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Arts director Graham Beal |
The office of Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s unelected emergency manager,
denied reports that the auction house visited the museum at his request,
and suggested that one of the city’s creditors may have ordered the
appraisal. On the morning of Detroit’s bankruptcy filing, Orr called the
sale of the DIA’s collection an “open item for the future.”
Despite Orr’s public evasions, there should be little doubt that
plans to liquidate the artwork of the DIA are currently being
negotiated, if they have not been agreed upon already.
Founded in 1885, the Detroit Institute of Arts is the second-largest
municipal art museum in the United States. It houses over 65,000 works
of art, which encompass an incredible range of period and medium. The
collection ranges from well-known works by Picasso, Renoir, Van Gogh,
O’Keefe, Bruegel, and Caravaggio (among many others), to early Islamic
art, Native American craftwork, a stunning mural by Diego Rivera and an
extensive collection of culturally-significant puppets, including the
iconic Howdy Doody marionette.
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The Detroit Institute of Arts
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Far from being, as Forbes contributor Tim Worstall writes,
merely “some paint daubed pieces of canvas,” the DIA’s collection is an
irreplaceable expression of human intellect and creativity.
The sale of such a large and significant public collection is
entirely without precedent. The only case that comes close is the
collection-sharing agreement reached last year between Fisk University’s
museum and the private Crystal Bridges Museum founded by Walmart
heiress Alice Walton.
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The murals of Diego Rivera inside the DIA
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In that deal, Crystal Bridges purchased a 50 percent stake in Fisk’s
Stieglitz collection. Artist Georgia O’Keefe donated the collection to
Fisk with a stipulation that the collection never be sold. In exchange
for transferring the collection for display at Crystal Bridges every two
years, the deeply indebted Fisk University museum received $30 million.
The legal framework for the sale of a collection like the DIA’s, in
violation of the public trust, may well have been laid in this instance.
The June appraisal of the DIA’s collection by Christie’s follows an
inventory ordered by Orr earlier in the year that estimated the value of
the museum’s collection at several billion dollars. In the event of a
sale, an estimate of value done by the museum itself would not
necessarily reflect the market value of the art and both seller and any
potential buyers would conduct an independent evaluation by an auction
house.
Regardless of the origin of the order to assess the value of the
DIA’s collection, its occurrence indicates a definitive step in the
direction of a sale.
There are different forms the sale of the DIA’s assets could take. An
outright sale of a number of pieces in the museum’s collection,
referred to as deaccessioning, would inevitably flood the world art
market, resulting in a decrease in the sale price and a significant cut
on the return.
Several paintings in the DIA’s collection have been valued at $100 million or more, including Van Gogh’s Self Portrait.
Given these extremely high values, it is doubtful that any of the
museum’s most prominent artworks could be purchased by other public
museums and would therefore most likely find their way into the private
collections of billionaires.
Another potential scenario involves the city charging the DIA
approximately $20 million per year in rent over the next ten to twenty
years. This proposal would in effect negate the $22 million millage for
operating costs passed unanimously by voters last year. It would force
the museum to eliminate programs, cut back on conservation and gradually
deaccession artwork over a longer period of time, essentially resulting
in death by attrition.
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The Wedding Dance by Peter Brueghel the Elder
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Outright privatization of the museum could also occur under the terms
of the city’s bankruptcy. In the meantime, the DIA has secured its own
bankruptcy lawyer and is courting wealthy patrons who may be willing to
purchase the art and then donate it back to the city.
Whatever form a sale of the DIA’s artwork may take, what is certain
is that Detroit’s creditors will have their pound of flesh while the
workers of the city will be left with nothing. The oft-repeated con that
the sale of artwork could help float unfunded pension obligations is
just that: a lie. Any money made on the sale of artwork will be funneled
into the pockets of the banks and away from the workers and retirees
whose pensions and benefits will be slashed regardless.
Art critics and writers have spoken out against Christie’s decision
to assess the DIA collection, some of whom have denounced the auction
house as “vultures.” Culture journalist Judith Dobrzynski wrote on her
blog Real Clear Arts, “Sure, business is business, but let’s
remember here that it is not the Detroit Institute of Arts that has
mismanaged the city and led to the bankruptcy. … Is Christie’s so hard
up that it will take any business, no matter how reprehensible? That’s
sad.”
No one should be surprised at the behavior of Christie’s auction
house, however, as its very lifeblood springs from the hoarding of the
world’s cultural patrimony by social parasites. Christie’s is the
world’s largest fine-art auction house and is controlled by French
billionaire Francois Pinault and his son Francois-Henri Pinault.
The elder Pinault claims many friends in French ruling circles,
including former President Jacques Chirac. Francois-Henri is well-known
both for his marriage to actress Salma Hayek and his patronage of the
art-world darling and charlatan, Damien Hirst.
The Pinaults hold a controlling interest in a number of other
“lifestyle” companies including Samsonite, Converse shoes, Puma, and
Vail Ski Resort, among others. In 2012, Christie’s reported more than
$3.5 billion in sales, up 11.5 percent over the previous year.
The threat to sell off the collection of the Detroit Institute of
Arts points to the anti-social parasitism of this social layer, which is
willing to drag human culture back centuries for the purpose of its own
enrichment and aggrandizement.
(Photos added by Axis of Logic)
Source: WSWS
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