Thanks to decades of incentives to private donors, curators with too little space for storage and exhibits must now renovate and grow, or sell and diversify
The print and drawing centre at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto houses more than 100,000 items in a two-storey, climate-controlled vault. With a bit of reorganizing of the shelves and boxes, there would be room for more –game,” says chief curator Julian Cox, who also oversees the 12,000 paintings and sculptures stored in the sub-basement vaults below.
“One cannot imagine a world where museums just keep storing and storing and storing and storing indefinitely,” said Stéphane Aquin, director of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where he oversees a collection of 47,000 objects. About 5 per cent or 6 per cent is currently on display. “The pressure is on institutions to maintain storage, and to permit these works that we acquire to live and not just be dumped into what is basically their cemetery.
Along with a lack of fire sprinklers and security alarms, the conservation survey uncovered another startling fact: About half of the respondents said their collections had doubled or more than doubled in the past 20 years. Canadian art museums have infrastructure problems because they have so much stuff.Workers in Ottawa prepare the new roof of the National Gallery of Canada in 1986, in a decade where art museums faced growing pressure to acquire more art.
The U.S. has a similarly generous system, although its process is more streamlined. Britain’s system is less generous, and most European countries don’t offer these tax credits at all. However, Canada is the rare Western economy without an inheritance tax: It is standard in Europe to donate art to the state in lieu of death duties.
“We need more space to show art,” said AGO director Stephan Jost. “We need more space to show a broader history of art, a more inclusive history. I’m not trying to be politically correct, but it’s just great, great things that haven’t seen the light of day.”AGO director Stephan Jost laments the fact that there is not enough room to show 'a more inclusive history' of art.If space is at a premium but new acquisitions are a must, one solution is to sell off some of the older art.
“The issue is not so much about percentages, but what you are showing,” Cox said. “What is the reward for the public?”
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