Lucy, the 3.2 million-year-old woman
One favorable museum development related to the current financial crisis, aside from greater emphasis on permanent collections, may be a reduced emphasis on rent-a-shows—those blockbuster exhibitions through which museums raise money from other museums by charging exorbitant fees.
Andrew Herrmann and Dave Newbart of the Chicago Sun-Times report:
Financial belt-tightening contributed to the [Field] museum’s decision not to
present Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old fossil of an ape-man species that
was to debut here this fall.
As you may recall from my previous post about that show, the tour of “Lucy’s” remains was controversial from the start, with leading scientists expressing concern that this elderly woman was too fragile to travel.