Art & Finance Newsletter #37 - What Are Museums Really For?
A good National Day 70th Anniversary of the founding of the PRC to all of you who are living and working in China. The big parade day is tomorrow and hopefully our VPNs will go back to standard operation by next week.
It's not until your VPN is throttled that you realize how much you take for granted the ability to efficiently contact colleagues outside of China.
What Are Museums Really For?
Museums seem to promise permanence – the preservation of heritage for the longer term – but have been forever in flux and in contention. Those who work in the sector today are mindful of relentless controversy about everything from restitution to sponsorship. Museums appear bedevilled by crises of legitimacy, even as they are arguably more successful today than ever before. They attract unprecedented numbers of visitors, are publicly prominent, and major new developments proliferate. Yet over their long histories museums’ purposes and identities as institutions have been often questioned. Over the last few months, in the lead-up to the Kyoto conference of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), which took place in September, the definition of a museum has been intensively debated. The current definition, agreed in 2007, states: ‘A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.’ A proposed alternative would have claimed that museums are ‘democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue […] guarantee[ing] equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people […] aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing.’ Following something of a backlash against the ‘ideological’ tone of the new definition, a decision was deferred.
One place to look for statements of museum purpose is in the discussions that routinely take place, across the United Kingdom and in most other countries, as budgets are reviewed and renegotiated. In the offices of museum directors, city councillors, government officials, funding agencies and other stakeholders, arguments are made about why art, history and science museums matter, and should receive support. In Britain, this advocacy is increasingly urgent, given year-on-year reductions, most corrosively affecting the institutions funded by cash-strapped local authorities. The case for funding has long involved claims that museums bring broader educational and social benefits. But it is nevertheless striking that over the last decade, what museums contribute to society has been described in increasingly expansive terms.
We are used to seeing a museum as a building, a precinct, an institution and a collection. Museums are indeed spaces of particular kinds, but these kinds of international visits, exhibition loans and research projects suggest that, even more fundamentally, museums are networks. They are made up of relationships, as well as of physical sites and stuff. We are well aware that the relationships that made museums were in some cases fraught and difficult: world history has involved much violence and appropriation and it is inevitable that that is represented in world history collections. But the opportunity now is to make more positive relationships out of the extraordinary resources that, as a result of those histories, museums care for. The challenge is not to define, but to do.
Apollo Magazine - What Are Museums Really For?
Frieze's Majority Owner Is About to Go Public
Although the interplay between the private and public markets always matters in the art trade, it has been an especially noteworthy topic in recent months. First came the news in mid-June that Sotheby’s had reached an agreement in principle to return to private ownership thanks to a $3.7 billion sale to international telecom impresario Patrick Drahi. But just as one well-known art brand leaves the New York Stock Exchange, another intends to enter it.
The Frieze art-fair and publishing company was due to effectively go public on Friday as a small piece of the initial public offering of its majority owner, entertainment and media conglomerate Endeavor. (Update: After the close of trading on Thursday, Endeavor announced it would postpone its IPO for the second time this year. No future timeline for the offering was made available.) And just as we asked how Sotheby’s exit from the public market might affect its business, it is now worth asking how Endeavor’s availability on the NYSE could affect Frieze.
Filed September 16, the most recent substantive amendment to Endeavor’s registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission states that the company will offer over 19.3 million shares of Class A common stock priced between $30 and $32 each. The offering could infuse Endeavor with over $619 million. It also represents a 7.9 percent ownership stake, meaning Endeavor enters the public market with a valuation of about $7.6 billion—more than twice the price Drahi will pay for Sotheby’s.
(Update: Endeavor filed a new amendment lowering the number of shares on offer to 15 million and the price range to between $26 and $27 per share. The changes reduced its maximum possible return on the offering to $405 million and its market cap to about $6.5 billion.)
Artnet - Frieze's Majority Owner Is About To Go Public
Masterpiece London Will Proceed In HK
Political tensions have been heightened in Hong Kong as China’s National Day on October 1 draws closer, marking the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic, but organizers of the fall season’s major art fairs and auctions opening in the city next week remain confident in the city’s foreseeable future.
Events are still going ahead as planned—including the debut of the Masterpiece London Art Fair’s official expansion to Asia—amid the ongoing pro-democracy protests that has been gripping the city for nearly four months, and which some fear could come to a dangerous crescendo around National Day should China opt to make a show of strength in the city.
But while Masterpiece is sticking with its plan to offer art, furniture, and antiques as part of the Fine Art Asia fair (October 4-7), the London fair has decided to downsize the scale of its Hong Kong presence from a “pavilion” to an “object-led” showcase amid the political uncertainties.
Artnet - Masterpiece London Will Proceed In HK
I had the opportunity to create the invite list for a small private dinner hosted by the family of a former prime minister of a G7 country. The theme of the evening was focussed on the prime minister's close relationship with a well-known and now deceased Chinese artist.
The 10 guests were a mix of industry stakeholders and executives from a variety of companies all of who have an interest in art. It was a fantastic evening and exceptionally executed.
Very much looking forward to the next opportunity to assist in hosting such a dinner.
Speak soon,
Blake