The theory of delusion: museums — outside the art-рынка
ARTinvestment.RU   08 апреля 2020

In category "Theory of errors" we are eradicating the myths that successfully disguised as fact and negative influence on the development of the art market and the investment climate. Today we will understand whether museums stand apart from the art market

With the start of a pandemic coronavirus and the subsequent global quarantine every day we hear reports about the reaction cultural institutions on these events: one mass reduce state, the other provide own online-платформы to maintain small business. Along with the auction houses and commercial galleries, such news come from museums, which traditionally holds in the public mind a niche non-profit or subsidized. For example, the Museum of American art Whitney announced the dismissal of 76 employees and the Museum of contemporary art Detroit invited artists to host virtual workshops on their own site. Meanwhile, the celebrant 2020, 150-летний metro-музей have used reserve funds and retained staff for the duration of the quarantine — despite the fact that the payroll is $16 million per month.

the reaction of the public, as a rule, is clear: all condemn dismissal of the employees of the auction house, but find the explanation for exactly the same museums. The main reason people see a clear division between the market nature of some of the defendants of the art world, and the philanthropic nature of others. But is it all really? In other words, do museums stand apart from art-рынка? Let's try to answer this question together.

In 2016, the new-йоркский analytical portal Quartz published a private study on the distribution of objects of art in the world museums between the current exposure and funds. In particular, the authors were surprised by the fact that many famous artists deeply engrained in the vaults, and massively exhibited by those who have not been noted in the news. From our point of view, more remarkable: a similar theme in the media did not raise no — or to study in 2016 or after. The ratio of the main exhibition and the Museum collections was considered in in his doctoral dissertation of Ann stone in 2002 (in our situation it would be correct to say: three crises ago. — AI.), however, the author has limited the analysis of the work of art museums San-Франциско for example, moving own formula of "how to do it right." Free materials about the Museum collections is not to find, except for a few European institutions, posted at the peak of humanity's own collection online. Collection, but not numbers — is what is important.

Quartz conducted a study of 47 of the world's museums (19 of them — from the US), selecting 12 artists and the known direction of everyone: for example, the paintings of Georgia O'keeffe and sculpture by Alexander Calder. The result can be seen in the table below:

the Proportion of the exhibited works of selected artists in the 20 largest world museums of version Quаrtz (at the beginning of 2016)

the Main issue the authors of the study formulated in its final paragraph: if museums are not for people, then for whom? And how are they going to earn, exhibiting only 44 % of the work of selected artists from their collections (average)?

the Answer is in order. In-первых, in the world of the performing arts sector, only two directions you can count on self-sufficiency: the circus and a Broadway musical. The most visited museums around the world covered selling tickets no more than 35% of expenditures 15 % of income give souvenir shops and selling licenses for the use of images of Museum works. The remaining 50 % — a result of donor inflows, primarily in countries with developed legislatively patronage. In other words, the vital issue of sustainability in front of the world's leading museums is not worth it. In-вторых referred to the study of Quartz 44% of the objects from the collection in the exhibition — is a luxury. In practice, the museums at the same time exhibit 5-10 % of their funds (funds, in addition to conventional painting Picasso, you can get in tons of his own graphics and lottery products). The permanent exhibition is in part, but regularly changing, invisible and harmless to the curatorial concept of the Museum. Since 1984, when the U.S. added tax preferences for patrons, many collectors from among the businessmen began to give art to a Museum (donation amount was deducted from the tax base, which was especially advantageous in the case when the value of the donated art has grown since the acquisition). Today the collection of American museums on average 80% are presented after the opening of the subjects, 3 % — from inherited under the wills of the owners, 7-8 % of subjects are in long-term lease and the same were acquired by the Museum on their own. The remaining 4-6% are works primary Fund, which was founded the Museum. The fact that acquired themselves exhibited much more often presented to: buy a new thing only for the money raised from the sale of their own work, and the Board of Trustees likes to see it spent on their money (in the year of the world's museums make a sale-покупку about 100 thousand objects of art).

