The Silent Emergency Facing Museums

0:03What is coming to the fore very clearly so far is I think this idea of more networked institutions whether that's collaborating together on acquisitions or sharing their patrons or in terms of also just like how they're building themselves.

0:21I'm Kate Brown and this is The Art Angle, a podcast from Artnet News.

0:30Museums across the globe are facing unprecedented challenges. In the West, public funding is shrinking, politics are creeping into the galleries, and institutions are having to ask hard questions about how to stay relevant to their donors and their publics. In an era of increased scrutiny and diminishing returns, even some of the most established museums are questioning what long-term sustainability looks like. Meanwhile, in China, the private museum boom that once symbolized cultural ambition and real estate wealth is cracking. and some of the lavish new museums that have opened in recent years are having to close or scale back.

1:06In short, museums are in a crisis. I recently worked with Margaret Kerrigan, our news editor and host of the Art Market Minute, to edit a four-part series examining this issue from different angles. I'm pleased to have Margaret on the show to talk about what this all means, the financial, political, and ethical pressures that are reshaping museums, and whether this is a breaking point or the start of a new chapter of reinvention. Hi, Margaret. Thanks for joining me on The Art Angle. It's so great to have you on. I'm excited to be here. Thank you. Yeah, well, we've been working closely together across the last weeks, getting out this package, which we've called Museums in Crisis.

1:43What, in your words, would be like the scope and the aim of the series? What do you think was like the big question that you were trying to answer with it? We've been talking about this idea for like a couple of years now, really. So it's not necessarily new, but it kept shifting forms because so much is happening in the world. And I think this year is a real inflection point with everything that's happening under the Trump administration in the U.S. and in the U.K. There's a lot of like funding pushback and we can get into that later. So there's this like real moment. Things were crystallizing after a lot of upset in the past few years.

2:19I think the big question we wanted to get at with this was like, how are museums planning to keep the lights on? Because it just seems like overheads are rising and public trust is declining. And those two things do not go well together for museums. And there's really no clear roadmap for a lot of them. And there's just pressure coming from all sides. So I think the question was like, we're aware of a lot of the issues, but like, what are some of the solutions here? Definitely. Yeah. It was a story that was sort of shifting under our feet, wasn't it? I mean, And I feel like since the museums reopened in the pandemic, nothing was ever the same.

2:53And in a way, there's a long tail to this whole story. Like this even goes back to the first Trump administration. There's been, as you mentioned, a real shift in the public's ideas of what they want from their institutions and budgets are being cut and governments are getting a lot more conservative, as you said. The pieces that we did roved across many different countries, but maybe we could kind of lay the land a bit more in a few of them in particular. Yeah, I mean, we kind of centered on the West. You know, that's where we're operating from. And I think that's where we're seeing a lot of the same kind of trends, which is to that point, it's like constriction of public funding, loss of public trusts, rise of corporate sponsorship.

3:32Also, on top of that, to your point about the pandemic, I think that was a through line that came through a lot, is that that fundamentally altered the way I think people are engaging with museums. It was in progress before that, but it really was just like a flashpoint there. And I think that really bore out in some of the data that we picked up for these stories on the attendance side, which there was a recent report this year by SMU Data Arts that showed that pretty much across the board, a lot of big Western art institutions were seeing still declining footfall or just hadn't returned to pre-pandemic levels.

4:07MoMA, I think, is now down to 2.8 million. It was 3.2 million before the pandemic. In the UK, the Arts Council England also published some figures this year that said visitor numbers had dropped by about 10 percent across the country. And that was really marked, too. The ARP newspaper published in their annual visitor report, Figures About Tate, that showed its footfall had decreased by over a quarter than before the pandemic. That's huge. Meanwhile, like other big museums, the Louvre is down one percent. But, you know, there's been a lot of stories coming out in the last year about staff striking because of over-tourism and they just can't keep up with the demand there.

4:43But even that demand is, it's still not back to pre-pandemic levels. Yeah, it really feels like the model of these museums is just cracking at like every corner of its foundation. And I think that what's nice about this package that we did is that it kind of gets at all these different aspects. So it'll be good to crack into the different stories. But the numbers that you just brought up addressing declining footfall are really impacting the bottom lines. And as we'll touch on a bit today, that is impacted by these cuts to the funding. I was just reading Brian Boucher's piece and, you know,$428 million was cut in this year alone in the NEA and the NEH and the IMLS.

5:22And this is just quite shocking. So the numbers that you stated are compacted by declining budgets. So, you know, to crack into that a little bit more, because Brian Boucher wrote a great feature about the breaking point of museums, essentially. This cuts to budget combined with a politicization in the government right now that is going after these museums. I'm curious, what stood out to you in that story as you were working on him with it? I think the key word here is anxiety. I think what Brian did well in that piece is he very clearly points to the fact that this is not necessarily a new trend in the United States.

