Making Museums Matter

By Stephen E. Weil

About the Author

• Stephen E. Weil (1928-2005)

• Authored 4 books about museums

• 40 year career as attorney and museum executive

• Expert in copyrights, trusteeships and the sale of artworks from museum collections

• Worked for Smithsonian for many years.

About the Book

• Split into 4 sections:

– The Museum in Pursuit of Excellence

– The Museum as a Workplace

– The Museum as a Palace

– The Museum as a Public Sphere

Good vs. Bad Museums

• Not all museums are “good”

• Some are better than others

• Criteria for a good museum:

– Purposive

– Capable

– Effective

– Efficient

Purposiveness (35 points)

• Must have a clear sense of what purposes they are trying to accomplish

• Purposes must include preservation, scholarship, and public programming

• Must be expressed in concrete and time bound way that can serve as basis for accountability

• Must be able to be achieved with available resources

• Must be reflected in museum programming • Must be clear and consistent with one another

Capability (30 points)

• Must have the resources necessary to meet purposes

• Must be able to raise substantial portion of funds through voluntary contributions, membership campaigns etc.

• Good leadership, management, and specialists

• Satisfy 2 kinds of “customers” donors and visitors, sometimes conflicting

• Collections and facilities

Effectiveness (25 points)

• Able to accomplish purposes they set out to accomplish

• Hardest to evaluate, but maybe most important

• Of preservation, scholarship, and public programming, public programming hardest to evaluate

• Three E’s

Efficiency (10 points)

• Able to accomplish purposes in a maximally economic way

• Easiest to correct, least impact on museum’s operations

Point System (out of 100 points)

• 91-100: first class museum

• 71-90: passable

• 61-70: marginal

• 60 and below: failure

• Therefore museum with no purpose of effectiveness can’t be rated higher than marginal

(F)FeTMu

• Famous Ferd Threstle Museum

• Won multi-million dollar prize in magazine subscription contest

• With his money, created a museum with the sole purpose of making his name famous

• Successful at linking assessment to purpose

Old vs. new Mindset of Museums

OLD:

• Collection-based organizations

• They are inherently good

• Just existing is helping the community

• “Selling mode”

NEW:

• Educationally focused

• Forced to demonstrate worth

• Some are better than others

• Focused more on results

• “Marketing” mode

United Way Model

• 1995, to qualify for funding, must demonstrate ability to make positive differences

• “hope” and “expect” instead of “mission” or “mandate”

• outcomes: benefit or changes for individuals or populations during or after participating in program activities

• Good museum: Operated with hope and expectation that it will make a positive difference in quality of people’s lives

Gone to the Dogs • Exhibit about dogs, past and present

• Brought about shared concerns and interconnectedness of community

• Museums too narrowly defined by discipline in U.S

• Children’s museums-first to be for somebody rather than about something

• Anacostia Neighborhood Museum

Fantasy islands

• 2 islands were identical, self sustaining, citizens never left

• One decides to build museum, while other uses resources for family services, education

• Which one is better off in the future?

Similarities to libraries

• Feeling pressure to market themselves more than ever

• No longer considered good or necessary just because it exists

• Must have purpose, capability, effectiveness, and efficiency

• Should focus on community needs

Distinctive Numerator

• Art Strike Against Racism, Sexism, Repression and War-Riots at the 1970’s AAM Meeting.

• How do museums benefit the public?

• Why are museums worthy of public support?

• What kind of positive change can

they effect in the world?

Agents of Social Change

• Museums as a source of influence on social change.

• Museums as creators of educated, informed and sensitive citizens.

• Museums as contributors toward building “just, abundant, harmonious, and humane society.”

Distinctive Numerator

• “What each of our institutions contribute to its community derives not form its common denominator (all museum are good) but from its distinctive numerator-from what it can contribute, uniquely in its community or perhaps uniquely (…) to the well-being of a specific group of people in a specific time and place.” (p.96)

Unique contribution ÷ all museums are good

Museums-What Matters

• Choosing its purpose firmly and making that choice publicly and consistently clear

• Making museums accountable

• Coming up with processes to measure impact and outcomes.

Museums: Romance vs. Realism

Realism:

• Value-neutral organization which, depending on its purpose, may or may not be considered of universal and/or positive value.

• Focus on effectiveness and intended outcomes

• Changeable.

Romance:

• Museums is per se an institution of universal and positive value

• Focus on efficiency and survival

• Static.

