about Wyeth’s work in his diary. The poet Robert Frost was an enthusiastic fan. The statesmen Winston Churchill, when he visited Boston, made arrangements to have Wyeth watercolors hang in his hotel room at the Ritz.</p>
<p>Some of his most passionate supporters were closely associated with the creation of the Museum of Modern Art: Lincoln Kirstein (the founder of the New York City Ballet), Elaine de Kooning (the art critic, painter and wife of the great abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning) and, most notably, Alfred Barr, the museum’s legendary founding director.</p>
<p>Barr, in fact, tracked Wyeth’s artistic progress with the obsessiveness of a stalker, just missing an opportunity to acquire a painting in 1941. He made up for his mistake in 1949, when he acquired Wyeth’s “Christina’s World.” </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177143/original/file-20170706-14401-14b1zg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177143/original/file-20170706-14401-14b1zg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177143/original/file-20170706-14401-14b1zg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177143/original/file-20170706-14401-14b1zg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177143/original/file-20170706-14401-14b1zg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177143/original/file-20170706-14401-14b1zg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177143/original/file-20170706-14401-14b1zg3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Andrew Wyeth’s 1948 painting ‘Christina’s World’ propelled him to fame.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2925/14267030492_9a278082a4_b.jpg">The Museum of Modern Art, NY</a></span>
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<p>The painting quickly became one of the most popular works in the museum. Thomas Hoving, who later became director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said he would sometimes visit the museum to study this one painting alone. “Christina’s World” was one of the first widely distributed color posters, and it became a popular addition to college dorm rooms. </p>
<p>Within a decade the museum had earned, from reproduction rights, over 100 times what it had paid for the painting. Wyeth had created an iconic image, a painting so unforgettable that it became implanted in the minds of millions of Americans.</p>
<h2>From illustrator to artist</h2>
<p>The achievement was particularly notable because Wyeth rose to prominence just when realistic painting was going out of fashion.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177149/original/file-20170706-29221-10nembb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177149/original/file-20170706-29221-10nembb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177149/original/file-20170706-29221-10nembb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177149/original/file-20170706-29221-10nembb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177149/original/file-20170706-29221-10nembb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177149/original/file-20170706-29221-10nembb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177149/original/file-20170706-29221-10nembb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177149/original/file-20170706-29221-10nembb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">N.C. Wyeth created dramatic illustrations for the 1911 edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:One_More_Step,_Mr._Hands.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Abstract painting was elbowing everything else aside, and painters who had won national awards and acclaim in the 1930s were now finding that they needed to support themselves as illustrators, a profession that was increasingly derided as commercial. </p>
<p>In fact, Wyeth had close ties with the world of illustration: His father, N.C. Wyeth, had been one of America’s most successful illustrators, the source of action-packed imagery that stirred the imaginations of American boys in books such as “The Black Arrow” and “Treasure Island.” As a teenager, under his father’s auspices, Wyeth even illustrated a few boys’ books of his own. </p>
<p>But as Wyeth matured as an artist, he started making paintings in a style very much at odds with that of most commercial illustrators. Colorful scenes of dramatic action were replaced with a world that was subdued in color, drained of dramatic activity and enigmatic in meaning. While his subject matter was generally rural, it was a vision that was very much aligned with the existential anxieties of the nuclear age. </p>
