Thursday, May 11, 2017

‘Encyclopedic’ Brooklyn Museum Vies for Contemporary Attention

The New York Times
April 30, 2017

"Brooklyn’s time may have come. But what of the Brooklyn Museum’s?

With art enthusiasts and donors increasingly enamored by contemporary art, and the borough now officially hot, the Brooklyn Museum is struggling to preserve and promote its identity as a serious encyclopedic institution that spans thousands of years. As leaders there are finding, it isn’t easy to attract paying customers with historic collections.

While many museums with comprehensive collections face similar challenges in keeping up with trends, the Brooklyn Museum is also facing serious financial pressures. To deal with a budget deficit of about $3 million, the museum has undergone two rounds of buyouts and halted acquisitions.

The museum’s board seems to have bet on a contemporary emphasis by choosing a new director with a background in that field, Anne Pasternak. Yet she needs to find her own balance between recent art and the museum’s vast holdings in pre-20th-century work."


More here.

No comments: