Slog: News & Arts

RSS icon Comments on It's Official: SAM Is Weeding Its American Collection

1

This is fascinating. So SAM wants to sell certain pieces and then use the proceeds to acquire certain other pieces it deems better. Of course, if the desired pieces really are "better," then they're going to cost more on the market and you can't cover their cost with the proceeds from the sales. Well, unless of course you can find some unsuspecting sucker to overpay.

At this point, I'm thinking, what does this remind me of? Of course, pro sports! So museum curators are not unlike general managers who are trying to unload their undesirable talent in hopes of landing some other team's underappreciated talent. Of course, for every Billy Beane in Oakland, there's a --- what's his name? -- Bavasi in Seattle. And I guess just like in sports, sometimes it's not so much the assets themselves as the identity you're trying to establish with them. What identity is SAM trying to establish?

Hmm, to carry the sports analogy one step further... Wasn't Paul Allen's personal collection at EMP very much like his collection of players with the Portland TrailBlazers?

Anyway, not to dismiss the importance of permanent collections, but just the mention of Marsden Hartley here immediately brings to mind not Seattle Art Museum, but Tacoma Art Museum, thanks to their recent Hartley exhibit.

Posted by cressona | November 8, 2006 7:59 PM
2

Is the SAM out of it's mind? Selling off works by Marsden Hartley, Cassatt, and John Marin??? These artists are at the foundations of modern and contemporary American art and irreplaceable. SAM should be building it’s collection of these artists not thinning it.

Posted by GFS | November 9, 2006 12:07 PM
3

I think its important that these matters are discussed. Seattle Art Museum is a private museum and can buy and sell whatever they like. However, they do accept public funding and they rely on memberships and support from the community.
I am always hearing buzzwords like "dialogue", "inclusion" and other placative words from the art institutions but they usually end up being just that, words.
I feel we have a serious problem here in Seattle where it appears that many people feel a disconnection from the local art institutions and I dont mean just SAM, it extends to the other museums as well.
My own personal interest is heavily focused on regional art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Seattle has a credible and impressive art history and yet it is not published anywhere. We are one of the only states in the country that has no book describing our regional art history. Idaho even has one, for God's sake! From my own research, I have found that Washington state's art history is far superior to many other states who have championed their region. Local museums have barely any extant examples of early regional art in their permanent collections and they are pulling farther away from exhibiting it in the fear of appearing provincial.
If SAM de-accessions works that they feel are unimportant, that is their prerogitive. However, I suggest that they and the other local museums take an honest assessment of what they have in their collections and show it to the public through their exhibitions. Let the public see what they have and let the world see it as well. You cannot make a case for the quality of works of art if they are lingering for decades in the stacks of the museums. Perhaps if these works were properly cleaned and conserved, displayed and presented in an interesting manner where local and outside scholars and curators could access them, maybe these works wouldnt be considered so minor. They surely had to have had some intrinsic worth to enter the collection in the first place.
Lastly, I just dont understand why SAM should have to be put in this position when we have some of the wealthiest people in the world living here in the Northwest. I grew up in Buffalo, NY and their Albright-Knox museum has one of the finest collections in the country thanks to the generosity of families of means such as the Goodyear's and the Knox's. They purchased major works for the museum to be shared with the community. The museum publishes and promotes its collection to the benefit of the donor, the artist and the public. I find it strange that Paul Allen would display his collection at the EMP instead of SAM. I just dont understand why these immensely wealthy individuals dont supplement SAM with works they need for their collections so they dont have to sell what few pieces they do have.

Posted by David Martin | November 9, 2006 1:39 PM
4

I know Marin watercolor donor Annie Gerber recently died and wonder whether SAM would deaccession works acquired from living donors?
And what about the value of a diverse collection for the benefit of local scholars and as bargaining chips for inter-museum loans and so forth?
Also, as an aside, one work by an artist is not the same as the artist; I guess I disagree with the previous poster that a museum is obliged to keep placeholder works for every ostensibly important modern or proto-contemporary artist.
But that's tactics, essentially; what I'm really surprised by is the simplistic and ahistorical understanding of the notion of quality articulated in this discussion. Despite what the SAM curator says, you can't really "take lesser examples and turn them into finer things;" still, it's not the Transformers/My Fair Lady reference that bugs me, but rather the casual nod to the category "finer things"...who's to say what THAT means? It's been a long, long time since a museum collection has been able to lean on/prop up some universal and/or timeless standard of excellence, hasn't it? "These are absolutely paintings we would not show"? It's been a long time since works in a collection were only shown because they embodied excellence, hasn't it?

Posted by Brian | November 9, 2006 1:42 PM
5

3/4 Mill for Marin? 1. Take money 2. Run

Posted by loopyblue | November 9, 2006 3:04 PM
6

Sure, you can't keep everything.. Some art doesn't turn out to be so meaningful decades later.. Other art may have fit the collection at one time, but the art in general, or collection out grew it. deaccession is a normal and necessary part of the process for a museum.

But what I'm not happy with, is the secrecy involved in museum transactions, and the conflicts of interest. I suspect that with the many generous donors, we get more good than bad out of the process, but more public awareness is definately needed.

RE the SAM's collection. massive swaths is the best term i can use to describe the great works that they have had boxed away for years without exhibition. meanwhile, I've seen that damn TV glued with roses with the girl putting on makup at probably 3 sepearate exhibitions. Once is fine for now thank you... Have I ever seen the Marin on exhibit??? NO..

Curatorial choices aside.. I don't see how works particularly like the Marin, and hartley's don't fit the collection. The SAM's strongest foundation is having one of the greatest collections of world renouned local artists like Tobey and Graves.. Despite their isolation in the NW, and the obvious results on their own style and developement.. um.. they were heavily influenced by the NY scene at a fairly early stage.. We know Tobey was familiar with works by Masson and Pollock and other European and NY artists and that probably had a massive influence on his work.. So rather than explore that root of modernism that became the NW style.. they are hawking them to buy a bigger better piece of blah..

We should physicall stop the sale of the Marin.. somebody complain!

Posted by GFS | November 9, 2006 10:36 PM
7

This morning we learn that the Albright-Knox -- alluded to above as an exemplar of patronage-style collecting -- is deaccessioning works that are well outside the museum's focus on modern and contemporary art: are we more comfortable with this kind of thing than SAM's within-the-focus pruning and adjusting?

Posted by brian | November 10, 2006 7:25 AM
8

jonny

Posted by jonny | November 10, 2006 7:32 PM
9

OK, so SAM is selling off some works in its collection that it deems of unworthy. Museums aren't perfect in deciding which works to buy and which to sell. But my guess is that they do a hell of a lot better job of it than critics or dealers. Sure they are often influenced too much in their choices by what some rich collector wants to give them but I'll take the occasional mistake (that can later be sold) to get the great works that the museum would not otherwise be able to afford. If SAM is selling works that it does not consider good enough for the museum it would hardly be in its interest to bad mouth them. Instead of moaning about SAM selling a few paintings that have been in storage for years, we should be celebrating the fact that SAM is striving to become a world-class modern art museum.

Posted by paul | November 14, 2006 11:28 AM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).