63PHOTOGRAPHS
FROM
LEFT:
COURTESY
DAVID
ZWIRNER;
ESTATE
OF
MONIR
SHAHROUDY
FARMANFARMAIAN
IMAGE
COURTESY
OF
THE
ESTATE
AND
JAMES
COHAN,
NEW
YORK
ART Bloomberg Pursuits March 1, 2021says Kelly, whose gallery is now exhibiting works by Hugo
McCloud made from shards of single-use plastic. “There were
echoes coming back from all over the world.” Business last
year was down about 20%, he says, but the expenditures asso-
ciated with fairs—travel, dinners, and shipping costs—went to
near-zero, so “we were able to almost balance the books.”
While the for-profit sector of the art world is chugging
along, nonprofits continue to struggle, often desperately. “I
was surprised by how across the map the negative impact has
been,” says Laura Lott, president and chief executive officer
of the American Alliance of Museums. “Depressingly, I think
2021 is going to be as hard, if not harder, than last year.”
The most recent survey of the AAM’s museum members
was in October, when about a third of its 750 respondents
suggested they’re at risk of per-
manent closure. “And that was
before the most recent round of
re closings,” Lott notes. “It was
done during a hopeful time.”
The disparity between U.S.
for-profit and nonprofit arts orga-
nizations doesn’t make sense, or
at least it shouldn’t. The success
of both has always been sym-
biotic. Museum shows confer
an important imprimatur on a
gallery’s artists, and museum
trustees will often help pay for
acquisitions. Meanwhile, gal-
leries occasionally underwrite
museum shows and help pro-
cure loans.
Both rely on the same group
of very wealthy collectors for
support, and those people are,
thanks to the stock market’s
seemingly unshakable upward
trajectory, wealthier than ever.
(These dynamics are different
in Europe, where the arts receive much more funding from
state sponsorship; in the U.S., nonprofits rely heavily on
earned revenue and charitable giving, which is how most
museums stay afloat.)
And yet Covid has upended these dynamics, tipping
the balance toward galleries. Buying art is mostly a pri-
vate activity; seeing art is much more communal. “We’re
in the commercial world, and we’re delivering a prod-
uct. People are buying something from us,” says gallerist
James Cohan, who’s also on the board of advisers for the
Brooklyn Museum and president of the board of the film
program Art21. “If a not for profit is brick-and-mortar, and
it’s closed, then its point of access to its funders gets that
much more complicated.”
This disconnect, Lott says, is proving particularly dam-
aging as pandemic-related shutdowns enter their secondyear. “As the crisis wears on,” she says, “the energy and
the resources and the capacity to [fundraise] diminishes.”
Further belt-tightening is already a reality. This past
October the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City,
Mo., announced it would lay off 15% of its employees. And
this month, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art con-
firmed reports that it’s considering selling some of its per-
manent collection to cover costs.
In January the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago laid
off almost 11% of its full-time staff and about a third of its
61 part-time employees. “That was a heartbreaking and nec-
essary decision,” says MCA director Madeleine Grynsztejn.
“Our second closing in mid-November devastated our finan-
cial model.” Until the layoffs, she continues, “we held out for
10 months and kept our payroll
whole, including for staff who
could not do their jobs anymore,
like school guides.”
Only one group of non-
profits seems to be relatively
unscathed. “Those of us who
don’t have to charge admis-
sion have been pleasantly sur-
prised by the resilience of
our own organizations,” says
Laura Hoptman, director of the
Drawing Center in New York.
Not only have individual gifts
gone up in volume and size,
but in several cases, founda-
tions released restrictions on
their gifts so that funds could
be used for operating costs.
But many institutions can’t
rely on donations alone, and the
only sustainable way forward,
Lott says, is a return to normal.
In the meantime, art apprecia-
tion will continue to be a fraught
public experience—or a private pursuit reserved for those
who can afford it.
And that could mean a shift from museums, which are
theoretically more committed to historical and cultural
relevance, to dealers, who need to turn a profit. Galleries
in recent years have gotten larger and their exhibitions
more ambitious, whittling away the kingmaking power
of institutions.
Making money and assembling important exhibitions
are not always mutually exclusive. But ultimately the two
sides have different imperatives, and there could be last-
ing repercussions if the balance of power tilts meaningfully
toward commerce.
Not that galleries see it that way. Fuentes would still prefer
his artists’ work go to a museum. It’s just that “right now,” he
says, “they don’t have the budget to buy anything.” <BW>