The_Art_Newspaper_-_November_2016

22 THE ART NEWSPAPER Number 284, November 2016

Museums United States

How the Albright-Knox raised more

than $100m in just three months

Los Angeles-based billionaire makes surprise $42.5m gift to fund expansion

ALBRIGHT-KNOX WORKS: ALL COURTESY OF THE ALBRIGHT-KNOX ART GALLERY. GUNDLACH: TOM LOONAN; COURTESY OF THE ALBRIGHT-KNOX. GAINSBOROUGH: VALERY SHARIFULIN/TASS VIA GETTY IMAGES

SEAN HENRY

TIME BEING

SCULPTURE AND DRAWINGS

3 - 2 6 November 2016

64 page colour catalogue available on request, including an essay

by Booker Prize winning author Howard Jacobson

23A BRUTON STREET, LONDON W1J 6QG TEL: +44 (020 7493 7939

[email protected] WWW.OSBORNESAMUEL.COM

Top social-media jobs come with six-gure salary

APPOINTMENTS

Washington, DC. Looking for a job in
museum communications? Then brush
up on your Instagram and Twitter skills. A
recent advert for a social media manager
at the Smithsonian’s new National
Museum of African American History
and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington,
DC, ofers a salary ranging from $92,145
to $119,794—a testament to the essential
role digital posts now play in museums.
“Social media jobs are some of
the most exciting and influential

non-curator jobs,” says Sree Sreenivasan,

the former chief digital officer at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art in New

York. (A spokeswoman for NMAAHC

says the advertised role is “a promotion

for a person currently working at the

museum”, which it must post publicly

for policy reasons.)

A recent ad for the new commu-

nications director post at the Victoria

and Albert Museum in London spec-

ified that candidates “make best use

of existing and emerging social media

channels”. The estimated salary for the

role is £100,000—around double that

of a senior curator at the museum’s

planned outpost in east London, adver-

tised last year with a pay band of £36,546

to £54,561.

Many other museums are “still learn-

ing the value of social”, Sreenivasan

says. “As a result, social media managers

skew younger and cheaper than their

successors down the line.” One public

relations executive at a US museum put

the average salary for the role at around

$50,000. Last summer, the Museum of

London advertised for a digital officer

with a salary of around £30,000.

Gareth Harris

FUNDING

Bufalo. Last April, Janne Sirén, the direc-
tor of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, got
an email that most museum leaders
only dream about. A man who had
never before donated to the institution
pledged to jump-start its $80m capital
campaign with an ambitious matching
scheme. The Los Angeles-based billion-
aire Jefrey Gundlach ended up giving
$42.5m and the museum’s trustees
pledged $21.3m this summer.
With Gundlach’s help, the Albright-
Knox has completed what may be
the fastest capital-raising campaign
in US museum history. In less than
three months, it amassed more than
$100m—a rate of more than $1m a
day. “Our objective was to launch the
campaign in September of this year,”
Sirén says. “We never came to a point
of launch because by the time the silent
phase of the summer ended, we had
reached our target and beyond.”
As large institutions such as the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York struggle to raise funds for ambi-
tious expansions, the Albright-Knox’s
rapid-fire campaign stands out. Bufalo
is the third poorest city in the US,
according to the latest census.
The museum’s path to success
was unconventional. Gundlach, the
founder of DoubleLine Capital, visited
the Albright-Knox as a child growing
up in Bufalo. He met Sirén on a visit to
the city last year, but the two had little
contact after that. (Sirén did, however,
cannily remember to send Gundlach’s
mother flowers on her birthday.)
Gundlach suggested the idea of
a matching campaign to Sirén. “I
thought, ‘If I’m going to give money,
give to someone who needs it, deserves
it and where it can make a big differ-
ence,’” he says.
Over the next few months, they
refined the concept: Gundlach pledged
$1.50 for every dollar over $10m raised

by private donors, up to a total of $30m,

plus $1.25 for every dollar over $10m

from the government, up to a total

of $20m. In exchange, the museum

agreed to change its name to the Bufalo

Albright-Knox-Gundlach Museum when

the expansion opens, scheduled for 2021.

Speed was a priority for Gund-

lach, who pushed the gallery to secure

pledges over the summer, when many

donors are typically hard to reach. “I

said, ‘We’re talking about talking about

raising money, but nothing is really hap-

pening—it’s go time,’” he recalls.

Gundlach enlisted Amy Cappel-

lazzo, a founder of the advisory firm

Art Agency, Partners, to help “get more

coins out of the couch”. Cappellazzo, a

$104.5M TO DATE: WHERE THE

FUNDRAISING STANDS NOW

$42.5m Los Angeles-based inancier

Jerey Gundlach

$21.3m Albright-Knox

board members

$22m Government

$14.1m Foundations

$4.6m Other individual gifts

FIVE GEMS IN THE MUSEUM’S COLLECTION

(^12)
(^34)
5
The planned extension will enable curators to show twice as many works from the star-studded collection. 1. Giacomo Balla’s
Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912) 2. Henri Matisse’s Music (1939) 3. Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Monkey (1938)

4. Vincent van Gogh’s The Old Mill (1888) 5. Mark Rothko’s Orange and Yellow (1956)

Salary bands for

top social-media

positions can

exceed those for

curatorial posts

fellow Bufalo native, spoke to the board

in August. The 32 members ended up

pledging a combined $21.3m. Cappel-

lazzo told the Bufalo News: “We set it

up on a business-like calendar, as if you

were raising money for a deal or you

were purchasing a company.”

Although the fundraising happened

quickly, the expansion has been in the

works for 15 years. The Albright-Knox’s

collection of Modern masterworks is con-

sidered among the finest in the US. Due

to space constraints, the museum is able

to show only around 200 objects at once.

Some of its treasures are relegated to

hallways. It also lacks fundamental infra-

structure, including a loading dock. The

expansion, designed by Shohei Shige-

matsu of OMA, will add 31,000 sq. ft of

exhibition space and allow twice as many

works from the collection to be shown.

The Albright-Knox now hopes to

raise $125m altogether, at least 20% of

which will fund the endowment. It has

amassed $104.5m to date.

Gundlach, for his part, does not

plan to surprise any other unsuspecting

museums with millions. But he says he

is likely to donate works from his collec-

tion to Bufalo, including a sculpture by

Anish Kapoor that he bought at auction

years ago and only later discovered had

been shown at the Albright-Knox. The

museum has “never had any money”,

he says, “but they have always had

unbelievable good luck”.

Julia Halperin

Jeffrey Gundlach

pledged to match

donations to the

Albright-Knox

Art Gallery’s

fundraising

campaign