Maybe the wave of censure directed at several museums for selling art from their collections has had a positive impact: yesterday, the Indianapolis Museum of Art announced that it has created and put online a searchable database of the art it has decided to deaccession, following a review of its collections begun in 2007.
You can see what has been sold for what amount and what will be sold. In the future, IMA promises to link proceeds received from deaccessioned works to the new art they purchased. (That, of course, is the only way money from deaccessions is to be used, in accordance with Association of Art Museum Directors’ policies.) IMA also posted its deaccessioning policy.
If other museums do this, I haven’t seen it. I looked at some of the usual suspects (the Guggenheim, MoMA, etc.) just in case someone snuck it in while no one was watching, but — zip on deaccessions. Therefore, kudos to Max Anderson, head of IMA, for knowing the value of transparency.
I hope others follow his lead. If museums are going to clean house from time to time — and they are — let them at least do it in public, giving advance word.
You can see the IMA database here.
For the last couple of years, IMA has also published a (sort of) real-time dashboard with statistics on museum energy use, the number of new works on view, the endowment’s value, the number of hours spent conserving art works, membership, and attendance, etc. One savvy person whose opinion I respect dismisses the dashboard as a gimmick — and maybe it is. I still like it.
Photo: American Art Gallery, IMA, Courtesy IMA