American museums are reducing funding
ARTinvestment.RU   27 октября 2008

Some museums do not know what the money they hold exhibitions, others believe that the crisis is and the positive moments: if art prices fall, they have finally been able to buy new works

economic crisis has struck at the American Museum. ARTinvestment.RU already wrote about, as problems in the financial sector will affect the cultural institutions of New York , as well as about, what museums suffer because of the collapse of Lehman Brothers . According to the newspaper The New York Times, one of the major museums in the United States - New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) - have already reduced its operating budget by 10 percent. In addition, the museum decided on a temporary dismissal of some employees. However, these measures are temporary, and in December, officials MoMA is going to reconsider its decision.

New York City Department for the Arts is going to cut funding for urban museums to 2.5 per cent this fiscal year and another 5 percent in the next. Private individuals, corporations and foundations are also going to reduce the cost of supporting cultural institutions. Museums worry that if they manage to collect the necessary funds for the organization of exhibitions planned. For example, Brooklyn Museum in 2009 is going to hold a retrospective of the artist Yinki Shonibare (Yinka Shonibare), but the museum director said frankly that sponsor her until no one wants.

Nevertheless suffering losses banks UBS and Bank of America, as well as retailers such as Target, in the near future are not going to cut funding to the development of culture. And The New York Times quoted one officer UBS, which said that his bank plans to get maximum benefits from cooperation with museums. Therefore it is expected that UBS logos on posters and leaflets exhibitions to increase in size and will be more strike the eye.

In the current situation, there are some positive points. In recent years, prices for works of art, especially modern, grown up so much that most of the museums such amounts «no meat». Directors of public cultural institutions have to reluctantly look like the most outstanding work go to the millionaire, who build their museums, and occupy the public. And if the auction prices for works of contemporary art popolzut really down, as the director of the District Art Museum of Los Angeles Michael Goven (Michael Govan), «may be, we will be able to afford something to buy».

Material prepared Yulia Maksimova

Sources: artnet.com , artinvestment.ru