By pandemic, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, better known as “the Met”, is studying selling works to survive. Last year it was closed for five months and opened slowly, with protocol and fewer visitors, at the end of August last year. This generated a strong impact on the coffers of the institution. It is not the first time that the Met has put its art up for sale: in the past, the museum, which houses works by Van Gogh, Rembrandt, El Greco and Monet, among others, had already sold works, but with the intention of buying others. Now, instead, he would do it to pay wages.
Max Hollein, current director of the museum, assured that the “de-acquisition “ of works – the formal term used to refer to the sale of parts – to support its “budget and its staff during this unprecedented crisis.”
Hollein assured, however, that it would be a “temporary measure” and recalled that the institution had already gone through other difficult times throughout its history, such as the 1918 pandemic, the Great Depression, the world wars and the 9/11 terrorist attack, “but it has never experienced a year as hard as 2020 ”, He remarked.
The museum, the largest in U.S, has a budget of 320 million dollars per year and in August 2020 laid off more than 350 employees of the 2,000 it had, which meant a 20 percent reduction in its staff. This reduction is explained, in part, to the fact that it receives little public money and the strong of its income is donations.
Employees stand guard as visitors gather at the entrance hall during the public reopening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, U.S., on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020. After more than five months in hibernation, the museums of New York are slowly starting to reopen, reawakening part of the cultural life of the city. Photographer: Nina Westervelt/Bloomberg
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Historically, the income corresponding to the tickets represented only 14 percent of its budget, but since 2018, when the full entrance fee ($ 25) began to be charged, this percentage of the total museum budget rose to 17 percent. Until before that year, the entrance was stipulated from a “suggested price”. At the time, the price fixed on the value of the ticket opened a debate (a fee aimed mainly at tourists) about the ways of financing large museums. Before the pandemic, the institution received seven million visitors per year.
The crisis comes at the least opportune moment, just as the museum was preparing to celebrate its 150th anniversary (for which it had prepared important events and exhibitions) and has caused a loss of income of 150 million dollars in 18 months. In the face of these celebrations, the museum had acquired 2,500 works of art, some of which would now be discarded, although it was not disclosed which ones are “for sale.”
Created in 1872, the museum has more than two million works of art from all over the world, spread over more than 186 thousand square meters. From July 2017 to July 2018 it broke its record of visitors, with 7.36 million people. A number that seems difficult to repeat in the short term.
Employees work behind protective barriers at the ticket counter during the public reopening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, U.S., on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020. After more than five months in hibernation, the museums of New York are slowly starting to reopen, reawakening part of the cultural life of the city. Photographer: Nina Westervelt/Bloomberg
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Beyond the alternative collection strategies in April, the Met will inaugurate the exhibition that is located on the roof of the museum each year and that this year is run by the Venezuelan-American Alex Da Corte. In June it will arrive The New Women Behind the Camera (The new women behind the camera), which will review the history of the figure of women as a photographer, as well as The Medici: Portraits and Politics (The Medicis: Portraits and Politics), which focuses on the portraits that were painted thanks to these patrons.
Before, at the end of March, an extensive exhibition will be dedicated to the American Alice Neel, an artist and activist who lived in New York and that he portrayed the marginalized society of the 60s and 70s, as Latino immigrant families or homosexual men.
The Louvre, like the Met
The situation of the Met is not unrelated to that of other great museums in the world, such as the Louvre in Paris, which charges an entrance fee of 15 euros per adult (about $ 18). In recent times, the French museum has managed to overcome the economic effects of the pandemic, resorting to marketing strategies such as promoting mechandising linked to art (T-shirts, divers and cell phone covers printed with motifs that refer to works that are part of the collection) and at the end of last January, it created an independent online identity with its own electronic store, where you can find “themed” watches, board games and even a perfume.
The expansion of merchandising products is just one of the many alternative financing channels to which the Louvre appeals, and it is added to auctions to raise funds and rent of spaces and rooms to artists, photographers, producers, fashion designers and directors of movie theater.
A woman wearing a face mask walks past the glass pyramide of the Louvre museum closed as part of COVID-19 restrictions measures to fight the coronavirus disease outbreak in France, January 7, 2021. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
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In 2018, the artists Beyoncé and Jay-Z took over the Louvre’s galleries, stairways, corridors and main courtyard to produce the music video for the song Apeshit, interpreted by The Carters, a duo that both are part of. The video has garnered more than 200 million views on YouTube. It is estimated that the artists could have paid close to fifty-five thousand dollars a day to rent the space.
Most recently, the creators of the Netflix series Lupin they rented the museum for five days and nights. According to the museum authorities, “the cost of the museum depends on the project.”
PC