Romance vs. Reality of Museums

• UNESCO: all museums contribute to the mutual understanding of people and should be readily accessible.

• But what about South Carolina’s Ku Klux Klan museum, museums in Iraq, Yugoslavia, etc.?

• Realistic view: positive impact, effectiveness and increased regard for the museums.

Museums in the Times of the revolutionary Bliss

• Post-WW II change from inward (preservation, scholarship) to outward (public service) focus.

• Growing cooperation with other sectors and organizations (libraries, schools, etc.)

– Strong Museum In Rochester, NY

• Technological innovations (de-materialization, e-communication).

Museums and Censorship

• Obscenity:

– Defined based on community standards, content and artistic value

Ex. 1990 obscenity trial of Dennis Barrie

• Government Funding:

– Government cannot choose which museum it will or will not fund

based on the content

Ex. Rudolph Giuliani

and the Brooklyn

Museum.

Museums Collecting: Changing Philosophies

• Cost of collecting: – true cost ($60/object/year) vs.

benefit to public

• Legal and ethical changes:

– Legal and voluntary restrictions on obtaining cultural property.

Museum Collecting: Changing Philosophies

• It’s the mission that shapes the collection not the opposite

• Not – “Is this a truly remarkable and intrinsically

desirable object?”

• But – “How might this object be useful to the museum in

carrying out its institutional mission?”

The Museum as a Palace

Chapter 16- Courtly Ghost and Aristocratic Artifacts

Chapter 17- Reduced to Art

Chapter 18- John Cotton Dana’s New Museum

Chapter 16- Courtly Ghost and

Aristocratic Artifacts

The Inheritors of Art Museums

• During the court of Louis

xiv, those who were

categorized as the highest

ranks, were forbidden by

tradition to engage in any

meaningful productive

work. It has always been

know that a members

status was defined by who

they were and not by what

they have accomplished.

The inheritors would be, the King, the Prince of Blood, the Great Dukes and the Counts.

• The fact that the need

to be proficient was not

earned, but was an

inherited right through

one’s rankings that

symbolized and

influenced a person’s

status above all others.

Founders of Art Museums Vision

Mid 19th Century

• Places of public improvement, incite & informing

• Moral uplift & inspiring

• Educational advancement to instruct

21st Century

• Has to be essential to the conscientious

• Continuous

• Recognize distinction of quality from mediocrity

Education to Aesthetic 19th -21st Century

Museum of Fine Arts

Boston Metropolitan Museum

New York

Categories of objects collected Aesthetic Purity

Valued at “an ends to itself”

• How art looks

• How art is ranked in categories by high culture & popular culture

• Rare works

Commodity Value

Supply & Demand

• Quality from mediocrity

• Less duplication

• Unique works of arts

• Rare works

“Reduced to Art” a scenario

“During an annual American Association of Museums (AAM) meeting in the early 1980’s, the minister of antiquities from a West African nation was one of the guest speaker at the conference. The guest speaker’s topic of discussion was “the role of museums in the illicit international trade in stolen cultural property.”

"The American Association of Museums’ mission is to strengthen museums through leadership, advocacy, collaboration and service."

Three categories of perceptions

French Painter Maurice Denis

A Self Portrait Bias Opinions

• Aesthetic Encounter

• Aesthetic Judgment

• Aesthetic Quality

Reduced to art, what does this mean?

FINE ART

• The most supreme status

• Example #1 a battle horse, a nude woman or anecdote

JUST ART

• In the art world, this is perceived as a form of degradation, not an high opinion

• Example #2 a bombed-out Croatian church, half of cantaloupe and Charlie Chaplin

Examples… Battle Horse

Fine Art

Charlie Chaplin

Just Art

Chapter 18- John Cotton Dana’s New Museum

Who was John C. Dana?

• An American Librarian

• Pioneered the patron's right to open stacks, allowing them to browse for themselves instead of having a librarian monitoring their every request.

• The first to organized a children's library room

• A museum director whose objective was to make the library relevant to the daily lives of the citizens and to promote the benefits of reading. He believed in the principle of a universal museum.

John Cotton Dana (1856-1929)

1909 - Founded the Newark Museum

Visionary Modernist Art Museum Director & Librarian

• The Old Museum

Lacked educational purpose

Focused on beauty for the elite

Lacked value to its visitors

Dana’s Goals for the “New Museum”

To make sure the museum provided a service and to enrich the visitors lives by satisfying there interpretation of there everyday lives and times.

To make sure the capacity and obligations were life enhancing institutions.

