Museums and wealth : the politics of contemporary art collections

Museums and Wealth is a critical analysis of contemporary art collections and the value form. In the United States, institutions administered by the nonprofit system have an ambiguous status as they are neither entirely private nor fully public. Among nonprofits, the museum is unique as it is the only institution where trustees tend to collect the same objects they hold in “public trust” on behalf of the nation, if not humanity. The public serves as alibi for establishing the symbolic value of art, which sustains its monetary value and its markets. This allows for wealthy individuals at the helm to gain financial benefits from, and ideological control over, what is at its core purpose a public system. The dramatic growth of the art market and the development of financial tools based on art-collateral loans exacerbate the contradiction between the needs of museum leadership versus that of the public. Indeed, a history of private support in the US is a history of racist discrimination, and the common collections reflect this fact. This book shows why the nonprofit system, understood as third sector or “shadow state,” is unfit to administer our common collections, and offers solutions for diversity reform and redistributive restructuring. A longue durée history of how private collections in city and nation states were turned public, gives context. Since the late Renaissance, private collections legitimized the right of the prince to rule, and later, with the great revolutions, display consolidated national identity. But the rise of the American museum reversed this trajectory and re-privatized the public collection. A materialist description of the museum as a model institution of the liberal nation state reveals constellations of imperialist social relations. Museums and Wealthis a critical analysis of contemporary art collections and the value form. In the United States, institutions administered by the nonprofit system have an ambiguous status as they are neither entirely private nor fully public. Among nonprofits, the museum is unique as it is the only institution where trustees tend to collect the same objects they hold in “public trust” on behalf of the nation, if not humanity. The public serves as alibi for establishing the symbolic value of art, which sustains its monetary value and its markets. This allows for wealthy individuals at the helm to gain financial benefits from, and ideological control over, what is at its core purpose a public system. The dramatic growth of the art market and the development of financial tools based on art-collateral loans exacerbate the contradiction between the needs of museum leadership versus that of the public. Indeed, a history of private support in the US is a history of racist discrimination, and the common collections reflect this fact. This book shows why the nonprofit system, understood as third sector or “shadow state,” is unfit to administer our common collections, and offers solutions for diversity reform and redistributive restructuring. A longue durée history of how private collections in city and nation states were turned public, gives context. Since the late Renaissance, private collections legitimized the right of the prince to rule, and later, with the great revolutions, display consolidated national identity. But the rise of the American museum re-privatized the public collection. A materialistdescription of the museum as a model institution of the liberal nation state reveals constellations of imperialist social relations. Cover Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION The study and its methodology World-systems periodization: racial capitalism What is a totalizing perspective? Chapter overview Chapter 1 THE SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY: ART AND IMPERIALISMI The ambiguous status of American art museums The Fisher collection deal: what we know and what are we asking Conflicting agendas of private and public interest The politics and aesthetics of private interest Art and imperialism Fighting for crumbs: problems with defense of public money in its current form “Grateful for small abuses”: diminishing public support Arts funding and diversity Art finance and wealth management: questioning the public merit of private collections Against market criteria Private collections: a curatorial history perspective on the question of quality criteria Neo-expressionism in San Francisco: the conservatism of Georg Baselitz Formulas for beauty: Gerhard Richter’s cottage industry of singular-multiples Conclusion Chapter 2 THE SUBSTANCE OF SYMBOLIC VALUE: MUSEUMS AND PRIVATE COLLECTING Introduction: the private appropriation of public value Institutional value: price advantages for collector/trustees The private metabolism of a public good Art’s role in the financial growth regime The financialization of art History and legal theory of the public/private distinction The nonprofit sector as shadow state Tax monies: private or public A brief history of the legal distinction between the private and public realms Symbolic value and ideology Bourdieu’s symbolic capital An economic theory of art’s ideology The substance of art’s value Productive and unproductive labor The appearance of value in art Conclusion: some immediate solutions Chapter 3 FROM MEDICI TO MOMA: COLLECTIONS, SOVEREIGNTY, AND THE PRIVATE/PUBLIC DISTINCTION The Renaissance roots of MoMA’s two audience Art’s economic character A few methodological and typological notes Externalizing the collection: a prehistory of the public From the private studiolo to the proto-public Uffizi Collection as oratory Florentine economy, governance, and art Luxury and abstraction The origins of capitalism in the sixteenth century: a debate From city- to nation-state: collections and national identity The museum: an instrument of social control The United States: private philanthropy and public collections American philanthropy and the state The New York Museum of Modern Art MoMA and the private/public ambiguity What is the “Public Trust”? What does it mean that the MoMA is private? Conclusion Chapter 4 BLUEPRINTS FOR THE FUTURE: DEMOGRAPHIC AND ECONOMIC CHANGE Racial capitalism and world system Is it still capitalism? A neofeudal present Economic dependency and racial inequality Museum collections: who will be the judge? Philanthrocapitalism The public: abstract and concrete The limits of nonprofit scholarship and reform Solutions Immediate solutions Collecting solutions Taxing the secondary market In the long run CONCLUSION NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX "A focus on the museum as a model institution of the liberal nation state can reveal much about the ethics of where, why, and how, the public sector meets private interest. In a non-profit institution, the category of "the public" plays a role in establishing the symbolic value of art, yet this is what sustains its markets and its monetary value; the public is therefore a necessary component in art's profit potential, especially since art began yielding super-profits in the late 20th century. A shift in the structure and operation of non-profit institutions, following the economic crash of 2008, has accelerated the growth of the art market and the museum boom, affecting the economy and meaning of contemporary art in the 21st century. Shaked lays out and critiques the set of unprecedented historical conditions that have been converging since the 1970s, while reverting to models of criteria and judgment that existed in the 16th century, to demonstrate the exacerbated ethical problems we now face in the funding and operations of nonprofit museums. Through a Historical Materialism critique, observing the art object as both an historical object and as one produced in contemporary conditions, this book describes the collection, the market, and the institution as a set of social relations to get a total picture of the meaning of art within this oscillating constellation of social and monetary relations. Art moves from the level of individual or small-scale making, through the circulation systems of market and media, to the museum-the institution that confers the possibility of value in the name of the public. To understand this dynamic, Shaked traces the path of the art object, viewing it not as an individual object, part of an artist's oeuvre, or representative of a school, but in the context of the "public collection" as a category. Comparing different definitions and theories of value allows this book to connect historical, political, aesthetic, theoretical, and economic paradigms of inquiry."-- Provided by publisher Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2023 A critical analysis of contemporary art collections and the value form, this book shows why the nonprofit system is unfit to administer our common collections, and offers solutions for diversity reform and redistributive restructuring. In the United States, institutions administered by the nonprofit system have an ambiguous status as they are neither entirely private nor fully public. Among nonprofits, the museum is unique as it is the only institution where trustees tend to collect the same objects they hold in "public trust" on behalf of the nation, if not humanity. The public serves as alibi for establishing the symbolic value of art, which sustains its monetary value and its markets. This structure allows for wealthy individuals at the helm to gain financial benefits from, and ideological control over, what is at its core purpose a public system. The dramatic growth of the art market and the development of financial tools based on art-collateral loans exacerbate the contradiction between the needs of museum leadership versus that of the public. Indeed, a history of private support in the US is a history of racist discrimination, and the common collections reflect this fact. A history of how private collections were turned public gives context. Since the late Renaissance, private collections legitimized the prince's right to rule, and later, with the great revolutions, display consolidated national identity. But the rise of the American museum reversed this and re-privatized the public collection. A materialist description of the museum as a model institution of the liberal nation state reveals constellations of imperialist social relations.