Deaccession

Alte Pinakothek − Visitors watch paintings
photo: Mattes

"The Museum age, which reached its Augustan apogee with the post-World War II boom in art education, in special exhibitions, in collecting, in museum-building, is finally over. Museums, once permanent fixtures by which to negotiate our spiritual journeys, have suddenly revealed infirmities in their foundations that have threatened them with collapse.Like many institutions in the late sixties, they were abruptly thrust from their historical context into the vicissitudes of contemporary life, where the problems of the entire society―many of them irrelevant to art museums― were brought to bear on them. ... Museums have been forced to cope with with a variety of political problems for which their staffs are hardly qualified. Museum men also appear uncertain of their responsibilities to their own holdings. By and large administered by antiquated methods, their policies guided by trustees who have not demonstrated their capacity to understand contemporary issues, most museums have had their position defined for them."

The above passage is by Brian O'Doherty (ed) in the introduction to Museums in Crisis, New York, 1972. Apart from the term "Museum men", this could be a contemporary account instead of one more than forty years old.

Not only do the problems of 1972 show little sign of being resolved, but new problems have been imposed on museums already years behind in the cataloging of their collections by people who have little to no knowledge of the difficulties museums face in merely keeping their doors open.

Deaccession policies usually demand that any monies obtained be reserved for the purchase of other exhibits, but most new accessions do not encourage many new visitors; internationally important travelling museum exhibitions are unsuitable for smaller cities as the box-office receipts would not even cover the costs, let alone provide extra money for needed infrastructure improvements such as new galleries, restaurants and gift shop expansions.

With  museum collections of ancient art being threatened with repatriation for objects lacking much in the way of past collecting histories, even the collectors and their heirs who bequeathed most of the collections in the past are wondering whether the museum is the best home for such collections and the auction houses are getting unprecedented high prices for everything with a long and secure provenance. Lesser items are rarely purchased at all by museums, these objects rarely have a collecting history that can be passed on to the new owner because of privacy laws and the fact that many of the objects which are now sold in single lots used to be part of larger lots that were not even illustrated in earlier catalogs.
Ivory-tower academics who have no museum or even business experience are quick to criticize anyone who does not supply a collecting history even though their recommendations knowingly flaunt the law and they are also quick to solicit public support each time there is another deaccession. Archaeologists frequently side with repatriation demands on the behest of those countries who issue them excavation permits so it is no small wonder that these archaeologists are not even interested in whether the museum will survive at all.

Smaller museums are leaning more toward local histories and this gives them the opportunity to gain needed funds by selling off objects that lay outside of their collecting interests. Even though some funding bodies threaten to cut off support for the museum, the amount of money that can be gained from deaccession is often far greater than what would be gained otherwise so these threats are ignored.

After forty years, the problems have escalated but the solutions are just as elusive.