5:57that federal funding for museums has been declining since the 90s, really. So this isn't necessarily specific to the Trump administration, although the administration is taking very drastic steps to take control of not only funding, but also the programming of museums at the moment. But across the globe, it seems most institutions are facing greater scrutiny over sensitive issues, and a lot of these museum leaders are really having to second-guess every decision as they're seeing a lot of their funding migrating to other causes are just drying up entirely. In the conversations that we were having around these stories and the lead up to them with Brian and also with some of our sources, you know, I think that that is a real point that bears mentioning a little bit more is that it's not just that money is not there.

6:46It's that it's there, but moving around. It's going into different things. It's being siphoned off into potentially other causes, but also into other pockets. And I remember really specifically speaking to a deputy director of an arts institution here in the UK. You know, it's like a networked issue because they told me that one of their biggest U.S. patrons wasn't going to give this year because essentially they had redirected all of their funds into supporting universities, which were also coming under Trump's ire, you know, as he was pursuing Harvard and whatnot. So I think there's a real concern about how do museums stay relevant when everything is in crisis?

7:26Exactly. Yeah, this sort of term that we hear a lot right now, the poly crisis. And it's a good point. Donors are not necessarily disappearing, but there's the climate crisis, which is also being attacked in the Trump administration. So, yeah, I think that something that stood out to me, though, if we stay on the cultural institutions in the U.S., when I was editing his piece, was this fear among directors. What's going on with that? It was a big story, of course, when Kim Saget, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, resigned after Trump announced that he was firing her, which it's not exactly clear if he's even able to do that.

8:03There seems to be this sense of like they're frozen in the headlights right now. It's such a good point. And I mean, I think rightfully so. And to point back to this issue of universities, like it's not something we've covered directly since it's not in our orbit directly. But at the same time, it's a good case study for what Trump may want to do. And he has made no bones about pursuing at least the Smithsonian, if not other museums, Smithsonian because it is directly federally funded. In the same way that he did pursue universities to kind of bring them in line with his ideological doctrine about what he thinks they should be doing.

8:45You know, earlier this year, I mean, the big story, and we've covered it at length, is that, you know, he really has cracked down on the Smithsonian, claiming in March with an executive order that they had come under this influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology. And since then, his administration has repeatedly criticized the institution's programming. Just this summer, you know, they circulated like a bullet-pointed list of all the artworks they appear to oppose that are in the Smithsonian. Right now, U.S. government has shut down because the Republicans and Democrats couldn't come to an agreement on a spending bill.

9:14And that's happened before. It's not new to U.S. politics. But I think that the tenor of it is very different this time because Trump has essentially said that he will use this as an opportunity to fire people. And he's been kind of targeting the museums in that way since he got into office. There was an article in The New York Times that revealed that just since the shutdown went into effect, the Trump administration has actually ousted an outside advisory group that was advising the National Endowment for the Humanities, which I think really shows that this could be an opportunity for Trump to pursue some of the firings or some of the reductions that he's been wanting to see.

9:53We're seeing plenty of pushback on that. I mean, we've seen some successful lawsuits recently that were filed as a direct result to the NEA and NEH funding cuts that essentially say this has been a violation of First Amendment rights and that they can get that money back. But again, those were filed in March. So that's months that these museums were going without knowing if they were going to get this funding back and having to retool and pause things. So I think that that kind of iffiness has kept everyone from being able to really take take a step forward and find a platform to speak on because it's all shifting so quickly.

10:27And there's no real understanding of how much power someone like Trump has right now. And all we can do is just kind of like use the courts, use what we can to push back on it. One thing I will say is I was just listening to another podcast this morning, Charlotte Burns and Alan Schwartzman's What If? And they had Glenn Lowry, the former director of MoMA on there. And he just left his post a couple of weeks ago and is on to new things. But he raised the issue of, you know, further pressures that could be coming from the Trump administration, including eradicating their not-for-profit status, which would be really damaging to museums in the U.S.

11:06Because so many, if they're not directly funded by federal funds, they are getting tax exemptions because of this designation. So I think that has also compounded the issue for a lot of museum directors as they try and figure out what exactly this administration is capable of and just not jeopardizing their long-term future by, I guess, essentially increasing his ire and him stripping away those kinds of federal protections that do exist for museums that are also outside of the federal network. Wow. That's a really interesting insight from Glenn Lowry. We often think about museums in Europe as the ones that are government funded, but there's huge subsidies given to U.S.

