About ten days ago, the Art Institute of Chicago announced the creation of a “shop in shop” at its museum store (below) for Taschen, the German illustrated book publisher. The Art Institute agreed to devote 25% of the space in its books areas exclusively to Taschen, a German publisher eager to expand in the United States.
It didn’t give me pause at first, but now it does: Is Taschen, which has a questionable reputation, the kind of company the Art Institute should privilege?
David Thurm, the AIC’s chief operating officer said:
Books from Taschen have been some of the best selling books in our Museum Shop. It certainly made sense for us to pursue an arrangement that allowed us to prominently feature their titles and make clearly visible to customers the place where they can find the extremely popular Taschen titles within our Shop. We are very excited to be the first American museum to partner with Taschen in this innovative way, and we look forward to Taschen flourishing even further in our retail spaces.
The release — not posted on its website, along with other releases, btw — also said that the Art Institute may soon give Taschen a similar deal in its “Modern Shop” in the two-year-old Modern Wing.
Reading the release, I recalled how department stores used that same concept dating back 20 or so years, and decided not to write. The museum will, after all, still stock titles from other publishers. And, as I’ve written, museums have to raise money somehow — I am assuming that Taschen is giving AIC something, probably a better cut of profits. It is not paying rent to AIC.
But a reader of Real Clear Arts changed my mind. Greg Albers, the publisher of Hol Art Books, wrote about it on his blog, and sent me the link. Here’s part of what he said:
While I have no problem with these kind of cooperative agreements for mini-stores or other kinds of marketing between museums and publishers, I have a HUGE problem with what such a partnership with Taschen in particular says about the Art Institute and about its attitude toward its art and its visitors.
I’ll just say it, Taschen produces schlock. Beautiful, sexy, inexpensive fast-selling schlock at a great margin yes, but still schlock.
Albers goes on to point out that museums should be stressing more serious books that let people learn about art, not just one with pretty pictures.
After hearing from him, I took a longer look at Taschen, which describes itself as “a worldwide art publisher specializing in books on art, architecture, design, fashion, film, travel, and the odd sexy book thrown in for good measure.” Among the recent titles are Illustration Now! Portraits and 50 Photo Icons: The Story Behind the Pictures. But its definition of sexy book borders on soft porn. For example, there’s The Big Butt Book, The Big Book of Breasts 3B, The Big Penis Book 3D, and so on.
Is this the kind of association the AIC wants to have?
It looks like it does. A Chicago Tribune article on the deal last week had this passage:
Taschen has a cult-like following for its wide array of fashion, photography, architecture, pop culture and erotic titles, a fact that isn’t lost on Brent Riley, director of divisional merchandising for books at the Art Institute store.
“With Taschen comes publicity,” Riley said. “They are constantly promoting their own products and own stores on a worldwide basis. We’ve tapped into that.”
But what kind of publicity does Taschen get, and is that truly the kind the AIC wants?
Surprised by those “sexy’ books, I emailed Albers again, who raised other questions:
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Should museum stores be profit centers at any cost?
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What kind of relationship do we expect museum visitors to have with art when they
see the museum treating it as merchandise and coffee table decor? -
Can we start to see art books as an extension of the education and enrichment that starts in the galleries, instead of only as souvenirs?
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Does a museum’s curatorial and cultural responsibility end at the gallery door?
I don’t have a problem with stores as profit centers, though they usually break even at best and are considered to be about branding. The other questions, though, are worth pondering.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago