Hasta La Ideas

While all eyes were on the bailout of Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art was gearing up to sneak around and raise some survival money of their own by “deaccessioning” some of their collection. That word, of course, is just a fancy way of say “selling off” really, something they’ve done every once in a while for the past few years to help raise some extra money, all the while courting plenty of controversy. This time around, the museum’s director, Michael Govan, has followed the standard dialogue, saying what they’re doing is perfectly pure:

“LACMA doesn’t usually trade one thing for another,” Govan said. “So no, we’re not deaccessioning because we have to pay some bill on another painting. The bottom line is: If you’ve noticed what we’ve been buying, we’ve been buying very aggressively. We’ve been planning to re-do our European collection galleries, and we’re slated at the end of this year to do that.”

Elsewhere, Govan spoke with the LA Times about the museum, careful not to create any extra worry about their finances. All are worth reading as a package to help piece together your ideas about the situation in your own head.

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