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The Pitfalls of Non-Profit Accounting

So sorry for going dark for a little while – it’s been an eventful few weeks for your industrious blogger. We’ll be back to regular posting this week. As always, if you have any suggestions for posts or would like to contribute by guest posting, please email me: amanda.gustin[at]tufts[dot]edu.
If you’ve seen the news lately, you know that author, mountaineer, and lecturer Greg Mortensen, famous for building schools in Afghanistan through his book Three Cups of Tea and its concomitant foundation, the Central Asia Institute, is in more than a bit of trouble. The accounting at his non-profit has gone awry, and it appears that he’s not doing everything he said he would.

Over at The Atlantic, economics blogger Megan McArdle has an interesting post about “instant development,” or, the perils of expecting one messianic genius to change the world. She cites John Krakauer’s initial expose into Mortensen’s business practices, as well as a very thoughtful post from Swarthmore professor Timothy Burke about exactly what projects make the most sense to fund.

There are more than a few parallels to start-up museums in this story. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Keep your books straight. Beware of mission creep. Focus on the smaller, less-glamorous practical results.

Musuems and the World: Whose Story Is It?

This is an absolutely amazing-looking forum coming up on Thursday, April 14. Those of you who are not in Rainey’s Material Culture class should absolutely check it out – and please write about it for the blog!

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On April 14 2011 The Northeastern University Humanities Center will host seven leading museum professionals, philosophers and artists for a panel discussion entitled Museums and the World: Whose Story Is It? Artist Fred Wilson, McArthur Genius Grant Recipient, along with several others from various organizations including, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Smithsonian, Artist in Context, Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation will consider how museums and other cultural and educational institutions preserve and create ideas and identity in the global, digital age. What are the challenges? What are the opportunities?

The discussion is co-sponsored by the Northeastern University Humanities Center and the USC Fisher Museum of Art and will be followed by a reception. Museums and the World: Whose Story Is It? will take place on April 14, 2011 from 5:00-7:00 PM in the Amilcar Cabral Memorial Student Center, located at 40 Leon Street, West Village F, Boston, Massachusetts.  The event is free and open to the public.

More information about panelists for Museums and the World: Whose Story Is It?

Roger W. Bowen, Director of the Woodrow Wilson Fellows Program, Former Director of the Public Museum of Milwaukee, Former Secretary General of the American Association of University Professors
Roger W. Bowen currently serves as Principal Associate of the executive search firm, Archer-Martin Associates; as Senior Advisor (Council of Independent Colleges) and Director of the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows Program; and as Board Governance Consultant for the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. Bowen has served as General Secretary of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), as President/CEO of the Milwaukee Public Museum and as President of the State University of New York at New Paltz. Formerly he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at Hollins University. In spring 1996 he was in residence at the Center for the Humanities and Public Policy (University of Virginia) as a Research Fellow. Earlier he held several administrative positions at Colby College in Maine, including Director of East Asian Studies, Director of Black Studies, Director of Colby-in-Cork (Ireland), and Professor and Chair of the Department of Government. From 1981 until 2008 he was an Associate in Research at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University.

Elliot Bostwick Davis, John Moors Cabot Chair, “Art of the Americas,” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Elliot Bostwick Davis is the John Moors Cabot Chair of the new “Art of the Americas” wing at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. This preeminent assemblage of 15,000 works offers a more inclusive definition of American art by including more than 5,000 works from North, Central, and South America. During her previous tenure at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Davis helped organize the museum’s landmark exhibition of American art from the Age of Jackson through the Civil War. The accompanying catalogue, which Davis co-authored, was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the 25 most important books published in 2000. “She has a real vision,” said MFA director Malcolm Rogers of Davis, “and a sense almost of moral responsibility to tell the tale of American art.”