<p>He was obsessed with minor details, of what you can learn from objects that are easily overlooked. Absence – what’s not in the frame – also played a big role in his work. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177134/original/file-20170706-26465-17r6l0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177134/original/file-20170706-26465-17r6l0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177134/original/file-20170706-26465-17r6l0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177134/original/file-20170706-26465-17r6l0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177134/original/file-20170706-26465-17r6l0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177134/original/file-20170706-26465-17r6l0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177134/original/file-20170706-26465-17r6l0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177134/original/file-20170706-26465-17r6l0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew Wyeth’s ‘Groundhog Day’ (1959).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/57405.html">© Andrew Wyeth</a></span>
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<p>For example, Wyeth’s painting “<a href="http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/57405.html">Groundhog Day</a>” shows a sunny dining room with no one in it. It’s actually a displaced portrait of his neighbor Karl Kuerner, who fought for the Germans in World War I. Wyeth once told me Kuerner was the most brutal man he knew. </p>
<p>It takes a moment to notice that in this room – even with its cheerful yellow wallpaper – something’s not quite right. Karl’s place setting doesn’t contain a fork or spoon. There’s only a sharp knife. By taking out the thing we would normally expect in a portrait – a human figure – Wyeth makes us pay attention to things we wouldn’t usually notice, such as a place setting. </p>
<p>In significant ways, we get a richer (and scarier) sense of Karl Kuerner’s character than if Wyeth had physically depicted him in the frame. (Many good filmmakers, including those who have carefully studied Wyeth’s paintings, like M. Knight Shyamalan and Terrence Malick, use a similar approach.)</p>
<h2>The march of abstract expressionism</h2>
<p>But by the 1980s, Wyeth’s work was being savaged by critics. <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520280298">He was thought of as an anti-modernist and a reactionary</a>, a painter who had turned his back on the expressive techniques developed by figures like Matisse, Picasso and Jackson Pollock. To the critics, Wyeth was old-fashioned, someone constrained by outdated, 19th-century ways of seeing the world.</p>
<p>How did he become inflicted with what art historian Wanda Corn <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520280298">has called</a> “the Wyeth curse”? </p>
<p>Clearly, he was a victim of some larger cultural and political shifts. It’s not unlike what happened in Stalinist Russia, when revolutionary heroes were purged and were quite literally painted out of history paintings. At some point Andrew Wyeth no longer had a place in the official history of modern art. He had to be painted out. </p>
<p>During this period, the battle lines of the modernist movement were hardening. Many notable art critics, led by Clement Greenberg, believed that modern artists had engaged in a sort of lockstep march toward modes of expression that rejected an identifiable subject matter. These new paintings were increasingly flat and abstract, concerned chiefly with the arrangement of unrecognizable shapes and forms. </p>
<p>It left no room for a painting of a girl sprawled in a field, with a rustic house looming in the background – however dreamlike the scene might appear.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177152/original/file-20170706-26827-1txnura.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177152/original/file-20170706-26827-1txnura.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177152/original/file-20170706-26827-1txnura.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177152/original/file-20170706-26827-1txnura.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177152/original/file-20170706-26827-1txnura.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177152/original/file-20170706-26827-1txnura.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177152/original/file-20170706-26827-1txnura.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/177152/original/file-20170706-26827-1txnura.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">‘Vir Heroicus Sublimus,’ a painting by abstract expressionist Barnett Newman, is displayed in New York City’s Museum of Modern Art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/youngdoo/146888345">YoungDoo M. Carey/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>The logic of this “modernist march” was never very strong, since the works of some key modernist figures such as Jackson Pollock have great pictorial depth and don’t look flat. And the outcome of this progression was surely not very interesting – a painting that would be entirely flat and would represent nothing.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the critics had sharpened their knives. “Moving your eye” across Wyeth’s paintings, The New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=74WTcyn2Lg0C&lpg=PA150&dq=%22sledding%20on%20dirt%22&pg=PA150#v=onepage&q=%22sledding%20on%20dirt%22&f=false">wrote</a>, was “like sledding on dirt.” Critic Dave Hickey <a href="http://observer.com/2016/08/why-do-critics-still-hate-andrew-wyeth/">sneered</a> that Wyeth’s palette was made up of “mud and baby poop,” while the Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists <a href="http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195373219.001.0001/acref-9780195373219-e-1459">called him</a> a “popular realist” with “little conceptual originality.”</p>
