Wow. This article addresses a lot of interesting points that I had not considered. It's amazing how different museums could become with relatively small changes

Wow. This article addresses a lot of interesting points that I had not considered. It's amazing how different museums could become with relatively small changes. However, the deaccessioning arguments made me nervous. I agreed with the point that selling puts the art in no physical harm as a private buyer has just as much incentive to preserve his or her art as a museum does, but there are other problems with his model. For instance, I would not object if art was sold to set up a fund to make admission free, but I worry that a museum would sell art whenever capital was needed. Take for example the Delaware Art Museum which sold significant pieces to pay for a likely unneeded expansion [1]. If it became easy and commonplace for museums to sell art to fund other ventures, we would see conflicts of interest: perhaps the museum believes expanding its building is more important than showing an influential piece. Even if we relax the limitations on selling art, we would still need some sort of ethics code detailing when it is and is not appropriate to sell artwork and this code would have to balance the conflicting priorities of museums, donors, and the public. The author also briefly touches on the issue of digitizing collections. Although at first glance digitizing a collection seems like an easy shortcut to infinity accessible art, there is certainly a difference between seeing a reproduction of art and seeing the art in person, what Walter Benjamin would call the “aura” of the piece [2]. His 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” is certainly worth a read – I have not seen a better analysis of the role of reproduction in art and society. However, the issues I have brought up are just details that I think a concerted effort by a group of influential museums could overcome. I think the article overlooks one fundamental issue: the role of the art museum is not just to make art accessible to the public. For instance, the MET charges itself not only to “present significant works of art” to the public, but also to collect, study, and conserve art [3]. These last three goals may conflict with O'Hare's idea of an ideal museum structured toward maximum engagement. [1]. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/arts/design/censured-delaware-art-museum-plans-to-divest-more-works.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/arts/design/censured-delaw... [2]. https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/... [3]. http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/mission-statement http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/mission-statement