MUSEUMS AND COVID 19 Winter 2021
1. NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Facing a potential shortfall of $150 million because of the pandemic, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has begun conversations with auction houses and its curators about selling some artworks to help pay for care of the collection.
“This is the time when we need to keep our options open,” said Max Hollein, the Met’s director, in an interview. “None of us have a full perspective on how the pandemic will play out. It would be inappropriate for us not to consider it when we’re still in this foggy situation.”
Like many institutions, the Met is looking to take advantage of a two-year window in which the Association of Art Museum Directors — a professional organization that guides its members’ best practices — has relaxed the guidelines that govern how proceeds from sales of works in a collection (known as deaccessioning) can be directed.
In the past, museums were permitted to use such funds only for future art purchases. But last spring, the association announced that, through April 10, 2022, it would not penalize museums that “use the proceeds from deaccessioned art to pay for expenses associated with the direct care of collections.”
The Brooklyn Museum led the way last fall in taking advantage of this shift, raising $31 million at auction sales in the United States and Europe for the care of its artworks.
More controversially, the Baltimore Museum of Art followed suit soon after by announcing that it would deaccession paintings by Brice Marden, Clyfford Still and Andy Warhol. After criticism and talks with the museum directors association, the museum decided to pull the works by Still and Marden two hours before the sale.
As museums periodically do routinely, the Met’s curators will evaluate the holdings in their departments with an eye to which pieces are duplicative or have been supplanted by better examples, or have rarely — if ever — been shown.
Works to be sold will then have to be approved by department heads, the museum’s director and the board before public auction. The board also has to first approve a revision to the Met’s collections care policy, a move expected at the trustee meeting in March.
Even as the Met is re-evaluating its collection for works to sell to pay for collections care, the museum is also trying to bulk up its holdings in neglected areas such as works by women and people of color.
In the wake of George Floyd’s killing and a reckoning around race nationwide, as well as inside the museum, the Met in July issued a letter committing to a fund of $3 million to $5 million “to support initiatives, exhibitions, and acquisitions in the area of diverse art histories.”
The Met also pledged to establish within the next 12 months acquisition endowments of $10 million to increase the amount of works by artists of color “in our 20th- and 21st-century collections.”
But Hollein emphasized that building the Met’s holdings in these underrepresented areas would not mean diminishing historical categories. He cited as an example the Met’s 2020 acquisition of “The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalen,” circa 1626, and “Virgin and Child Enthroned,” circa 1345-50.
“I want to avoid any misconception that, because we have some added priorities, that makes us deaccession works to achieve those goals,” he added. “One thing has nothing to do with the other.”
Hollein was perhaps mindful of the criticism of the Baltimore Museum’s director, Christopher Bedford, for deaccessioning seven blue-chip paintings in 2018 to buy works by women and artists of color. (The 2020 sale was meant to raise money to address pay disparities in response to demands from the museum’s staff.)
Perhaps most starkly, the Indianapolis Art Museum — confronting steep storage and conservation costs — spent years ranking each of the 54,000 items in its collection with letter grades. Twenty percent of the items received a D, making them candidates to be sold or given to another institution.
In interviews, curators at the Met seemed to recognize that relaxing the rules was a necessary step. “There is some urgency in this,” said Ian Alteveer, the Met’s curator of modern and contemporary art. “We’re facing a huge budget deficit. We’ve tried for years to get more robust funding for conservation, one of the prime things related to collections care.”
Understanding that deaccessioning can be a lightning rod — particularly if members of the public object to specific sales — Hollein said that engaging in this evaluation process is the more conscientious course of action.
“Every museum in the U.S. is having these conversations,” he said. “‘Do we want to use this window? What would it mean for the institution? What would it mean for the collection?’ For us not to discuss this now would be irresponsible.”
https://artdaily.cc/news/132762/Facing-deficit--Met-considers-selling-art-to-help-pay-the-bills#.YGIig69KhGM
© 2021 The New York Times Company
2. Washington DC -There’s no way around it: the COVID pandemic has hit the museum industry hard. But museums are a resilient bunch and many of them have come up with novel ways to keep serving up history, culture, and education. How? They’ve gone online. But what happens to all the virtual tours, online exhibitions, and internet-based collections after COVID-19? What is the future of museums after a year in a pandemic?
