Pamela White, former interim director of the flood-ravaged University of Iowa Art Museum, and Sean O’Harrow, the museum’s current director, in front of the university’s “Mural,” Jackson Pollock, 1943
Let’s move on, at least temporarily, from Egypt’s cultural heritage (which has been CultureGrrl’s preoccupation for the past two weeks) to Iowa’s cultural heritage.
As CultureGrrl readers may remember, the University of Iowa’s great, seminal Pollock “Mural” was rescued from the school’s river-flooded museum in June 2008 and saved from previous moves by a Board of Regents member and a state legislator to possibly have it monetized (in 2008 and 2009, respectively).
But using the Pollock as a cash cow is a bad idea that just won’t die. The painting is now being ogled by the chairman of Iowa’s House Appropriations Committee as a source of easy money for undergraduate scholarships.
Republican State Representative Scott Raecker yesterday introduced House Study Bill 84, which would force the university to cash in its Pollock to establish “a trust from which interest would fund scholarships,” reports B.A. Morelli of the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
Here’s the bill’s relevant text:
Section 1. SALE OF WORK OF ART. The state board of regents shall provide for the sale of the Jackson Pollock painting, “Mural,” held by the state university of Iowa. The proceeds from the sale shall be credited to a trust fund. Usage of the moneys in the trust fund shall be limited to providing scholarship assistance to undergraduate students at the university who are residents of this state and majoring in art.
If sufficient funds are available, scholarship assistance shall also be provided for such undergraduate students with liberal arts majors other than art. In any fiscal year, the amount of such scholarship assistance….The conditions for the sale shall provide for the painting to be on loan to the state university of Iowa at least once every four years for a period of three months or longer. [This lose-lose provision could hamper the sale without providing adequate educational benefit to the students.]
According to the Press-Citizen account:
State Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville, said he has spoken to Democratic
Senate leaders, who control the chamber [but only narrowly], and they said the Senate would
oppose the bill if it passes the Republican-led House….Last fall, State Sen. David Johnson, R-Ocheyedan, said he would be in favor of selling the Pollock.
This monumental painting, with a value that (pre-recession) had been variously estimated at $100-200 million, has been on long-term display since April 2009 at the Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, where Sean O’Harrow had been director, before moving to the directorship of the University of Iowa Museum of Art last November.
Efforts to build a new museum have foundered on funding issues. The university says it will file a new appeal for compensation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which denied support on the soggy grounds that the cost of repairing damages would be less than than 50 percent of replacement costs. The university, which is poised to appeal the regional office’s denial to FEMA’s national office, wants to relocate, not repair, the museum, placing it at a safe distance from the flood-prone banks of the Iowa River:
Iowa River, as seen through the window of the University of Iowa’s evacuated ex-museum
O’Harrow, whom the local newspapers were unable to contact, told me today by phone from the College Art Association’s meeting in New York that he was not free to comment on the legislators’ actions, other than to reaffirm his previously published remarks in strong opposition to any sale of the Pollock. The university, likely to be working its political contacts behind the scenes, refused to make any public comment (through spokesperson Tom Moore, whom I reached today by phone).
O’Harrow and University of Iowa President Sally Mason have been staunch defenders of the Pollock against those who would monetize it. The Association of Art Museum Directors had previously sent a letter (scroll down) to the State Board of Regents, opposing any attempts to convert its great treasure into operating funds. AAMD and the American Association of Museums should again fire up their engines.
On a happier note, O’Harrow is working on plans for a major 40-work show, tentatively titled “Pollock’s ‘Mural’ and American Art,” which may travel in 2013-14 to venues in New York and Venice. He also hopes to dispatch works from the University of Iowa’s collection to locations around the state, and to install more of the museum’s art in multiple locations around campus and in its hometown, Iowa City.
O’Harrow told me:
We need to keep the institution’s profile up. I don’t want people to forget about us!
People won’t, in part for the wrong reason—the troubling bill now pending in the state legislature.