Deaccessioning: more messiness in Manhattan

Lee Rosenbaum's been hammering on the Metropolitan Museum's Gary Tinterow (more followup blows here).
It is hardly undeserved, as Tyler Green elucidates -- but other departments and other institutions have also been big offenders, which leads Green to call for trustees to take a more active role in preventing hasty and unwise selloffs.

PS Modern Kicks points out something about Tinterow's comments to Rosenbaum that struck me independently: the statement that for most museums space is "the most precious thing" doesn't deserve such dismissive treatment ("the most precious thing" might better have been phrased "the limiting factor", but these were extemporaneous spoken comments). And though one might reply that if money isn't in short supply, space shouldn't be either, it mightn't be so simple: monies available for certain purposes (e.g., acquisitions and installation) may not be available for others (e.g., offsite storage and conservation of items not on display). Nonetheless, Tinterow's comments taken as a whole strike all the wrong notes when read in the context of his department's recent deaccessioning attempts.

Posted by David on July 26, 2006 10:09 AM