Copycat Quandary

Edward C. Banfield

THE NEW CRITERION
April 2013

To the Editors:

James Panero writes in “The Culture of the Copy” (The New Criterion, January 2013) that my college professor Ed Banfield suggested museums sell their original works and replace them with passable facsimiles—a suggestion for which your founder Hilton Kramer criticized him. This gives the wrong impression. Ed thought many second-rate museums felt they had to purchase only original works, and, due to their very limited budgets, they could only afford second-rate art originals. As a result, museumgoers in smaller cities did not have the opportunity to view first-rate art. He thought that the Rockefellers and others had created copies of well-known works which were indistinguishable from the originals and which sold for relatively modest prices. Therefore, why not allow smaller, less wealthy museums to purchase these copies so their publics could view first-rate rather than second-rate art? It sounded reasonable to me when Ed proposed it, and it sounds reasonable to me now. I am at a loss to understand why the art community so violently objects to this.

Robert L. Freedman, Esq.
Philadelphia

James Panero replies:

The use of copies has an important place in the history of art. This is true especially when access to original artwork has been limited. Up through the first half of the twentieth century, plaster casts made from original sculptures were used widely as study aids in museums and art academies. By mid-century, however, these casts were removed from view. In part, American museums had by then come into possession of more original work. But I would also argue that copies came to be overly devalued in relation to originals, and this was unfortunate. I am glad to hear that the Metropolitan Museum now lends its plaster cast collection out to universities here and abroad. The art museum at Fairfield University in Connecticut, for example, currently displays several Met casts on long-term loan.

In other words, the idea of us allowing “smaller, less wealthy museums” to display copies “so their publics could view first-rate rather than second-rate art” was around long before Professor Banfield made his proposal concerning art copies in the early 1980s. One could say that art-library slide collections, and before that magic lantern projections, were all copies used in much the same way as those plaster casts. The same goes today for the high resolution digital scans available through initiatives such as Google Art Project.

In all of these cases, copies serve as necessary substitutes. Their availability has been widely beneficial to a public that might not otherwise have access to great works of art. And even when originals are available, reproductions have a place, because they don’t keep museum hours, and it’s not always possible to lecture about art in a gallery setting.

If Professor Banfield had suggested only that second-rate museums use their limited resources to purchase copies, as Freedman suggests, I agree that would have sounded reasonable. But Banfield suggested much more in his proposal, and the art community was right to object to it.

“I go further,” Banfield wrote in 1982, “Why should public museums not substitute reproductions for originals?” Kramer was therefore correct in giving the impression that Banfield advocated the wholesale deaccessioning, or selling off, of museum collections to fulfill his vision. Banfield’s arguments for this were esoteric at best, nonsensical at worst, but had something to do with a desire to see the “multibillion-dollar art business . . . fall into an acute and permanent recession.” Whatever the reasoning, it was an unreasonable and vastly destructive idea when Banfield proposed it. It remains so today in ideas such as the “Central Library Plan,” a proposal to remove the books and gut the stacks at the main branch of the New York Public Library, which I mention in my essay.

At the heart of these ideas is both a contempt for the art-going, book-reading public and the elitist sense that they either don’t deserve or cannot appreciate the real thing. “It would not be unduly cynical,” Banfield wrote in 1982, “to say that many of the thousands who stood in line for a ten-second look at ‘Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer,’ after the Metropolitan Museum paid $6 million to acquire it, would as willingly have stood to see the $6 million in cash.” Sorry, but to make such a statement is about as cynical as you can get.

Time to Free NY's Museums: The Met Responds

James writes:

Thomas P. Campbell, the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has issued an "important message" responding to the criticism I and others have raised over the ticketing policies at his and other public-private institutions in New York City. The Director's affable but ultimately defensive message tells me the Met has heard the criticism but hasn't listened to it.

Two weeks ago in the New York Daily News, I wrote an editorial titled "It's Time to Free N.Y.'s Museums." Here I argued that "institutions on public land, supported in part by public funds," are designed to serve the public good. According to the Department of Cultural Affairs, this means providing "cultural services accessible to all New Yorkers”--regardless of their ability to pay. "Unfortunately," I wrote, just as "many members of the CIG [an alliance of public-private institutions] have improved their facilities over the years through better administration and aggressive fund-raising, they have also become far less accessible to ordinary people" through confusing ticketing policies designed to extract a greater toll at the turnstile.

The Metropolitan is now party to two lawsuits over the "recommended" language of its tickets, claiming that not all museum-goers understand the nuances of the suggested price. My survey of other NY's public-private institutions reveals that many of them impose even more restrictive and confusing rules at the turnstile.

In his response, Campbell says "our costs—everything from guards to insurance to publications—have increased." The Met plans to defend its admissions policy "vigorously."

The Met is clearly facing a growing crisis over its ticketing policies. The museum therefore could and should be using this opportunity to lead the way towards creating better admissions policies to the city's cultural institutions. At the Met this could mean bigger, better signage--in multiple languages--about the meaning of its "recommended" admissions fees. It could mean a new ad campaign in city neighborhoods about the availability of great art for a penny a subway ride away. Considering the Met draws significant taxpayer support and other benefits from city government--just under $25 million a year in direct city support and passed-through costs such as electricity, according to the report of its CFO--the Met could propose a new initiative to give free access to city residents, which would compel other institutions to do the same.

