Hey, Detroit. It's Only Art

Safe to say that ever since the news broke that the entire city of Detroit was filing for bankruptcy hundreds of thousands of us Detroiters and ex-Detroiters and Michiganders everywhere have been biting our nails, gnashing our teeth, pounding the walls, spending partially-sleepless nights worrying about the fate of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA).

Detroit Institute of Arts

The DIA, our beautiful jewel of an art museum, is wholly-owned by the city.  The city of Detroit.  Yes, they own it.  They used to say the people owned it, but apparently, as with "By, For, and Of the People", it's all in the interpretation. 

So what's the first thing we hear after that awful news about going bankrupt?  The VERY first thing?  (Even before we heard that the state was going to put up $285 million to build a new stadium for the Red Wings.) We hear that if things don't go right all or part of the DIA's extensive, expensive, exquisite art collection could be up for grabs.

This is how Bill Nowling, spokesman for Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr so delicately put it:

"We went to the DIA two months ago and told them that we thought, should the city be forced by its creditors into Chapter 9 bankruptcy, that the assets of the city could be vulnerable."

The folks who manage the DIA as a public, non-profit institution successfully parsed that particular end-phrase and have already contacted lawyers. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette says the works can't be sold because they're held in a public trust.  Others aren't so sure.  The creditors could put up a real stink if they find out Detroit is swimming in assets over at the Purty Pitcher place.  It's a mess.

Then we find out that appraisers from Christie's Auction House invited themselves in and have already been there measuring the nudes and stirring up the dust.  I mean, could you be any more insensitive?

Well, yes, it turns out you can.  Ever heard of Peter Schjeldahl? He's the art critic for the New Yorker.  He lives in New York City.  He's never been to the DIA.  Still, he felt compelled to blog all over the place that it's no skin off his nose if the DIA has to sell off some of our art.

See if you can read the following and give a rodent's patooty about this guy's opinion of what's best for the DIA.  (Lots of hoity-toity words like "ineluctable" and "deaccessions" and "demur" and "abjure".  Just warning you.  And "solicitude".  Right at the end. "Solicitude".)

Art works have migrated throughout history. Unless destroyed, they are always somewhere. It’s best when they are on public display, but if they have special value their sojourns in private hands are likely temporary. At any rate, they are hardly altered by inhabiting one building rather than another. The relationship of art to the institutions that house and display it is a marriage of convenience, with self-interest on both sides, and not an ineluctable romance. I demur from the hysterical piety, among many of my fellow art folk, that regularly greets news of museum deaccessions—though I do wish museums would have the guts to abjure that weasel word for selling things off. (Paging George Orwell.) A museum may thereby maim itself; but the art takes no notice. Protest as we should a local institution’s short-sighted or venal behavior, we must admit at least a sliver of light between such issues and art’s immemorial claims on our solicitude.

In Schjeldahl's stuffy, sniffy piece he pokes a little fun at New Republic writer Nora Caplan-Bricker, who wrote a counterpoint called, "In Defense of Crumbling Museums: Why Detroit Should Keep Its Art".  (Happily, Caplan-Bricker manages to do it without using a single one of those words in quotes above.  And with paragraphs.)

So I'm over there at the New Republic hoping to wallow a while in some commiserating comfort when Nora whaps me silly in the second paragraph with a quote from a writer over at Bloomberg who, if it's possible, is an even bigger smarty-pants than that guy Schjeldahl.

Virginia Postrel's piece is called, "Detroit's Van Gogh Would Be Better Off in L.A".  Yes.  I am serious.  I read it three times.  The title, if you can believe it, is the least cutting of all.  (You might want to sit down for this one. Unless you're already thinking by the title you'll be agreeing with Ginny.  In that case, just stand there, you idiot.)

So Virginia, (yes, a Los Angeles resident) says:

If I lived in Detroit, I’d want to keep these artworks, too. And if I were a museum employee, I’d be particularly demoralized. The DIA has in recent years shown itself a responsible financial steward, and last August won voter approval in three surrounding counties for its first dedicated property-tax funding.

Well, isn't that special?  But wait. . .

Parochial interests aside, however, great artworks shouldn’t be held hostage by a relatively unpopular museum in a declining region. The cause of art would be better served if they were sold to institutions in growing cities where museum attendance is more substantial and the visual arts are more appreciated than they’ve ever been in Detroit. Art lovers should stop equating the public good with the status quo.

And then she says:

In fiscal 2012, which ended June 30, the Detroit museum attracted just fewer than 489,000 visits -- barely 1,000 more than it drew in 1928. With admission now free to residents of the tri-county area, the numbers are up this year, to about 526,000 through April. (These numbers count visits, not individuals; if you come five times, it counts as five visits.) By contrast, last year the Getty Center attracted 1.2 million visitors to a collection whose most impressive asset is the building in which it is housed. (The attendance figure doesn’t include visitors to the separate Getty Villa, which houses Greek and Roman art.)

The museum’s director, Timothy Potts, is charged with adding major works. Last month, the Getty announced the purchase of “Rembrandt Laughing,” a self-portrait of the young painter discovered in 2007, and a Canaletto view of the Grand Canal in Venice. But a young museum can only buy what’s for sale. 

And in conclusion Virginia earnestly suggests that:

Letting the Getty add the Canaletto view of the Piazza San Marco now in Detroit wouldn’t constitute a rape or a bonfire of the vanities. Hanging Van Gogh’s self-portrait [also in Detroit] alongside his “Irises” at the Getty or Bellini’s Madonna [also in Detroit] near his “Christ Blessing” at the Kimbell would not betray the public trust. It would enhance it.

Because they're L.A (or New York)?  Because they have the Getty (or the MOMA)?  Because at our art museum every person, rich or poor, big or little, can wander up and down and through our grand halls, our wondrous rooms, studying, sighing, swooning, breathing it all in, feeling like a million bucks, like there isn't anybody luckier at this very moment,  for free?

Deliver us, please, from unctuous snobs and make them stay where they are.  We're Detroit and they're not.  And we like it that way.

Rivera Court, DIA (Not the murals destroyed at Rockefeller Center, NYC, after Diego Rivera dared to include a figure of Lenin.  We kept ours, it should be noted.)

Addendum:  Mr. Schjeldahl at the New Yorker has had a change of heart.  Click here.


(Cross-posted, as always, at dagblog)