11:46institutions. And, you know, that compounded by something that you said earlier about the relevance of these museums, you know, arguably diversity and inclusion and projects that have related to, you know, post-colonialism or climate concerns or indigenous issues, just to name a few things. If these are suddenly no longer being favored in the programming because of the concern of losing funding, just to like, you know, bring this all together, those patrons have more who might be interested in funding those projects are going to go elsewhere. So this is just to bring this all together. You can really see how deeply concerning this moment in time is.

12:21Yeah, exactly. And to your point about thinking about Europe is like the epitome of like public funding structures for museums. Like I also know that that's also kind of shifting while they still might get more public funding than ones in the U.S. I think that we've seen this in Germany, especially Kate. And maybe you can say a little bit more about that because you're in it. But, you know, we've seen some funding cuts over the last year there. And then obviously there's been a lot of concern about what you can and can't say after the October 7th attack in 2003. And there was museums in Germany really seemed in the crosshairs for a while of protests against Israel's war on Gaza.

12:57So, I mean, how is that bearing out in what you're seeing in museums around you? From what I've observed from the outside, you know, looking into these institutions, obviously not working within them, but from just reporting around them, it seems that there's a similar sense of paralysis and a lack of certainty around what is okay and what is not okay to say, especially around the Israel-Gaza conflict. This also came to a head, you know, after October 7th, 2023, when there were some notable cancellations of museum shows from artists that had made statements about the conflict. So that's been a kind of simmering issue and there's, you know, many different views on it.

13:36And within this is the question of like a museum's core mission to be a space of open dialogue, but also to be a space where people can be fundamentally protected from hate speech. And so what these things mean has just been a very live wire issue in the German media landscape. That runs in parallel with austerity measures that have come into place, and in particular in Berlin. And as the capital of Germany, Berlin, of course, has a huge museum landscape. I believe that there are over 400 cultural institutions here alone. And so at the regional level in December 2024, the Berlin Senate cut 130 million euros in funding to cultural institutions.

14:15And this includes opera houses, theaters, as well as art museums. And it's just a huge amount of money for these institutions to be losing. And there was a protest against this. And so I think, you know, just to bring up this poly crisis again, the governments have become more conservative and they don't see the relevancy here as well of all this money that they're doling out to museums. And then on the same time, there is a parallel conversation going on about what the museum's function is in the political dialogue right now in Germany. So it's very tense here, to say the least. And at the same time, as you noted, the German museum landscape doesn't function in quite the same way as the US.

14:56It's primarily government-funded, and there are some groups and private funders, but it's a much smaller part of the pie than the public funding that is literally what keeps the lights on at these institutions. Yeah.

15:26We've sort of already touched on some similarities and differences that have been taking place across the board of the West, But Cathy Fan wrote a great piece looking at China's private museum boom in recent years and its imminent or recent collapse. She focused on a few case studies from some private museums there. And I think there are some warning signs or cautionary tales that we could pull into the story that is happening in the West right now, would you say? Huge caveat. I do think it operates very differently in China, so I don't want to draw too many close comparisons here. But what I do think is so interesting about Cathy's piece is that she looks at three museums that were kind of developed as emblems of prestige that anchored larger luxury property developments or were the kind of outgrowth of property developers' riches in the last two decades of the big property boom in China.

16:26So they were very much tied to an individual's fortune, right, rather than having kind of this mixed economy model that we see in the West more of several different types of funding sources. And over the last couple of years, again, since the pandemic, there's been a real real estate crisis in China that has caused these museums that had only one source of funding to fold. If not entirely, then in part, you know, they're reducing programming or, you know, just closing to the public or in some cases they would shutter for long times and then reopen for special projects. So it's reduced the ability for the public to just be a part of the museum sphere.

17:10And I think that was always a risk of the private museums. It was certainly raised in the 2010s when there was this big private museum boom of like, what happens if the owner of these museums just decides one day, like, I'm not into this. And that essentially happened in the last couple of years. These real estate developers, their fortunes were in flux as these real estate issues cropped up and the economy suffered. And they were just kind of like, well, we just simply can't afford to do this. It's not interesting to me anymore. It's not what I can afford. And she even said in this piece that some museums in China were actually effectively run as private businesses, so they needed to make profit.

17:50They weren't the specific museums that she highlighted, but that these do exist, these types of museums do exist in China, and they are obviously just not returning your profit. So I think if there is a lesson for other museums elsewhere in the world and this issue that China is facing, then I think it's that you have to be really wary about relying too heavily on big donors, you know, because what they do with their money is essentially their business and they're going to do what they want with it. Exactly. And again, you know, just to drive home what we were saying earlier, and their money can go elsewhere very quickly.

