AAMD Issues New Statement on Deaccessioning

Michael Conforti, president designate of AAMD
I really should look at the Association of Art Museum Directors’ website more often.
It turns out that last month AAMD quietly adopted a statement on “Art Museums and the Practice of Deaccessioning.” (Go to Position Papers and click the first item on the list.)
With the “Gross Clinic” Debacle, the The Albright-Knox Pox, the Maier Massacre and Stieglitz Egress, the St. Louis Blues and the Brandeis Surprise, 2007 will go down as the Year of the Deplorable Deaccession. AAMD’s revisiting its 2001 professional guideines for art disposals is an idea whose time has definitely come.
Below is my report and critique of the ways in which the new 3½-page statement goes beyond AAMD’s previously published guidelines (set forth in “Professional Practices in Art Museums”).
—Transparency: “AAMD believes it is…important that a museum’s deaccessioning process be publicly transparent.”
But does transparency of “process” translate into public disclosure (preferably in advance) of the identity of works being considered for disposal, the expected method of disposal, and (afterwards) the amount of the proceeds? That’s what I think the public has a right to expect of museums considering sales of works held in trust for the public.
—Local importance: “Does the object have special historical or cultural relevance to the city, state, university, or college in which the museum is located?”
Now we’re talking about “Kindred Spirits” (New York Public Library), “Gross Clinic” (Thomas Jefferson University), “Artemis and the Stag” (Albright-Knox Gallery), “Men of the Docks” (Randolph College’s Maier Museum) and “Radiator Building” (Fisk University). The trouble is that none of the above institutions, with the exception of Buffalo’s Albright-Knox, are members of AAMD. Such considerations should nevertheless enter into the decisions of all nonprofits that care about their communities’ cultural heritage.
—The Public Domain: “If objects are to be sold, would it be appropriate to explore sale to, or exchange with, another educational or cultural institution to help ensure the object remains in a public collection?”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Museum-quality works that are in the public domain should stay in the public domain. We have paid for these works, through the tax-exempt status of museums and tax-deductions given to donors. They belong to us and shouldn’t be used as trading chips.
—Mission Creep: “In rare instances, the governing body of a museum may decide it is essential to change the mission of the institution. In these cases, existing works in the collection may no longer be consistent with the museum’s new collecting goals and may be considered for deaccession. It is not typical for a museum to alter its mission significantly, and such decisions should be made only after thorough and transparent deliberation and consultation with the museum staff and trustees, other local cultural institutions, and the public.”
Unfortunately, it has actually become increasingly “typical” for museums to expediently rejigger their missions to justify deaccessions. I discussed some examples in my NY Times Op-Ed, For Sale: Our Permanent Collection. A more recent example is the Albright-Knox’s disposals of important pre-20th century works that it had long held and proudly displayed.
While AAMD’s new statement raises some important hot-button issues, it doesn’t forcefully address them. It merely suggests that members should “weigh” and “consider” them. It’s time for this under-performing organization to become more prescriptive and proactive.
I’m looking to Michael Conforti (above), director of the Clark Art Institute and a deep thinker about museums’ professional practices, to put some real force behind AAMD’s chronically wishy-washy “Position Papers.” He becomes the organization’s president in June. But why wait? The current president, Gail Andrews of the Birmingham Museum of Art, could start right away.