Holland Cotter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning staff art critic for the New York Times, writes about which exhibitions pique his interest in the coming year, which artists to watch, and how museums will pull themselves out of the muck. His article adopts a serious, castigatory tone, but maybe he’s right.
Yes, he may sound ornery, but Cotter’s impertinence is necessary in a time when the Rose Museum scandal is not an uncommon occurrence. He irately refers to another similar incident at UCLA that has perpetuated the sucking-your-university-museum/library-dry-to-stay-afloat trend. Granted, we are working against an inexorable economic tempest forcing museums, one of the first recession targets, to economize in a number of ways. Sometimes, drastic measures must be taken, but if museums in dire straits meditate on his suggestions, they may not have to perform artistic seppuku.
Cotter implores and pleads with museums to reconsider shutting down or selling heirloom pieces and to instead consider downsizing flashy, costly “supersizer” exhibitions, playing up their permanent collections, and even looking to university museums (of which the Georgia Museum of Art is one) for ideas. As university museums have always had to manage small budgets, bigger enterprises can learn how to be effective with little money. He adds that university museums are interesting management models because they are typically staffed with a young, enterprising and creative direction, an especially valuable treasure when the fiscal climate is changing quickly.
Cotter also mentions a fairly new trend, which places artists in the role of the curator. Why could that possibly be helpful? He says that “what we need is someone detached from the old buddy system of curators and critics who can give the moribund biennial concept life”. Perhaps we just need to weigh drastically different options rather than admitting defeat.
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