Identity Crisis!

Lately I have come under the impression that perhaps museums (by “museums” I mean the professionals) are having an identity crisis. They seem to be in constant defense of their roles in the community and art circles, the message they send to the public, and the manner in which they operate. Not to mention, today’s museums appear plagued by whether they perform in the entertainment industry, function as members of the business sector, or run in the circles of university academia. My question is, if Glenn D. Lowry notes the “mingled character” of the museum and James Cuno illustrates museums as “juxtapositions,” then what, exactly, is so terrible for a museum to juggle them all? (137, 54). Why do museums, as Michael Kimmelman states, have to be at a “crossroad”? (130).

Another German example: With the establishment of the Landesmuseum for Kunst und Kulturgeschicte in Muenster at the turn of the twentieth century, founders hoped to create a place for the gathering and cultivation of local citizens. The Landesmuseum used everything at its disposal to attract visitors and promote the museum and the museum’s collection. Of course, in 1908 this meant books, lectures, leaflets, exhibitions, and member meetings. In the New York Times article “In Lean Times, New Ways to Reach Out” from March 2009, director of Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum Ann Philbin reasons, “We can’t just be about art anymore. Museums are the new community centers.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/arts/artsspecial/19strategies.html?pagewanted=1&ref=artsspecial) With the Landesmuseum in mind, have museums ever been “just about art”? Granted, yoga at MoMA and biking at the Hammer Museum seem a little “out there” in terms of bringing in larger, broader audiences, but at the same time, are they not simply using considerations of their social and cultural contexts and the tools provided by technological advances to promote themselves and, in turn, their collections?

Also, I hate to state the obvious: money makes the doors of a museum stay open. Yes, they are, on the whole, non-profit organizations, but someone still must provide financial backing for the institution to stay afloat, which means drawing in more supporters and sometimes hiring business savvy professionals (Are these typically curators?! I lament the fact that I took no business classes in undergrad!). Did I not just read over the summer how the Guggenheim, one of the giants of the museum world, laid-off nearly twenty percent of its staff? And the Seattle Times just released an article about the new director of the Seattle Art Museum and his pending financial battles. (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2009271160_museum28m.html). Even the Museum of Contemporary Arts sways to the tune of the economy and hopes to find monetary relief by displaying, for the first time, a full house of their own collections rather than bringing in big-budget temporary exhibitions.( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/arts/design/13finkel.html?ref=design) Does the catchphrase “business is business” ever become appropriate for museum operations? (I do not know the answer.) What’s more, why NOT use everything possible—yoga, bicycling, anything!—to make sure that people come to the museum? I think (perhaps naively, perhaps not) that when a person visits, regardless of whether or not their initial motivation is true to the art, that the art they encounter will inexorably draw their attention and ideally their repeated attendance. Ideally.

Side note: I love this trend of museums promoting and exhibiting a greater portion of their own collections! I will never forget the tinge of sadness I felt, about five years ago, at the sight of all the fantastic artworks in the storage spaces of the Birmingham Museum of Art. I kept thinking, “I would take them home to display!”