However, the reader AI should be more interested in something else: can you explain data Quartzfigures of the market? To do this, verify data, public auction of the artists who were selected for the study, over the past five years. The evaluation will take work, Museum quality, since we are talking about museums. In this case, the artists divided us into four groups:

• progressive: Calder, O'keeffe, Koons;
• undervalued "blue chips" art-рынка: Kandinsky, Rothko, Schiele;
• positive stable: Monet, Cezanne, Picasso;
• negatively stable: Callot, Benton, Cassatt.

We see that the first category in which the market in recent years has invested a lot of marketing effort, is not shown to the public at 70 % — in other words, it creates an artificial demand. The same applies to artists whose work in recent years slowed down in record sales (not out over $100 million), but potentially ready to start a new "roll". "Sat up" at $86.8 mn mark Rothko, $41.8 million is not the limit for Kandinsky (at the time of publication of the study, a record price for the artist was $23 million), for Egon Schiele by the end of 2016 prepared a separate room in the National gallery of Washington. Old masters, Impressionists and record the number of sold works of Pablo Picasso keep in storage makes no sense: they serve as bait for visitors. Besides, how many of them publicly nor make above 4-5 % of capitalization per year from old masters to not wait. Those artists, whose appearance at auction of rare and predictable failure, museums exhibiting approximately 50 %.

Perhaps this is a coincidence? Possible. But the next match will be even more interesting. It turns out that the "degree of exposure", i.e. the share of works in the exhibition of the total number of things of certain artists in the collections, is inversely proportional to an average annual growth rate of their value (CAGR). Reviewing the information of repeat sales at the time of the study Quartz, you can see the picture. For example, Alexander Calder (11.3 per cent CAGR) represented 23 %, Jeff Koons (13.8 per cent CAGR) — 19 %, mark Rothko (14.9 percent CAGR) — by 10 %. On the other hand: Paul Cezanne (2.5 percent CAGR) — 86 % of the works in the exhibition, Claude Monet (5.1 percent CAGR) — 71 %, Pablo Picasso (6.7 percent CAGR) — 56% of the exhibited works. Around the middle was Georgia O'keeffe with a CAGR of 8.7% and 35 % of the work in the "visible area".

Naturally, the selection of artists for the study of Quartz is not ideal. Moreover, along with the woman-рекордсменом O'keefe ($44.4 million) unsuccessful on the market Kahlo and Cassatt as otherwise the inclusion in the ranking of gender is not to explain. Themselves of the Museum's collection in the first and (so far) the only time were studied in 2016. However, sales of these same authors in the years 2017-2019 prove those museums some time kept in the vaults, and then did a retrospective exhibition (in many cases — travelling), it was sold at auction at the end of the cycle "Museum marketing". Not random on this background is the emergence and popularity of artists in Museum collections Artfacts.net, which is today guided by many analysts of the market of art, particularly dealing with the forecasting of the success of individual artists.

the Result of AI: the hypothesis that museums are involved in the regulation of the global art-рынка and affect the balance of supply and demand (which in turn is the basispricing), is confirmed. Today 80% of the funds of the museums in the United States consist of individuals donated items. We add to them those that are in long-term leases and purchased by museums (last — money patrons, who settled in the Supervisory Board). And the Supervisory Board — is not philanthropy, it is primarily the collectors. With good collections in need of continuous capitalization. And the ratio between the given (80 %) and bequeathed to the museums after death (3 %) artwork clearly shows the correlation of business (tax optimization) and philanthropy.

of Course, not all museums around the world playing on the same field with the regulators of the art market — auction houses and major dealers. Basic markers in this case are the origin of the primary Fund operations, the items in long-term leases and the attention of sponsors and on-site traveling exhibitions. A little more difficult to answer the question about their number, but we will try to set some guidelines. To date, members of the international Council of museums ICOM are more than 30 thousand museums, more than half of them exhibit works of art. Of this number, Google Arts Institute today provides free access to more than 2.5 thousand of Museum collections and art foundations.

Believe that to look for "market" museums first need among the latest. Either not to look, to forget and focus on the primary and main function of museums — information education and cultural growth of people. Museums do an excellent job with this role over the past 250 years. But don't be surprised where they find the means to save the state, as well as not really feel major museums, which are now laid off employees.

incidentally, the motto of ICOM is "Museums have no boundaries. They form a network".

Denis Belkevich, AI