Art galleries are responding to financial pressures and calls to diversify their collections with joint acquisitions, reports Claire Selvin.
It didn’t take long for visitors to Dia:Beacon to fall for Sam Gilliam’s vibrantly colored abstract painting Double Merge (1968), an enormous canvas cascading from the ceiling, when it went on display two years ago, on long-term loan from a private collector. “It is beloved by our audience,” said the museum’s head, Dia Art Foundation director Jessica Morgan, who herself was taken with the piece. “I think with so many things in Dia:Beacon, once you install them you realize all the ways in which they’re opening doors and avenues for potential within the collection, and witnessing relationships between works that you hadn’t imagined were there before,” she said. “It just became even more urgent for us to think about how we could bring this work into the collection.” Gilliam’s work has soared into the millions over the past few years, pricing out most museums, with their modest budgets. This past March, however, came a surprising announcement: Dia had acquired the work—with an interesting twist: it was to be a joint acquisition with an institution nearly 1,700 miles away, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). Double Merge will travel to Houston next year, and in five years, it will be back in Beacon.
The past year has been difficult for museums, many of them facing financial hardship even before the pandemic brought monthslong closures and layoffs. A survey published by the American Alliance of Museums in June estimated that it will take “years” for United States art institutions to recover from the fallout of the global health crisis; it also revealed that 56 percent of museums issued furloughs or layoffs since March 2020... Keep reading on Art News.
It didn’t take long for visitors to Dia:Beacon to fall for Sam Gilliam’s vibrantly colored abstract painting Double Merge (1968), an enormous canvas cascading from the ceiling, when it went on display two years ago, on long-term loan from a private collector. “It is beloved by our audience,” said the museum’s head, Dia Art Foundation director Jessica Morgan, who herself was taken with the piece. “I think with so many things in Dia:Beacon, once you install them you realize all the ways in which they’re opening doors and avenues for potential within the collection, and witnessing relationships between works that you hadn’t imagined were there before,” she said. “It just became even more urgent for us to think about how we could bring this work into the collection.” Gilliam’s work has soared into the millions over the past few years, pricing out most museums, with their modest budgets. This past March, however, came a surprising announcement: Dia had acquired the work—with an interesting twist: it was to be a joint acquisition with an institution nearly 1,700 miles away, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). Double Merge will travel to Houston next year, and in five years, it will be back in Beacon.
The past year has been difficult for museums, many of them facing financial hardship even before the pandemic brought monthslong closures and layoffs. A survey published by the American Alliance of Museums in June estimated that it will take “years” for United States art institutions to recover from the fallout of the global health crisis; it also revealed that 56 percent of museums issued furloughs or layoffs since March 2020... Keep reading on Art News.