Instead, the Met has doubled down on its current policy. The reasons are predictable. Campbell is right that his museum needs the turnstile revenue to cover increasing costs. These costs include the salaries of Met employees. As I mentioned to Fred Dicker on "Live from the State Capital" (available at the top of this post), according to the Met's publically available tax returns from 2011, Mr. Campbell earned over $1 million in salary and benefits. At least ten Met employees bring home over half-a-million dollars a year while working (according to their own tax returns, at least) 35 hours a week . Here is a breakdown of those salaries from the museum's 990 tax filing. What if the Met were to post these numbers at their ticket gates?

This need for greater turnstile revenue may be one reason why the museum has turned to mounting critically panned, populist exhibitions such as "Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years." It's also why the Met has brought on a DJ as its new artist in residence and decided to open on Mondays.

But big business can be bad business at a non-profit designed to serve the public good. The ever-increasing demands of what I call the museum-industrial complex was the topic of my essay in The New Criterion a year ago, titled "What's a Museum?"

On the letter of the law, there may indeed be nothing to the Met lawsuits. But that doesn't mean the city's public-private institutions are fully living up to the spirit of their public mandates. When you are earning $1 million a year, indirectly in part through the taxpayer dime, it can be hard to understand the museum goer who can't afford $25 or regret the one who didn't know to pay less. It takes three hours working at minimum wage to earn enough to pay the Met's full "recommended" price. Working 35 hours a week, Tom Campbell earns that same amount every two and a half minutes. 

Throughout their history, the Met and the city's other public-private institutions have benefited from the generosity of New Yorkers. Their admissions policies should be as equally generous in return.

It's Time to Free N.Y.'s Museums

Many people don’t know that the Met’s prices are, in fact, only recommendations.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
March 25, 2013

It’s time to free N.Y.’s museums
by James Panero

Here in New York, you can see the greatest cultural treasures for only a penny. It’s just too bad more New Yorkers don’t know how.

In the 19th century, the founding fathers of our city’s cultural institutions had the wisdom to ensure their donations went into privately run public institutions.

Their generosity created our city’s unparalleled museums, zoos and gardens — all in partnership with city government. By locating their institutions on public land, supported in part by public funds, they made them a public good.

Today, 33 institutions operate through this model, including some of the city’s very best: the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo.

The leaders of these facilities call themselves the Cultural Institutions Group. According to the Department of Cultural Affairs, CIG members are to “provide cultural services accessible to all New Yorkers.”

This far exceeds what’s expected of wholly private institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art — which is why MoMA can demand $25 for adult admission, but the Met may only “recommend” its $25. Simply, CIG members must remain accessible “to all New Yorkers” regardless of their ability to pay.

In return, CIG members such as the Met might receive tens of millions of dollars a year in taxpayer funds — and pay next to nothing to lease their grounds and facilities from the city.

Unfortunately, as many members of the CIG have improved their facilities over the years through better administration and aggressive fund-raising, they have also become far less accessible to ordinary people.

That’s because they have obscured their optional admissions fees, welcoming only those who can pay full freight. Or they have put their offerings into special exhibits that require special tickets with mandated fees. Both practices have essentially imposed a poll tax on the city’s finest culture, so that only those who understand complex ticketing policies get in based on what they can pay, even if it’s only a penny.

Recently, two lawsuits have been filed against the Met for its admissions practices, alleging the museum of defrauding the public. The Met has dug in its heels, calling the suits “baseless.”

Legally, that may be true. Ethically, I’m not at all convinced.

A conversation brought these concerns home. Albania, a family friend, recently told me that my young daughter was lucky because she got to enjoy the Met. Albania knew I brought my daughter to the Met on weekends, and she said she wished she could bring her three children there, too.

Unfortunately, she said, she could not afford it. She believed the admissions fee was far beyond what she could pay.

As an art critic, I know what the Met’s “recommended” admissions fee means, so I pay what I can. Until I explained it to her, Albania, a native of the Dominican Republic now living in Washington Heights, had no idea. New Yorkers like to joke that only European tourists pay full fare at the Met. Thanks to Albania, I now know better.

It doesn’t help that the Met’s admissions wording has become more obscure over the years. Until the 1960s, the Met charged nothing. In the ’70s, the museum’s signs came to say, “Pay What You Wish But You Must Pay Something.” Today, those signs simply read, “Recommended.”

And the Met’s suggested admissions fee has skyrocketed, further shaming museum-goers into paying higher amounts. Since 1992, the Met’s recommended adult entry fee has increased 150% adjusted for inflation, from $6 (which is roughly $10 in today’s dollars) to $25.

Last week, the Met announced it will stay open on Mondays. “We want the Met to be accessible whenever visitors have the urge to experience this great museum,” said its director, Thomas Campbell. But this move is only designed to maximize ticket revenues even further.

An informal survey of other CIG institutions produces mixed results. On the one hand, thanks to a gift from Shelley and Donald Rubin, the Bronx Museum of the Arts is offering free general admission through at least 2015. On the other, the American Museum of Natural History charges a $19 “suggested” fee, plus even more for special exhibitions.

And while the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx is free on Wednesdays and Saturday mornings, that won’t get you into the “Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, special exhibitions (such as The Orchid Show), Everett Children’s Adventure Garden, Rock and Native Plant Gardens (April-October) or Tram Tour.” In other words, just about all of the Garden’s attractions mandate a $25 “special exhibit” fee.

Our city’s public-private institutions were never intended to be the pleasure gardens of the rich. It’s time for all New Yorkers to know the doors of our greatest institutions are open to them, too — and for these places to do everything they can to invite them in.

UPDATE: James discusses "It's time to Free N.Y.'s Museums" with Fred Dicker