Culture Chronicle

Criticism Flies After State Eases Ban on Art Sales
The New York Times - October 4, 2010
By Robin Pogrebin


When the New York State Board of Regents met last month to consider making permanent a set of temporary regulations that bar the sale of artwork by museums to cover expenses, approval was widely considered a fait accompli. The Regents staff members supported such a move, and public officials and museum professionals concerned about such sales, known as deaccessioning, had anticipated that permanent protections would now be on the books.

Instead the Regents voted on Sept. 14 to let the regulations expire, which they will on Friday.

The board said it needed more time to address the conflicting viewpoints of many museums, large and small. But the turnaround and the resulting reduction in oversight have drawn sharp rebukes from museum executives, legislators and even one of the Regents, who have characterized the board's behavior as abrupt and secretive.

"I'm flabbergasted," said Matthew Titone, a Democratic assemblyman who represents Staten Island. "They've jeopardized the public's trust. I don't think there's any viable explanation."

In a letter dated Sept. 21 that was sent to Merryl H. Tisch, the chancellor of the Board of Regents, the Museum Association of New York, which represents some 360 cultural groups and individuals in the state, said it was stunned by the decision.

In an interview Dr. Tisch acknowledged that the process could have been better handled. But she said making the regulations permanent would have been precipitous, as so many major cultural organizations were opposed.

"This was our attempt to go back to ground zero and see if we can configure a solution that works across a broad spectrum of disparate types of institutions," she said. "There is no consensus about where to go here."

Several larger institutions, like the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, wrote directly to Dr. Tisch in the days before the vote. "If made permanent," Glenn Lowry, the director of MoMA wrote on Sept. 9, "this rule would remove from Regents-governed institutions the curatorial discretion that has made them among the most respected in the world."

The debate around deaccessioning has been building since 2008, when Fort Ticonderoga proposed selling some of its artifacts to plug a shortfall, an idea it later abandoned. In response the Regents, who oversee museums in the state because most of them are chartered as educational institutions, adopted a set of emergency regulations barring the sale of artwork to cover costs. For the full article, click here