18:24They can just decide one year after another once their, you know, contracts that they've signed on to for endowments have changed or whatever. And I think, you know, what you were just saying about Glenn Lowry's point about tax incentives. If that changes, suddenly you do have a more single model of financing. So I think the lesson there is really like the essentialism of diversification and the funding model, which we'll talk about in a little bit because you wrote a great piece that touches on this as well. But you mentioned big donors. Roving back to the UK, Vivian Chow looked at sponsorships in UK museums, which there have been many controversies in recent years.

19:00There have been soup being thrown at paintings. There's been all kinds of protests against BP. There's been protests over Sackler. So what's been going on with that from your perspective? So I'm an American based in London, so I've been following this closely as well with Vivian. And it really reached a boiling point over the summer. You know, I think there's been a lot of protests in the past few years, even before the pandemic, against corporate sponsors that the public viewed as unethical for museums to be partnering with. And we've seen that in the UK, especially with the British Museum because of their deals with BP, which is the oil giant.

19:37And essentially this year, they renewed their contract with BP for funding. And there was a big call from cultural leaders over the summer. They published an open letter. I think they were signatories from the V &A, the British Museum, National Gallery, like the big institutions in the UK to essentially say like there's too much, quote unquote, relentless negativity around private funding from major firms and that these kinds of protests and boycotts that we've seen a lot and the public pressure on these museums to navigate away from these funding sources is essentially jeopardizing their survival.

20:12It's an argument to be made for sure, but the Museums Association then kind of came back a few months later, I think just in September, and published some advice for their members, which most of these big museums are part of the Museums Association. And they kind of explicitly warned against relying on sponsors tied to fossil fuels or human rights abuses. So there's a real push-pull in the UK right now about what kind of corporate sponsorship is the right kind of corporate sponsorship. And I think it's exacerbated by the fact that public funding for UK museums is drastically low right now. And we're seeing it in lots of different ways in the cultural sector.

20:50You know, theaters are closing and things like that. Smaller regional museums are warning that they have six months left or something like that before they have to turn their lights out. So there's a real urgency to it. At the same time, it raises questions about, you know, what money is good money to take? Exactly. Yeah. There was a quote from someone in the piece that said, quote, all money can be problematic. And I think it does bring some questions about what does the public want or expect? Like these institutions cost money to run. And in the case of the UK in particular, it's free to go to their permanent collections.

21:25Right. So there's no ticket charge at the door. Of course, you pay to go see the semi-permanent exhibitions. Something that Vivian touched on in her piece is that maybe a seemingly neutral party would be the fashion and luxury brands. But that's also kind of a vexed issue, right? You know, Tim Schneider's Gray Market newsletter recently came out and was saying that, you know, 40 % of the market value of LVMH, Caring and Prada has been lost in the past year. They're going to start having to cut their events budgets just like anyone else right now. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that goes back to the point where it's just like if you're relying on one specific individual or industry specifically to keep your bankroll going, that I just don't think that it's feasible at this point because there's just so much volatility in the world economy in general.

22:13but also just, again, changing tastes and changing expectations from the public. I think in Vivian's piece, there was someone who said today's safe option could be tomorrow's hot potato. Like, you just don't know which way the winds are blowing. And it gets increasingly difficult to navigate. It makes these museums kind of reticent or shy to speak out on things because they don't know where to go for, again, the quote unquote right answer or right money right now. You know, that brings us to possible solutions. You spoke to many people for your piece, talking to them about different ways that they've found to future proof their bottom lines, basically.

22:50What did you find most compelling when you were doing your reporting on that? I think that the big takeaway from that is what we've kind of already said, which is like one approach is not enough. You really got to diversify here. You have to find many ways. But that is an exhausting endeavor, right? Like you have to have big teams to do that. Small museums might not necessarily be able to compete on that front. So there's a little bit of risk there. This is something that like the bigger museums are already undertaking and have been undertaking. And I think smaller museums are finding more and more ways to do it, but they don't have the same reach in which to do it.

23:24So that's interesting. I think one smaller museum that I think is doing interesting things that we mentioned is the Toledo Art Museum in Toledo, Ohio. So they've kind of been dabbling in a couple of different ways to just diversify their revenue. And one interesting way is by providing auction house guarantees, which, you know, this line between the market and museums is a hazy one. There's this kind of expectation that it's quite steadfast, but it's been murky at best for a long time. So I think that's an interesting model in which the museum is essentially saying to auction houses when a work comes up for sale at an auction house, they say, oh, we would like to acquire that work.

24:05So they decide on a work, they run it through their curatorial committee and their board the way they would with any acquisition. And they essentially put down a guarantee for that work saying, I will pay X amount for this work that they negotiate with the auction house. And then if it sells for more than that to someone else, they kind of get like a kickback for the added price on top of that. I'm trying to explain this as simply as possible without getting to all the muddy waters of what auction house guarantees are. But essentially, they're saying we want this piece by offering a guarantee.