Selma Holo, Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California, Director of the Fisher Museum of Art, Founding Director of University of Southern California’s Museum Studies Program
Selma Holo has written and lectured extensively on Spanish artists. Her recent scholarly focus has been the role of museums in society. Her books, Beyond the Prado, Museums and Identity in Democratic Spain and Oaxaca at the Crossroads: Managing Memory, Negotiating Change, illuminate how museums can help shift a nation or a region’s sense of identity during times of social and political transitions. Her most recent book, Beyond the Turnstile, Making the Case for Museums and Sustainable Values, provides a language for all museums to articulate their indispensable part in shaping culture. Holo is a professor of the history of art at the University of Southern California (USC). She is also director of the USC Fisher Museum of Art and director of the College’s International Museum Studies Institute, along with Mexico’s representative, Graciela de la Torre.

Richard Koshalek, Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian
Richard Koshalek is Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the modern and contemporary art museum of the Smithsonian Institution. From 1979-1999 Koshalek was director of The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. He is widely known for his commitment to international initiatives and exchanges, new artistic commissions, scholarly exhibitions and publications, and the building of new architectural facilities, including MOCA’s temporary contemporary, Walt Disney concert Hall (Chairman Architecture Committee), and Tate Modern (Architecture Selection Committee) that have garnered widespread acclaim. Currently he is engaged in creating the Seasonal Inflatable Structure at the Hirshhorn, a new public forum for contemporary art and culture.

Louisa McCall, Co-Director, “Artists in Context”
Louisa McCall is a creative consultant and codirector of Artists in Context, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based nonprofit designed to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration among contemporary artists and creative thinkers. Before joining Artists in Context, she was program director at the LEF Foundation New England, where she developed strategic arts initiatives and oversaw $4.3 million in funding for hundreds of artists. Prior to that, she organized a national conference for the Institute for Art and Civil Dialogue at Harvard University, in collaboration with Anna Deavere Smith, the W.E.B. DuBois Institute, and the American Repertory Theater. McCall has also consulted with the City of Boston Public Art Commission and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, where she is a member of the board of directors

Graciela de la Torre, Director of the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, National Autonomous University of Mexico
Graciela de la Torre was born in Mexico City. She holds a B.A. in Art History, among other studies, and is an almuni of the Getty Leadership Institute. She was Director of the National Museum of San Carlos and of the Museo Nacional de Arte, MUNAL, both in Mexico City. She was responsible for the renovation of the museum with the project Munal 2000. Since 2004, she has been the Director of Visual Arts at the National University Autonomous of Mexico, UNAM. Under her administration are: El Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo (MuAC) inaugurated in 2008, MUCA Roma and theMuseo Experimental El Eco. In 2009, she was distinguished with the ICOM award for “representing the most notable in the mexican museum field.”

Fred Wilson, Artist, McArthur Genius Grant Recipient, Whitney Museum Trustee
Fred Wilson’s work has been featured in over 100 group exhibitions, including the 50th Venice Biennale (2003) as the American representative, the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial Exhibition (1993), and the 4th International Cairo Biennale (1992). He has had over 25 solo museum exhibitions internationally, and has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, among them, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award (the “Genius Grant”), Chicago (1999). Fred Wilson is represented by The Pace Gallery, N.Y., and currently lives and works in New York City.

Museums: Educators or Collectors?

I recently finished reading Thomas Hoving’s memoir, Making the Mummies Dance. Hoving was director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1967 to 1977. He was a fascinating, polarizing figure, and passed away in 2009; his obituary in the New York Times is a thoughtful summation of his life and work.

Hoving had clear, definite opinions about nearly everything. I would highly recommend reading this book; it’s by turns fascinating, horrifying, hilarious, and charming. There’s something in there for everyone to like, and for everyone to hate.

One passage in particular really jumped out at me. Hoving had just finalized the purchase of a seminal work by Velazquez, Juan de Pareja, for the record price of just over $5.5 million, and his director of education, Harry Parker, was not pleased.

I told [chairman of the board of trustees, Douglas] Dillon that Harry Parker and his group would want to be reassured that the priorities of the museum were not changing with such an expenditure.

“One would think that the acquisition of such a world masterpiece is in itself the nucleus of the educational process,” Dillon observed.

But when I told Harry Parker, he flew into a rage. “I cannot believe this!” he cried. You have in one stupid stroke lost millions for this institution! I find this purchase inexplicable and outrageous and indelibly damaging to the museum.”

