Hi Abraham. It is already acceptable for museums to use funds from deaccessioning for direct care of their collections and it's also acceptable for museums to deaccession works to acquire other works that better support their mission. The question being debated is whether museums can use deaccession funds for other things like staffing and building projects. For academic art museums, a policy change allowing for such uses would pose a particular problem (threat?) because it would encourage cash-strapped parent organizations to view our collections as fungible assets. That being said, another aspect of this debate that you should consider is how very limited the membership of AAMD is. There are about 200 US-based art museum directors who have been accepted into that elite organization. There are 1,100 art museums in the US. The AAMD has an annual operating budget gate for membership--on their website it's $2 million but every current member organization has a budget of at least $2.4 million. That excludes smaller museums that would benefit the most from flexibility in their budgets. (It also disproportionately excludes women and directors of academic museums but that's another story).
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Lauren Lessing
Director
University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art
Iowa City IA
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-07-2022 08:30 AM
From: Abraham Suskind
Subject: Deaccessions During Covid Against AAMD Guidl
Hello All,
I am a Graduate Art History/Museum Studies studies writing my qualifying paper on Museum Deaccessions during Covid. I was wondering if anyone here has any inputs or opinions about the recent Covid deaccessions as well as AAMD Temporary Policy Suspension through April 2022. Does anyone feel like the policy should be changed? Should museums be able to deaccession art and use the funds for things other than acquisitions? Should museums be able to use deaccessioned funds for direct care of the collection?
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Abraham Suskind
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