Now that museums, and audiences, have discovered the power of virtual tourism, it’s hard to believe they’ll return to convention. With entire collections formatted and developed for online showing and thousands of virtual experiences rolled out for audiences around the world, it’d simply be a waste to hit delete or save to archive. No, the future of museums in 2021 will likely retain online, virtual reality, or augmented reality components.
As a content expert at Tiqets, I’ve worked with hundreds of our museum partners like the Palace of Versailles, The Met, and London’s View From the Shard during 2020 to come up with a new approach to engage audiences during a pandemic. Based on those conversations, here are four predictions about the future of museums, along with how museums can repurpose their pandemic-savvy offerings for life after COVID.
1. Having an online offering will be important for many museums’ survival.
Even as COVID-19 vaccines become available, people may be hesitant to travel, and it could be some time before travel restrictions are lifted. This means that online museum experiences will maintain their relevance for at least the next year. And the more people get comfortable with online museum visits, the more they’ll want them.
Exploring an online offering is essential to maintaining your relevance as a museum and to keeping your exhibitions top of mind. Having a good online offering can also be a way to bring in revenue during a slow period.
How to take advantage of this trend: If you haven’t already experimented with an online offering, start now. You can share part of, or all of, your collection online, like the Louvre or the Van Gogh Museum did. You can film an online tour of your museum with commentary from one of your guides. You could even develop a virtual reality experience of one of the highlights of your museum for people to enjoy at home with the help of VR goggles.
2. It’s the age of the online museum gift shop.
Seeing as it may be some time before museums can welcome back visitors and tourists in pre-pandemic-sized droves, cultivating alternative streams of revenue will be essential. One of the most obvious places to start is your museum gift shop. From the classic fridge magnet to specially printed silk scarves, museum gift shops are a treasure trove of gift ideas and limited-edition purchases. Museums around the world have asked consumers to support them through purchasing their merchandise and this trend is likely to continue into 2021.
How to take advantage of this trend: You’ve already been experimenting with online collections, so upgrading or sprucing up your online gift shop should be a cinch. Make sure to include your gift shop merchandise in as much of your customer communication as possible, from newsletters to your website to your social media.
3. Repurpose your online offerings to promote your museum.
The rise of online advertising shows no sign of slowing down next year. With social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube exploring more video advertising avenues, it might be worth doing a little bit of exploring of your own. As museums around the world reopen next year, the battle for consumers’ attention will be extra tough, so you’ll need to be able to share your offering on as many platforms as possible.
How to take advantage of this trend: If you’ve already dabbled in the art of virtual experiences or sharing your collection online, you could be ahead of the curve. Repurpose your online offerings into social media posts and ads to give consumers a preview of your upcoming exhibitions.
4. Virtual reality will become commonplace for museums.
This probably isn’t news, but thanks to our heavy reliance on all things digital in 2020, the development of virtual reality has been fast-tracked. Just look at the V&A in London: in October of this year the museum presented its first virtual reality event to showcase an exhibition set to open in March 2021. The presentation featured a curator presentation, live special effects, and a preview of the exhibition opening in March. Whether you plan to use virtual reality to engage visitors from their homes or in your museum, one thing’s for sure: virtual reality is coming.
How to take advantage of this trend: If you’ve already identified what your visitors are most interested in at your museum with the help of online collections and virtual tours, use that information to work on your virtual reality offering. If you’d like to incorporate VR into your onsite experience, make sure you read up on how to offer an immersive experience first.
Want to better prepare your museum for the future, in 2021 and beyond? Tiqets’ team of industry experts is here to help. Check out our Recovery Package to see how we can help you bounce back stronger in 2021.
Lauren Voges
Lauren Voges is a Marketing Copywriter for Tiqets, a global online ticketing platform for museums and attractions. She has a background in journalism and copywriting, and has worked for a range of NGOs in international arbitration and international law.
Since its founding in 2014, Tiqets has been on a mission to make culture more accessible by helping people discover and enjoy museums and attractions around the globe. From iconic experiences to hidden gems, millions of people have used Tiqets to choose their way to explore a city’s culture and breeze through booking.