<h2>Getting personal</h2>
<p>There were other forces at play.</p>
<p>I suspect that there was resentment about Wyeth’s success at a fairly early date. The Museum of Modern Art was largely formed around its collection of paintings by Pablo Picasso. It must have irked the staff that a painting by a young American upstart quickly became the most popular painting in the museum.</p>
<p>A major turning point, however, clearly occurred in 1976. On the surface, it was one of Wyeth’s most triumphant years: He was awarded a one-man show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the first time this honor had been bestowed upon a living artist.</p>
<p>Henry Geldzahler, the museum’s curator of modern art, was originally slated to curate the exhibition. But he abruptly pulled out, with the director of the museum, Thomas Hoving, taking his place. In fact, there’s a backstory to why Geldzahler reneged. He had asked Wyeth to gift him a major painting, “<a href="https://p1.liveauctioneers.com/1404/30399/11858255_1_x.jpg?version=1339621773">River Valley</a>.” The request went against basic standards of curatorial ethics, and Wyeth declined. In retaliation Geldzahler pulled out of the project and, according to Hoving, badmouthed Wyeth to his friends. </p>
<p>Whatever the exact cause, it was precisely around this time the New York art world – a surprisingly small place – decided that Andrew Wyeth was a pariah. It didn’t help that Wyeth sold most of his work through a network of dealers located outside New York. Notably, when the Museum of Modern Art celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1979, Andrew Wyeth wasn’t invited to the party, even though he had created the most famous American painting in the museum. </p>
<p>To this day, the museum exhibits a strange ambivalence towards Wyeth’s masterwork, “Christina’s World.” They refuse to lend it to major exhibitions – such as <a href="http://www.brandywine.org/museum/exhibitions/andrew-wyeth-retrospect">the centennial exhibitions</a> of Wyeth’s work now appearing around the country – on the grounds that it’s too valuable to part with. But for years it was separated from the rest of the museum’s collection, and hung in places that demeaned it – by the escalator, in front of the restaurant and next to the entrance of a bathroom. </p>
<h2>Wyeth today</h2>
<p>A decade ago, a career-minded art historian would have avoided Wyeth. But in recent years, a number of gifted art historians have returned to Wyeth to reevaluate his legacy: Adam Weinberg, Timothy Standring, David Cateforis, Ann Klausen Knutsen, Alex Nemerov and Randall Griffey, among others.</p>
<p>The reasons for the uptick in interest are surely varied. But a central factor seems to be that Wyeth’s work is thoroughly in tune with what is being produced by adventurous young artists today. They’ve largely rejected abstraction as a vehicle, finding it unsuitable for the topics they want to address: body, gender, racial discrimination, politics, cruelty, mortality – the very issues which Wyeth addressed in his work. </p>
<p>While much contemporary art is in new media, such as video, rather than painting, the underlying message of Wyeth’s art remains very relevant. Art historians continue to argue about how to pigeonhole Wyeth within a terminology of visual styles. Was he a realist, a magic realist or a neo-realist? </p>
<p>My own view is that these labels aren’t useful. I believe he fits into a larger tradition of modernist creativity that goes beyond the medium of painting, one that’s also found in novels and movies – a tradition of attending to the overlooked. His influence – like that of his contemporary, <a href="http://www.edwardhopper.net/#">Edward Hopper</a> – has been most important and profound not in the realm of painting, but in poetry, literature and filmmaking. </p>
<p>He had no place in a world of art devoted merely to shapes and forms, and to nothing deeper. For this, his reputation suffered. Fortunately, he has again emerged as an original and challenging figure to a new generation of artists, critics and historians.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry Adams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
His rise was just as swift as his fall. To mark the painter’s 100th birthday, an art historian explores the forces – cultural, political and personal – that created a polarizing legacy.
