Saturday, November 30, 2013

A Deaccessioning Solution

In a review of a William Kentridge piece now up at the Met, Holland Cotter says:

"The piece ... has recently been acquired jointly by the Metropolitan and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. ... [S]urely the nature of the purchase establishes a salutary practical model, in a time when cash is tight and art prices sky-high, for institutional resource-sharing in the future."

As I've said before, if it's a salutary thing for Museum A and Museum B to buy work jointly, then it's got to be a salutary thing for Museum A, in a time when cash is tight, to sell a 50% interest in a work (or works) to Museum B.  The result is exactly the same.  It's a kind of modified Ellis Rule.