Hasta La Ideas

Speaking of the museum struggle, here’s another interesting story from the AP about the ways the industry is trying to fight back the tough times with technology. “We won’t think of hanging a work of art without a label and at least the audio clip,” says Dan Keegan at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Everything’s gone free wi-fi, iPod rentals, and even thinking about using GPS to guide people around (how this is possible, we’re not sure, unless they use mini-satellites, which would be awesome times three). But while this tech trend seems fairly centered on those big civic centers like New York and Los Angeles, and as we saw in our previous post that having a big new draw that lots of people show up for doesn’t necessarily translate into more income, it’s likely something that will make for a wide sweep across the industry, at least for those museums who are fortunate enough to keep their doors open throughout the storm.

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Remember back in January when it felt like we should all be preparing to open the newspaper and read the obituary for the Seattle Art Museum thanks to their losing Washington Mutal as a renter in their fancy new building and JP Morgan Chase telling them they didn’t want to pick up the lease, leaving the museum in the lurch to the tune of $60 million? Well while we’re sure they still haven’t quite figured out all the answers to their problems, as haven’t most museums with such a foggy financial future ahead, at least they have their attendance figures to feel good about, which, according to Arts Journal, have amazingly defied all of their projections by roughly 200%. Sure, that’s just one special exhibit doing that well, but the whole museum has somehow pushed the visitor numbers up across the board. So that has to make for slightly better night’s sleep, right?

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So we finally got through all the fighting and back and forth planning over Donald Fisher‘s Presidio Contemporary Art Museum and landed in a spot that seemed to at least quiet down the the general uproar for nearly a whole month. But a ha! While you were all collectively basking in the warmth of not having to read another story about this troublesome museum, there were forces at work trying to find something new to raise issue with. And so we have arrived and here is the latest complaint: there is no room for parking and public transportation doesn’t get nearly close enough. Of course, this makes sense, as you probably want people to come visit the thing if you’ve gone to this much trouble over the past few years to just get it built. But it also seems like this could be another clever plot to get Fisher away from the Presidio all together, as casually hinted at in the closure of this op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle:

New developments are being nudged to areas where transit is readily available: South of Market Street and south of the Bay Bridge, near the Transbay Terminal, at or near Mission Bay with its new UCSF campus, sites adjacent to Caltrans, Muni Metro and freeways.

Indeed, it is in transit-served locations such as those that a Fisher museum could provide a rich cultural addition to San Francisco, more accessible to all. That, indeed, would be a generous and exciting proposal.

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If we told you that you could buy an apartment in New York for $50 or an entire building for just a few hundred more, you would likely punch us in the face. As we do not like being punched in the face, we will instead clarify that initial statement. In a clever act of fundraising (found by way of I Like), the Queens Museum of Art has decided to start an “Adopt-A-Building” program using their famous Panorama of the City of New York exhibit, a gigantic modeled replica of the greater New York City metropolitan area, built in 1965. Throw in a few bucks for the building you live in, spend a few more for your old schoolhouse, or even throw down some big money and grab something like the Empire State Building. It’s a great idea, one that’s much more fun than, say, bricks out in front of the building or those usual staples. Here’s to hoping they’re successful and lots of people become pretend property barons, thus finally making their parents pretend proud of them.

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While all museum closing news is sad, and lord knows we’ve had enough of it to fill a few decades already in just these past couple of months, sometimes you receive a piece of information that you know must be a signal of how truly bad things are. Today, that signal came from the news that the Museum Erotica in Copenhagen has run out of money, largely due to an investment deal gone bad, and is now facing bankruptcy and closure (they officially closed their doors last Sunday, but have hopes of returning to open their doors again, should all of this somehow blow over). So let’s see: you can’t make people invest in and come visit museums about sports, which is incredible enough, and now things have gotten so awful that nationally-celebrated museums about sex are failing? Folks, we’re past the Chicken Little phase and we don’t mind telling you that the end is nigh. Though on the plus side, if the museum does go under, the auction will certainly be far more entertaining than most. Here’s a bit:

The City Council’s cultural committee has turned down a request to support the museum and the museum’s chief executive, Hanne Stensgaard, said the museum is facing the sale of its extensive collection.

Stensgaard told The Copenhagen Post that they are currently in the process of rebuilding the museum but are approximately two to three million kroner short due to a lack of investors.

‘We’ve been hopeful [of securing investors] for a long time and miracles can happen, but if we don’t get the funding within a week, we will have to close.’

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