Eli Broad’s recent decision to keep his collection intact with the Broad Art Foundation is the latest way the collector is shaping the art world. Broad has been one of the most influential patrons of the arts and Los Angeles has benefitted most from his generosity from donations to found MOCA, completing the Disney Concert Hall, donations to build the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA and the Grand Avenue project downtown (to name a few). But this time, the collector is being stingy. Ironically it could prove to be his most generous act.
Mr. Broad just announced that he will not be donating any works from his collection of over 2,000 top notch contemporary artworks to museums. While the NY Times seems to imply that this is a slap in the face to LACMA who was the anticipated recipient of the collection, the move could actually have a much broader impact on the institutional art world as a whole.
Most museums only show a small fraction of their collection at a given time. They don’t have room to show some amazing works that end up in the basement hanging on racks or stacked on shelfs for several years. (It always amazed me when I worked in the museum industry how many quality pieces we simply collecting dust.) Mr. Broad relizes this and doesn’t want his collection to share that fate.
“We don’t want it to end up in storage, in either our basement or somebody else’s basement,” Mr. Broad said. “So I, as the collector, am saying, ‘If you’re not willing to commit to show it, why don’t we just make it available to you when you want it, as opposed to giving it to you, and then our being unhappy that it’s only up 10 percent or 20 percent of the time or not being shown at all?’”
This makes the collection accessible to infinitely more museums around the globe and will allow the public to see works that would otherwise be invisible. If other major collectors follow suit we could be seeing the beginning of an easier free exchange of work and improved museum exhibitions world wide. Imagine any of the ArtNews 200 top collectors establishing similar foundations whose primary goal is to make sure the work is seen and enjoyed. We wouldn’t have to turn to books to see seminal works; we could easily find them on view and see them in person.