Henry Adams, Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History, Case Western Reserve University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/74833
2017-04-05T02:15:36Z
2017-04-05T02:15:36Z
Print your own masterpieces and digital pens – the brave new world of the museum
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161973/original/image-20170322-31219-11hhpt6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">You can 'walk' through the Musée d’Orsay in Paris using the Google Arts & Culture platform.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Arts & Culture</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>People can now access much of Sydney’s Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences’ <a href="https://collection.maas.museum/">extensive collection online</a>. High-resolution images of more than 130,000 objects are available for viewing on a new, mobile-friendly collections website.</p>
<p>The Museum, which includes the Powerhouse Museum, is one of a host around the world making their collections and data available for free public use.</p>
<p>My research investigates the different ways – from digital pens to crowd-sourced exhibitions – museums are meeting their audiences’ changing expectations. </p>
<h2>Make your own path</h2>
<p>Bringing technology into museums allows patrons to move past traditional aids, like maps and audio guides, which dictate how to navigate an exhibition. Visitors are increasingly encouraged to roam, using a variety of sophisticated tools to create their own paths. </p>
<p>Take the Google Cultural Institute, which has an app that lets visitors in participating institutions see comprehensive information about any artwork by just holding up their phone. </p>
<p>Another intriguing example, at Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York, is the <a href="https://www.cooperhewitt.org/events/current-exhibitions/using-the-pen">digital pen</a>. Patrons can earmark their favourite objects, make notes and record impressions by using the pen on electronic tags and touch screens next to the displays. This is compiled into a personalised collection and can be accessed online with a unique code. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161959/original/image-20170322-31180-tl46hp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161959/original/image-20170322-31180-tl46hp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161959/original/image-20170322-31180-tl46hp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161959/original/image-20170322-31180-tl46hp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161959/original/image-20170322-31180-tl46hp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161959/original/image-20170322-31180-tl46hp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161959/original/image-20170322-31180-tl46hp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161959/original/image-20170322-31180-tl46hp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The digital pen can tag artwork or make notes on touch screens, to create an individually curated collection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cooper Hewitt Design Museum</span></span>
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<p>Likewise, Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art has replaced traditional wall labels with <a href="https://mona.net.au/museum/the-o">the O</a>, a tablet that tracks the holder’s on-site movement and provides useful information about nearby artefacts. </p>
<p>We’re likely to see the development of more devices – both mobile and wearable – that detect our surroundings and respond with flexible and highly relevant information. Apple is already moving into this space, with its recent patent for a mobile augmented reality system designed for museums. </p>
<h2>Print your own masterpieces</h2>
<p>A striking new development is the number of organisations embracing the principles of open access: making images of their public domain items available for free. </p>
<p>While theoretically, public domain images (where no copyright exists, generally some time after the death of the creator) are available to all, in practice supplying high quality images of entire collections is costly. Museums have traditionally sold these for a modest profit. </p>
<p>A notable case study is the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch national museum. In 2013 they made <a href="http://pro.europeana.eu/files/Europeana_Professional/Publications/Democratising%20the%20Rijksmuseum.pdf">around 150,000 images available to the public</a> in a <a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/rijksstudio">dedicated website</a>, including the masterpieces of van Gogh, Vermeer and Rembrandt. The museum urged people to download free high quality versions as posters, bed covers, or <a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio-award">other creative interpretations</a>. </p>
<p>The chair of the Europeana network, an organisation that helps museusms navigate public domain, has argued that the Rijksmuseum has made <em>more</em> money through <a href="https://medium.com/smk-open/open-access-can-never-be-bad-news-d33336aad382#.en73npogq">increased brand value, new partnerships, sponsors and donors</a>, than it did by selling image rights. </p>
<p>It’s hard to tell if any people chose not to physically go to to a museum because they could find pictures online. But the Rijksmuseum bet that increased familiarity would pique people’s interest in seeing the real thing, and it looks like the gamble is paying off. </p>