I chewed him out. “People don’t give a damn what the Rembrandt cost,” I said, “or what the Canova cost, what the Raphael cost, what the Unicorn Tapestries cost – all they care about is that these beautiful, powerful things enhance their lives. They are proud that the museum owns them. Someday you’ll learn that sure, education, outreach programs, liaison with colleges and universities, publishing books and articles is important – but they all pale in comparison to collecting treasures. Collecting is still what it’s all about. Collecting is why people come in the doors. The Juan de Pareja will be the biggest piece of education material you’ve got going for you. The point is – and someday you’ll experience it yourself – that you have to have the guts to reach out and grab for the very best!”

The meeting ended. Harry Parker left, his face black with anger.

The purchase of Juan de Pareja was almost exactly forty years ago. There’s a lot going on in what Hoving – and Parker – say here (or to be more accurate, what Hoving recalls them saying, twenty years later). How much of it is still true? How much of it do you agree or disagree with?

Is collecting still what it’s all about? Do museums exist to collect treasures?

Are these treasures the biggest pieces of educational materials that museums have? Do a museum’s objects have to be “treasures” in order to educate appropriately?

What else would you do with $5.5 million – do you think it’s fair or smart to spend that money on one piece of art?

(For the record, I very strongly disagree with Hoving in this passage; museums are educational institutions before they are collecting ones for me, but there is some truth to what he says. A museum’s collections – whether “treasures” or more ordinary objects – are its greatest educational assets.)

Lessons from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra

I don’t know how many museums are unionized (I’d love to hear about any, if anyone has some leads), so the specific problem that the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is facing might not have a direct correlation to museums – but other aspects certainly do.

Essentially, the orchestra’s private employment difficulties have spilled out into the public arena via that ever-popular venue for over-sharing, Facebook. Fans of the orchestra are up in arms; the management of the orchestra has made some bad public relations blunders (for example, demanding to know how many of the complaining Facebook fans had ever donated money…), and the striking musicians have set up their own Facebook fan page.

You can listen to the NPR story here.

What can museums learn from this?

Well, there’s the constant lesson that people keep learning about the internet: it’s public. It’s very, very public. That website you made back in 1995 as a stunt for your friends? Yeah, it’s still there somewhere.

Inherent in that broad publicity is a responsibility in two parts. First, be careful what you say out there. Just because the internet makes it easier to be anonymous doesn’t mean it makes it easier to escape repercussions. It also doesn’t remove the necessity of being thoughtful, sincere, and polite – a lesson the majority of anonymous commenters have yet to internalize. The responsibility for civil discourse in the internet age belongs to both sides, moreover – to a museum and its fans.

Second, be honest. Be transparent. Share with courage and emotion. If we’re moving into this brave new world of anonymity and computer screens, it’s incumbent on us to establish human connections to the people behind the usernames. This goes double for museums, I think, which are traditionally regarded as secretive organizations. I’m not saying over-share. I’m saying be honest and sincere about what you do share. Commit with emotion, and people will respond.

(Maybe a third lesson is don’t piss off your donors. For these purposes, donors also includes “potential donors” which is everyone from your elderly grandmother to the three year old who came to the family concert last week. Make bold artistic choices, not boneheaded managerial ones.)

Anyone else take anything else from this? Any other observations on online conduct in the information age for nonprofit organizations?

Improv at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

You might well have seen this already – it’s gone viral in museum circles – but just in case you haven’t: King Philip IV recently signed autographs in front of his Velazquez portrait at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Well, sort of.

Scroll down and read the comments on Improv Everywhere’s write-up of the stunt. They’re from an obviously biased source – most people loved the prank – but they also do not seem to be typical museum goers. Here’s a comment that struck fear and hope into my heart: “Museums are so stuffy and pretentious…they need things like this to make them fun places for real human beings. Brilliant!!!!”

Did the Met security guard do the right thing in ushering the actors out? Should museums as a whole be encouraging more of this sort of thing – or less?

(In my ideal world, the Met let them go on for at least an hour, and then sat down to meet with the group about more museum-themed pranks – spontaneous, charming expressions of whimsy that inject life into the galleries. But maybe some of you disagree with me! Comment on this post and let’s start a conversation.)

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