M/M (Paris), “Just Like an Ant Walking on the Edge of the Visible” (Study drawing), 2008.
WHO OWNS MUSEUM-COMMISSIONED WORKS?
A letter to the editor in The Art Newspaper authored by Brett Littman, Executive Director of The Drawing Center, brings up the question of who owns a work of art that has been commissioned and partially (or sometimes fully) funded by a museum or other arts institution. These projects are typically commissioned and funded for the sake of exhibition, and thus when the exhibition concludes, it’s not always clear who should get to take the work home. The museum may have funded it, but the artist created it. It’s definitely a “gray area” with valid and complex arguments on either side (Mr. Littman ably details many of these arguments in his letter); however, I was struck by one passage in this letter which pushed me towards thinking the museum should relinquish any rights. Mr. Littman writes:
“When our exhibition closes, the stools will travel to another museum and then will probably end up consigned to one of M/M’s commercial galleries. I cannot predict the eventual retail price of the full installation, but what I am sure of is that someone will most likely profit from this collaboration down the line, and it will not be The Drawing Center.”
Well, that’s the thing…The Drawing Center is a not-for-profit institution. You can be sure that the artists themselves will profit from the collaboration, and I don’t think that’s something that The Drawing Center would or should object to. The term “non-profit” can be misleading on many levels, not least because non-profits do need to make money somehow—and I fully appreciate that it can be a struggle to do so without turning to astronomical entrance fees a la MoMA. However, one of the things that the non-profit structure allows for is for museums and other institutions to be able to support and enable artists’ work without demanding recompense.
I still think it’s an unclear and tough situation, but when in doubt, I’d like to think that a place like The Drawing Center would come down on the side of artist advocacy—and it seems they have. It definitely burns to think of a commercial gallery turning a profit off of something originally funded by a non-profit (particularly now, when most non-profits are gearing up for major funding cuts), but the art world is a strange beast, and maybe that’s a loss that has to be taken in order to support public art production and consumption.