<p>All this connectivity opens up a new realm: crowd-sourced exhibitions. In 2014 The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Centre invited the public to participate in a <a href="http://smithsonianapa.org/life2014/">Day in the Life of an Asian Pacific America</a> exhibition. Professional and amateur photographers submitted over 2,000 photos, and curators picked a cross-section to showcase. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161952/original/image-20170322-16514-eih96r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161952/original/image-20170322-16514-eih96r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161952/original/image-20170322-16514-eih96r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161952/original/image-20170322-16514-eih96r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161952/original/image-20170322-16514-eih96r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161952/original/image-20170322-16514-eih96r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161952/original/image-20170322-16514-eih96r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161952/original/image-20170322-16514-eih96r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A lone figure views Snake by Australian artist Sidney Nolan during a 2015 ‘empty’ event at Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art. 30 Instagrammers across Australia were invited to capture and distribute images and footage to their followers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Andrew Drummond</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Displaying 100 million objects</h2>
<p>All of these initiatives are designed to help museums fulfil their basic function: to share their collections with the public. The difficulty of doing this conventionally becomes apparent when we look at the sheer quantity of items museums deal with. </p>
<p>Australia’s museums, galleries, archives and libraries contain a combined 100 million objects, and only 5% of them are <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/glaminnovationstudy/">on display at any one time</a>. Around 25% of this mass collection has been digitised, although not all of that is publicly available. </p>
<p>But this is changing, as the typical museum-goer’s habits shift and more collections are digitised. A fabulous starting point for audiences is <a href="https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/">Google Arts & Culture</a>, a digital platform that draws from 500 cultural institutions around the world. Audiences can actually “walk” – in a high-definition version of Street View – through statuary in the <a href="https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/u/0/streetview/mus%C3%A9e-d%E2%80%99orsay-paris/KQEnDge3UJkVmw?sv_h=272&sv_p=0&sv_pid=FjndSjvl55w81vbNYu5DfA&sv_lid=6004477680878644429&sv_lng=2.327089926444387&sv_lat=48.85968476784497&sv_z=1">Musée d’Orsay</a> or the portrait gallery of the <a href="https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/u/0/streetview/masp-museu-de-arte-de-s%C3%A3o-paulo-assis-chateaubriand/YgHyUAyv_g4cvg?sv_lng=-46.6559059650408&sv_lat=-23.56128777446271&sv_h=194.63106850050787&sv_p=-3.9224668723529703&sv_pid=OzBOr6rqwsYWN473wrw5rQ&sv_lid=15029704351325382912&sv_z=1">Museu de Arte de São Paulo</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162120/original/image-20170323-25779-12lhsy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162120/original/image-20170323-25779-12lhsy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162120/original/image-20170323-25779-12lhsy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162120/original/image-20170323-25779-12lhsy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162120/original/image-20170323-25779-12lhsy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162120/original/image-20170323-25779-12lhsy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162120/original/image-20170323-25779-12lhsy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162120/original/image-20170323-25779-12lhsy2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Walk through the picture gallery of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil’s first modern museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Google Arts & Culture</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These developments offer exciting new opportunities. But will museums remain places for community, history, art and culture? My prediction is that they will, but they face some hazards.</p>
<p>Facebook, for example, recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/mar/01/facebooks-ban-on-charles-blackman-nude-artwork-attacked-as-living-in-the-1950s">banned a 37-year-old Charles Blackman painting</a> that featured a naked woman because it violated its guidelines. In museums’ quest to becoming more sensory and agile, they will need to deal with the competing priorities of the digital companies they collaborate with.</p>
<p>Most museums are essentially non-commercial operations, receiving at least some public funding to fulfil a <a href="https://www.museumnext.com/insight/the-importance-of-and/">public mission.</a> In contrast, digital platforms are commercial entities that benefit from publicity and data mining, and have no commitment to artistic freedoms. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the museum of the future will have to balance the tension between using appealing new technology, forging partnerships with tech giants, and their fundamental role of protecting and revealing our culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Wilson-Barnao was previously a member of the International Council of Museums and is currently a member of the Public Relations Institute of Australia.</span></em></p>
Do you fancy a virtual stroll through the Musee D'Orsay or printing your very own Vermeer? Technology is transforming museums in a myriad of ways.
Dr Caroline Wilson-Barnao, Lecturer, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/58619
2016-08-03T03:08:50Z
2016-08-03T03:08:50Z
Museum economics: how the contemporary art boom is hurting the bottom line
<p>Americans clearly love their museums, particularly in the summer months. In fact, <a href="http://www.aam-us.org/about-museums/museum-facts">museum attendance is estimated at about 850 million visits a year</a>, significantly more than all the major league sporting and theme parks combined (about 483 million in 2011). </p>
<p>That’s in a part because they have a lot of choices. If you include zoos, historical societies, botanical gardens and similar historical or cultural sites, the number of museums in the U.S. <a href="https://www.imls.gov/news-events/news-releases/government-doubles-official-estimate-there-are-35000-active-museums-us">surpassed 35,000 in 2014</a>, more than double the tally in the 1990s. </p>