To collaborate with schools, libraries and museums.

His objective was to “Add to the happiness, wisdom and comfort of members of the community.”

Accomplishments

• John Cotton Dana was a highly influential American librarian and museum director whose main objective was to make the library relevant to the daily lives of the citizens and to promote the benefits of reading.

President of the American Library Association

First president and founder of the Special Libraries Association

Founder of the Museum of Newark

A member of the Library Hall of Fame.

Quotes

• A good museum makes “a positive difference in the quality of people’s lives.”

• “The goodness of a museum is not in direct ratio to the cost of it’s building and the upkeep therefore, or to the rarity, auction value, or money cost of it’s collections. A museum is good only insofar as it is of use …common sense demands that a publicly supported institution do something for its supporters and that some part at least of what it does be capable of clear description and downright valuation.”

The Museum in the Public Sphere

“There exists a modicum of capacity for improvement in all men which can

be greatly developed by familiarity with such acknowledged masterpieces

as are found in all great collections of works of art. Their humblest function

is to give enjoyment to all classes; their highest, to elevate men by purifying

the taste and acting upon the moral nature.” Charles Callahan Perkins –

trustee at Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (1870)

Past Missions of Museums:

o Institutions as “celebratory”

• Art museums celebrate “masterpieces”

• Natural history museums celebrate “humankinds place in nature”

oMuseum’s exist for the betterment (morally and intellectually) of a group

o Museum collections dictated by museum workers

“Revolution in Progress”

Changes in Museum mission – why? o Financial concerns

o Museums receive more money from the public sector than from private organizations.

– Dependence requires awareness of the services being provided to the community

– Reputation of being “beneficial” to the community

o Financial concerns (part two) o Focus on income earning ventures to supplement the

museums income. – Use of modern marketing techniques to pique public interest

– Public support to make these ventures profitable

“Revolution in Process”

o Importance of remaining neutral

• Past attempts to ingrain “morality” in people as potentially dangerous (can be used in both ways – good and bad)

• Move to appreciation in wider contexts – art for formal elements (composition, color, artist skill) rather

than “morally uplifting events or scenes

– natural history museums focus on man’s interconnectedness to the natural world rather than his “superiority” over it

– history museums as highlighting tragic and uplifting historical events

“Revolution in Process”

o Importance of a supportive public • Museums as important because:

– Power of objects to inspire

– A place people can come together

• Pursuit of communal goals

• Example: Strong Museum in Rochester, NY

“Museums exist to communicate and in the process provide answers to the

question…’what does it mean to be a human being?’”

Legal Issues and Museums

Where do works come from?

o Historical objects from different countries

• Does the museum have a right to own an object if it is unclear whether or not the person who sold it to them obtained it illegally?

• How will it affect relations with these countries?

• Example: Turkish artifacts at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Where do works come from?

– Purchases from war time collections

• Situations where stolen art is unknowingly sold to person/dealer, museum – is it legally theirs?

• Due diligence – buyer and seller

• Good faith vs. bad faith purchases

• Situations where there are no living heirs – who does the piece belong to?

– example – Austria and – the World Jewish

Congress

o Section 107 – Criteria for Fair Use

• Character and purpose of use – is it for educational, criticism, research, or comment?

• The nature of the copyrighted work – creative vs. informational content

• The amount/sustainability of the portion used in relation to the work as a whole

• The effect of use upon the potential market for value of the copyrighted work

Copyright©

Copyright©

• Because most museums are education in purpose, it is reasonable to assume that many of the uses the make of works of art will meet the threshold test of section 107 – but how closely do they toe the line?

• Artists using copyrighted material in their work – does this limit creativity when the sources for creative works are limited?

• Reproductions - is printing a postcard of a piece of art a proper representation of a work if it lacks size, scale, material, color, surface? Is it more of a copyright infringement it is seeks to be more like the original?

• No laws stipulating how a copyright holder has to make his material available for use – they can be as reasonable or unreasonable as they choose – how could this limit museums?

Questions

• What is the role of the public museum and do you think it does a good job of accomplishing it’s purpose? The purpose is to enlighten, educate and bring social change.

• The transformation of the American museums are changing, some international countries are creating virtual museums. Do you think American museums will loose or bring in more revenue if virtual museums become a key factor in the American culture?

• I found it interesting when trying to understand how one could possibly copyright a person’s visual art, how does one justify it’s visual perception and make it copyrightable?

• How does one rationalize the differences between fine art and just a piece of art, when it comes from a different historical background?