My initial investigation into the Guggenheim Foundation and its activities over the last decade, logically began with the Guggenheim Foundation website. As previously noted, this is a comprehensive site with good historical data for each of the museums which sit beneath the Guggenheim brand umbrella. The site offers information on funding sources, exhibition programs, acquisition strategies and general philosophies.
Another practical tool on this website is the Press Office which lists media releases and statements dating back as far as 1998 relating to the Guggenheim’s mission, activities, new projects as well as references to key personnel, in particular, the Guggenheim Foundation Director, Thomas Krens, who has been the driving force behind their globalisation strategy. One useful link from this web page is into the PBS’s Charlie Rose Show where, in January 2006, Krens appeared to respond to his critics' claims of his commodification of the art museum and to articulate the Guggenheim vision.
It also became clear from the Guggenheim Foundation website that part of this globalisation strategy had not come to fruition. Whilst very recently the proposed project in Abu Dhabi was announced with great fan-fair, similar announcements in previous years for new museums in downtown Manhattan, Rio de Janeiro, Taiwan and Guadalajara, Mexico seem to have been optimistic and premature. This of course prompts the reader to look for independent commentary as to the success or otherwise of this global approach and its implications for the broader museum community.
I sought a wide variety of media views in order to form a more balanced assessment as to the motivation behind this strategy and the degree to which it has achieved its aims. Not surprisingly the New York Times comments regularly on the activities of the Guggenheim Foundation. Deborah Solomon’s article, for example, published in June, 2002, Is the Go-Go Guggenheim Going, Going… discusses Krens’ entrepreneurial approach to running an art museum, his concept of a global museum, unabashed deal making and the museum’s sometimes brazen approach to acquisitions – often expecting a donation from an artist who has enjoyed the benefits of a solo exhibition. She discusses the building of the museums in Bilbao and Las Vegas asking whether the focus is more on the building than the art and questions what is going to fill the growing square meterage of museum space – sometimes “filler” she summises – like “The Art of the Motorcycle” exhibition (image below). Yet Solomon also asks whether the Guggenheim is just being pragmatic and more open and frank about what is becoming a standard policy of increasing commercialisation in art museums.
Other relevant articles (amongst many) include the New York Times journalist Michael Kimmelman's Critic's Notebook: Art, Money and Power, The Business Side: Not Every Opening is a Hit by Bernard Stamler also of the New York Times, McGuggenheim? a 2001 article by Mark Honigsbaum of the Guardian and P.T. Barnumizing art museums by Joan Altabe which featured in a publication supported by Drexel University.
References to other museums seeking to undertake similar expansionist schemes, such as Alan Riding’s January, 2005 article in the New York Times, In a Trend, Museums in Paris Branch Out, drew me to review the websites of the Tate galleries in Britain as well as some of the French art museums such as the Louvre and the Centre Pompidou. It became clear however that although they have expanded beyond their original institutional foundations, none have sought the extensive global franchise of the Guggenheim. The Tate in particular, has expanded to include two museums in London, one in Liverpool and one on the Cornwall coast. The Louvre has committed to a regional location in northern France and whilst the Pompidou plans to open the Centre Pompidou-Metz in early 2008 (image below)
and is entering into an opportunistic relationship with the Guggenheim in Hong Kong, the strategies of these institutions seem quite different from that of the Guggenheim which is clearly attempting to extend and build its brand and ‘product’ in what appears to be an acquisitive and aggressive manner.
Finally one needs to return to the question of why. Why is the Guggenheim and, albeit in different manifestations, other art museums pursuing such strategies and what does it means for the future.
This question raises issues in respect of museum practice and management including that of funding, partnerships with the corporate sector, the commercialisation of the museum exhibit and the display and ownership of the permanent collection. Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times regularly addresses many of these issues not just in relation to the Guggenheim but identifies a growing trend amongst American art museums where the bottom line seems to be becoming the primary motivator. In his article dated July 17, 2005, Art; What Price Love? he claims that increasingly the “bedrock” goals of preserving collections and upholding the public interest are being eroded in pursuit of the ever-elusive dollar.
This question also lead me to an interesting paper written by Michael Scott, a Winston Churchill Fellow for 2005, and titled, Museum and Gallery in the 21st Century. Whilst the paper does not address the globalisation of museums, it does investigate the issue of funding and how this impacts the choices that museums and galleries make in acquiring and displaying their collections.