<p>Art museums, which I would argue make some of the most important contributions to contemporary culture, number about 1,575 and are also very popular. One of the most famous, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (“the Met”), for example, saw a <a href="http://www.museus.gov.br/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Visitor-Figures-2015-LO.pdf">record 6.5 million visitors</a> in 2015, making it the world’s third most popular museum. </p>
<p>But record attendance doesn’t necessarily translate into record revenue. Just last month, the Met said it is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/arts/design/met-to-cut-100-or-more-jobs-in-push-to-steady-finances.html">laying off more than 100 of its employees</a> as it tries to erase a US$10 million budget deficit, just a few months after it <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/met-museum-to-cut-spending-as-deficit-looms-1461287217">announced a hiring freeze</a> and voluntary buyouts. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, one of its rivals down the street, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), is <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/museum-of-modern-art-announces-100-million-gift-from-david-geffen-1461261600">flush with cash</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/arts/two-art-worlds-rich-modern-and-struggling-met.html">just received another $100 million</a> for an expansion and renovation. Yet only about <a href="http://www.museus.gov.br/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Visitor-Figures-2015-LO.pdf">three million people</a> stopped by to see its art in 2015, ranking it 15th in the world. </p>
<p>What explains the different trajectories? Why do some museums flourish while others flounder? </p>
<p>Lately I’ve been exploring the new economics of culture and art markets for a book to be published in 2017 called “The Economics of American Art: Art, Artists and Market Institutions.” <a href="http://www.bobekelund.com">My research</a> leads me to believe there are three reasons why different museums have different fates: fashion, demographics and billionaires. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132861/original/image-20160802-17185-a8adki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132861/original/image-20160802-17185-a8adki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132861/original/image-20160802-17185-a8adki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132861/original/image-20160802-17185-a8adki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132861/original/image-20160802-17185-a8adki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132861/original/image-20160802-17185-a8adki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132861/original/image-20160802-17185-a8adki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is the third most visited museum in the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Met via www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tale of two museums</h2>
<p>MoMA and the Met are two of the top museums in the U.S., making them <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/arts/two-art-worlds-rich-modern-and-struggling-met.html">excellent illustrations</a> of some of the financing problems facing museums today. </p>
<p>The Met, one of the most comprehensive museums in the world except for a dearth of holdings in modern contemporary art, has an annual budget of approximately $300 million. The museum, however, is currently <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/arts/design/met-to-cut-100-or-more-jobs-in-push-to-steady-finances.html">facing a deficit</a> of about $10 million that would have ballooned to $40 million if it hadn’t begun laying off personnel. It also put a hold on its expansion of modern contemporary art exhibition space.</p>
<p>The competition for patrons willing to fork over large amounts money has become fierce in the contemporary art field. Besides MoMA, the Met must compete locally with the Whitney (which just opened a new downtown location) and the Guggenheim and with dozens of museums in major cities across the U.S, such as The Broad, a new contemporary museum in downtown Los Angeles. </p>
<p>They also must compete for possession of the masterpieces and other exhibitions that draw the most visitors – and in turn lead to more donations. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, MoMA is experiencing its own unique issues that both illustrate the plus- and downsides of its success. MoMA’s $400 million-plus expansion plan (aided by a $100 million gift from billionaire David Geffen) will mean certain parts of the museum will be closed down during the project, leading to less attendance and revenue. MoMA <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/museum-of-modern-art-to-offer-employee-buyouts-1461975639">has offered voluntary buyout plans</a> for some employees who will not be needed. Still, with an <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/museum-of-modern-art-announces-100-million-gift-from-david-geffen-1461261600">endowment approaching $1 billion</a>, it’s in pretty good shape.</p>
<p>The current challenges of these two great museums will resolve themselves over time, but the fundamental issues raised underscore some critical economic issues facing many art museums in the U.S. today. </p>
<h2>Chasing after changing tastes</h2>
<p>First, underlying the Met’s financial challenges described above is a perennial problem of all museums: acquisitions policy. </p>
<p>Recent directors of the Met amassed a treasure trove, making it truly a museum of enormous and international scope – with an important exception: modern and contemporary art. The late Thomas Hoving <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/art-obituaries/6790157/Tom-Hoving.html">focused on snapping up</a> Renaissance and Old Masters, such as Velázquez’s “Portrait of Juan de Pareja” and the Egyptian Temple of Dendur. He also developed the now-popular concept of the traveling “blockbuster” exhibition that costs museum-goers an extra charge. </p>
