ARGH! "DIA's art collection could face sell-off to satisfy Detroit's creditors" [View all]

[IdaBriggs]

"...the scope of that power to sell off city jewels, such as the DIA collection, Belle Isle or the city’s water department..."

http://www.freep.com/article/20130523/NEWS01/305230154

DIA's art collection could face sell-off to satisfy Detroit's creditors

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Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr is considering whether the multibillion-dollar collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts should be considered city assets that potentially could be sold to cover about $15 billion in debt.

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Liquidating DIA art to pay down debt likely would be a monstrously complicated, controversial and contentious process never before tested on such as large scale and with no certain outcome. The DIA is unusual among major civic museums in that the city retains ownership of the building and collection while daily operations, including fund-raising, are overseen by a nonprofit institution.

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As emergency manager, Orr has great latitude in selling city assets to satisfy debt. But the scope of that power to sell off city jewels, such as the DIA collection, Belle Isle or the city’s water department, for example, has yet to be exercised and likely would be tested in court.

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Museums are not required by federal accounting rules to list their collections as assets. However, at the request of the Free Press, art dealers in New York and metro Detroit reviewed a list of 38 of the greatest masterpieces owned by the museum and estimated a market value of at least $2.5 billion with pieces such as Bruegel’s “The Wedding Dance,” van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait” and Matisse’s “The Window” all carrying estimates of between $100 million and $150 million each.

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Under normal circumstances, selling art to raise operating funds is strictly forbidden by the ethical codes and governing bodies in the museum world. Museums that run afoul of the rules are ostracized, and the threat of no longer being able to mount traveling exhibitions or borrow works is typically enough to prevent such sales — though the degree to which the DIA’s peer institutions would hold it accountable in the case of a forced sale remains an open question.


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