Dutch Museums Forced to Prostitute
Museums around the globe are facing severe budget cuts as result of the global economic downturn. In UK, for example, grants have been reduced by almost 15% while in Netherlands by as much as 25%. As result, the Wereldmuseum of Rotterdam is planning to sell its African and Americas Collection. On the other hand, MuseumGouda, in the province of South Holland, will face a banning vote from the Netherland Museum Association tomorrow, 28th of November, after its sale of Schoolboys at Christie’s last June. Any expulsion, in our view, would be counterproductive and would intensify art sell-offs.
Schoolboys by Marlene Dumas was sold in an auction at Christie's in June 2011.
Museums must contextualize, restore and exhibit the art they own. To contextualise a work of art you need to buy additional art that is somehow related to it. To restore you need skilled artists and to exhibit successfully you must build a PR department. And money is essential for these processes.
If a museum sells entire collections because its financial resources do not allow it to serve the art it owns, you cannot accuse the museum director of irresponsability. That would be like saying that an alcoholic mother doesn’t love her children if she handles them to the social services for custody. Instead, preventive measures should be taken to ensure that the museum gets the minimum amount of money needed to contextualize, restore and exhibit the art it owns. Otherwise you are not preserving art but you are destroying it.
Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, Netherlands.
In Rotterdam, the director of Wereldmuseum, Stanley Bremer, announced plans to sell some collections to make up for the heavy budget cuts. This caused outrage in some cultural circles who accused Mr Bremer of being driven by ambition and seeking advertisement. The sale of Marlene Dumas’s Schoolboys by MuseumGouda last summer also caused much consternation. As result, NMA is threating to expel MuseumGouda the 28th of November, when a final vote will be held.
We believe that this is a wrong strategy to follow as NMA was conceived to protect Museums’ interest and to ensure the minimum budgets they need for maintenance. If the cuts went far beyond what Museums could compensate for then the one to blame is the NMA and not individual directors.
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