<p>His successor, <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/video/conservation-and-scientific-research/sam-pdmcnsrv">Phillipe de Montebello</a>, also did not add much to the museum’s modern collection. The argument, it seems, was that museums such as the MoMA were already providing such works in their collections and that the acquisition of contemporary art by living artists (some at midcareer) was problematic and risky. </p>
<p>While the Met’s contemporary collection has grown somewhat in recent years, it has been unable to quickly adjust to the changing tastes of museum-goers, who <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21594262-rapid-growth-art-fairs-changing-way-galleries-operate-fairly-popular">increasingly favor modern and contemporary art</a>. This has put it at a competitive disadvantage. </p>
<p>The economic point here is that if a museum like the Met isn’t able to keep up as its customers’ tastes change, revenue will likely fall. And by the time it might recognize this, it’s already too late to do much about it because the costs to acquire the in-demand art is sky-high. </p>
<p>Since museums acquire either as a donation or a purchase, in the absence of a generous gift, the only alternative is to acquire a “distinguished” collection of work from another institution or private collector. </p>
<p>That alternative is open to few museums in the United States. The reason leads to a second critical issue – the changing distribution of U.S. and world income and its effects on museum finance and operation. </p>
<h2>Billionaires’ bubble</h2>
<p>We are living in a boom period for contemporary art (<a href="http://bigthink.com/Picture-This/can-contemporary-art-become-too-popular">some would say it’s a “bubble”</a>).</p>
<p>The number of <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-how-art-fairs-expanded-the-contemporary-art-market">auctions, art fairs and galleries</a> dealing in that genre has grown enormously to accommodate this burgeoning market. Works by the undisputed master in contemporary art, German artist Gerhard Richter, <a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/top-100-collectible-living-artists-504059?utm-buf">have generated $1.2 billion in sales</a> in recent years.</p>
<p>In a world with <a href="http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/">about 1,800 billionaires</a>, it only takes a relative few to drive high-end art prices to astronomical levels. Recessions, stock market declines and turmoil in international affairs rarely subdue the fight among these collectors for the best of the best, especially in contemporary art. </p>
<p>In addition to such vaunted names as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, “hot” young artists born after 1955 are earning top auction prices. From July 2014 to June 2015, auction “hammer prices” by the late Jean-Michel Basquiat, Christopher Wool and Jeff Koons reached <a href="http://www.widewalls.ch/most-expensive-jean-michel-basquiat-artwork/">$33 million</a>, <a href="http://www.artyou.com/newsview/30">$26.5 million</a> and <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/21/collecting-art-auctions-forbeslife-cx_nw_1121koons.html">$23 million</a>, respectively, for single works of art.</p>
<p>These soaring prices mean museums simply can’t keep up and must usually depend on donations to assemble portfolios of the best work, or they’re priced out.</p>
<p>And billionaires themselves <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/new-york-billionaire-private-museum-chelsea-582314?ut">are increasingly setting up</a> their own, private museums, further distancing the ability of public museums to get the good stuff. </p>
<h2>Demographics and recessions</h2>
<p>A third interrelated problem is that demographic issues have exacerbated the problems of museum finance and operations by putting pressure on the revenue side of the equation. </p>
<p>Unemployment, early retirements and the aging of the population in the United States have all contributed to increased attendance at museums of all types. You might think that’s simply a good thing. And in many ways it is. But more traffic means higher costs, and when those additional visitors don’t result in more revenue, profitability goes down. </p>
<p>This is because of the longstanding movement toward making museums “free” by having individuals, government or businesses “sponsor” the cost. But when that support gets reduced by budget costs or another reason, museums must either choose to pick up the tab or lose patrons by suddenly charging fees. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-199068924/art-museum-attendance-public-funding-and-the-business">empirical evidence</a> that museum attendance is countercyclical. That is, it rises when economic growth slows, but that’s also when those “sponsors” are more likely to begin to disappear. In other words, the Met’s record attendance figures sound great on the surface but may have contributed to its budget shortfall by adding to its costs.</p>
<h2>Value of art</h2>
<p>Museums will certainly continue to exist and provide hundreds of millions of us with invaluable insights into our culture, both past and present. </p>
<p>But they must exist under the imperative of economic principles. Tastes will change, income distribution will alter the availability of art and demographics will shift. </p>
<p>While none of these factors negate the importance of art museums, it’d be wise for their stewards to consider the economics in their calculations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58619/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Ekelund does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New York’s Met just announced more job cuts to balance its books as the shifting tastes and demographics make it harder to make a museum’s ends meet.
Robert Ekelund, Eminent Scholar and Professor of Economics Emeritus, Auburn University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.