Time magazine's Richard Lacayo has a refreshing take on the Albright-Knox deaccession controversy: not knowing enough about the relevant facts (the most important of which, in his view, is "how true it is that the museum can't raise sizeable funds any other way, the position that the museum's director Louis Grachos has taken"), he decides to "stay on the sidelines on this one."
He does say the following:
"For the record, I'm not someone who thinks de-accessioning is always a bad thing. For instance, my own preferred solution for the predicament of the Barnes Foundation ... would have been for the court to permit a one time sale of one or more of its works. Put that Rose period Picasso on the block and right there you have a new endowment of over $100 million. Granted, chances are good the Picasso would end up over the commode of some Russian kleptocrat, but the Barnes would be on a solid footing."
I said the same thing in a post last March:
"I think it was agreed during the court proceeding that, at most, a $50 million endowment fund (combined with a more sensible investment policy) would have been enough to keep the museum going in its current form (which is to say, in accordance with Dr. Barnes's stated intentions). Wouldn't a combination of this sort of fundraising, the sale of non-art assets (e.g., real estate), and possibly even, as a last resort, the deaccessioning of a small part of the collection (the total collection is sometimes said to be worth $20 billion) have been preferable to violating the settlor's intent so drastically by relocating the collection?"
And, in theory, the Russian kleptocrat problem could be solved by limiting the potential buyers to other public institutions. That might reduce the amount the Barnes received on the sale, but it might be thought that $75 million with the work remaining on view at, say, the National Gallery is, on balance, a better deal than $100 million with the work in the kleptocrat's living room.
