Janet Landay, executive director of the Association of Art Museum Directors, responds to AAMD Examines the Value of Art Museums to Society (What About the Art?):
All of us at AAMD [Association of Art Museum Directors] agree with your assertion that the focus of art museums is and should be on art. AAMD, however, is a membership association of art museums. One of our roles is to support our constituent organizations in spreading the word about art museums and the field as a whole.
Our member art museums continue to build their collections, present diverse art exhibitions and offer art-based programs; they remain committed to serving the public even during a time of economic challenge. Our members use art—from their own collections, or borrowed from the collections of others—to demonstrate, over and over again, the importance of art.
As a membership association of art museums, the AAMD promotes art regularly, by enabling our members to share information about art, collections, exhibitions, and scholarship with each other. We also look for ways to demonstrate the kinds of roles that museums have in their communities, and that includes exploring the impact of our members’ wide-ranging programs in the aggregate.