Cultural Vandalism
Earlier this summer, Julia Marchmain and I had the pleasure of visiting the Barnes Foundation in Merion, PA. Tucked inside a gallery in a residential neighborhood was arguably the world's finest collection of Impressionist and Modernist paintings. Cezanne, Matisse, Renoir, Van Gogh, Picasso, Degat and Seurat are all represented.
Estimated value: Impossible. Pieces like Matisse's arch-mounted La Danse are simply priceless.
The founder, Dr. Barnes, created his foundation for artists. His collection was not primarily a public exhibition but rather a teaching tool for artists and art students. The arrangement of the collection is unusual. A visitor looks upon a wall, spies a prominent painting in the center and then notices that the paintings arranged above, below and around the center work all draw out certain technical skills and artistic themes: an especially vibrant splash of red, a wheel & spoke design, the curve of the female form.
Selected metal workings and furniture complement the paintings. In museums and galleries, I am accustomed to wandering, reading the placards and focusing on the artist's biography and the painting's historical context. Barnes removes these distractions. The only written information is a single word on each frame with the artist's name, i.e. "RENOIR" or "SEURAT." It is a liberating way to view art.
Unfortunately, the enduring lesson of Dr. Barnes is that if you plan to bequeath a priceless art collection, you must ensure that there isn't a politician within 500 miles. Dr. Barnes' trust indenture explicitly prohibited the sale, movement or relocation of his collection. Within two generations, the corrupt Philadelphia (a redundancy, I know) political and social establishment targeted the Barnes Collection for relocation.
We viewed his art on its final day in Merion, PA. It is now relocated to a new home near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It took a surprisingly simple alliance of City Hall (Mayor, Governor, and Attorney General) and Dr. Barnes' old enemies in the Philadelphia establishment (Pew Charitable Trust, Lenfest and Annenberg Foundations) to tear apart his trust and grease the move to urban Philadelphia.
You could not have found a more socially sympathetic or politically-correct figure: Dr. Barnes worked his way out of the slums of Philly, went to medical school and created life-saving medicine. With his fortune he was an eccentric collector of art. He was a full-throated Progressive, a card carrying liberal Democrat and an enthusiastic New Dealer. If his wishes and intentions, if his property and contract rights were not respected, what chance does anyone have against barbarian politicians and bullying foundations?
Further reading: http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/the-art-of-the-steal
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/no-museum-left-behind
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Re: Cultural Vandalism
This is appalling. Precisely as you say, it is an outrage against the property and contract rights that underlie public trust.
Sep '10
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Here in San Diego, a rich widow donated beach property and had a sea wall constructed to create a Children's Pool in La Jolla. In the last decade, seals moved in to claim it and environmentalists wouldn't allow the city to keep them out. Despite having spent her own money to explicitly create a completely safe beach for toddlers and writing all of this in her grant to the city, children can no longer even walk on the sand for fear of being bitten by these pests.
Lesson: Never give anything to the public. Keep it all for yourself.
Update: Here's the website for the Friends of Children's Pool. They've almost completely surrendered to the seals and even that isn't enough for the enviros.
Edited on December 21, 2011 at 3:10pmJun '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
The Barnes Foundation museum was unusual and lovely in its original site. Even better than the art, for me, were the beautiful grounds and gardens. It is a shame and a crime that those elements are not part of the museum any more. I don't know what all the thinking was in moving it downtown, but the neighbors in the upscale residential neighborhood were no doubt pleased to see it go.
Nevertheless, it seems silly to get exercised over dead people's property rights. You can't seriously expect to run things from the grave.
Nov '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Absolutely agree about this travesty. The message of the Barnes experience is to make sure you have the right investment strategy. When Dr. Barnes died in 1951, the portfolio supporting the collection was 10 million. His will mandated that it be invested entirely in US Treasury securities. In the early '90s when the blow-up started, the portfolio's value was 9.85 million while the GDP price index was just about 5 times its 1951 level. That opened the door for the looters to "come to the rescue".
Apr '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
It's not about a dead person's property rights. He gave the art with conditions. These conditions were to be permanent. The city agreed to the conditions in order to induce Barnes to give over the art. The city appears to have defrauded the dead man. That's the issue.
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Are you serious? Who would ever make a will--or leave money to anyone or anything--if they didn't think it would be enforced? Who would work to leave a legacy that will live beyond them?
Dec '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Are you serious? Who would ever make a will--or leave money to anyone or anything--if they didn't think it would be enforced? Who would work to leave a legacy that will live beyond them? · Dec 21 at 6:33am
If tradition is the democracy of the dead, then the economy of the dead is trusts and estates.
Dec '10
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Dr. Barnes reminds me of Howard Roark from The Fountainhead. The elites truly are running this country for themselves. Bankers, Politicians, Judges, etc. I am quickly losing faith in almost every institution that I once revered. It saddens me.
Aug '10
Re: Cultural Vandalism
I am suddenly having flashbacks to the Rule Against Perpetuities in property classes...
Dec '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Its a crime against the humanities!!!!!!!!!
Seriously though, this is a damn shame.
Sep '10
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Rex Mottram
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Are you serious? Who would ever make a will--or leave money to anyone or anything--if they didn't think it would be enforced? Who would work to leave a legacy that will live beyond them? · Dec 21 at 6:33am
If tradition is the democracy of the dead, then the economy of the dead is trusts and estates. · Dec 21 at 6:36am
Rex either you're starting to sound like me, or I'm starting to sound like you. Isn't it Harold Bloom (hard to believe, I know) who bequeathed his works to the Catholic Church (even though not a believer) because he thought they'd be the best safeguards for future generations: assuming that is, anyone wants to read Harold Bloom's pontificating prose.
Dec '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Pseudodionysius
Rex Mottram
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Are you serious? Who would ever make a will--or leave money to anyone or anything--if they didn't think it would be enforced? Who would work to leave a legacy that will live beyond them? · Dec 21 at 6:33am
If tradition is the democracy of the dead, then the economy of the dead is trusts and estates. · Dec 21 at 6:36am
Rex either you're starting to sound like me, or I'm starting to sound like you. Isn't it Harold Bloom (hard to believe, I know) who bequeathed his works to the Catholic Church (even though not a believer) because he thought they'd be the best safeguards for future generations: assuming that is, anyone wants to read Harold Bloom's pontificating prose. · Dec 21 at 7:38am
The Church might lose adoptions, hospitals and schools... but their archival business is BOOMING! (Blooming?)
Mar '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
This is part of a Popish plot. The neighboring Jesuits just want the property.
May '10
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Rex Mottram
The Church might lose adoptions, hospitals and schools... but their archival business is BOOMING! (Blooming?)
At great expense to the Church, one might add.
Very sad. Law is worthless without a culture that supports it.
Dec '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Aaron Miller
Rex Mottram
The Church might lose adoptions, hospitals and schools... but their archival business is BOOMING! (Blooming?)
At great expense to the Church, one might add.
Very sad. Law is worthless without a culture that supports it. · Dec 21 at 11:16am
At great expense to souls and society!
Sep '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
It's about the violation of a legal document and the fact that others think they know better than the owner of the property (the Foundation, I think?) what should be done with the property. It's appalling, disgusting and shameful.
Jun '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
Seems I was wrong; you CAN expect to run things from the grave! But you will have to do it through other people. I think the timeframe here was several decades after Mr. Barnes's death? Maybe long enough for a situation to arise that justified his trustees' violating one provision on the basis that they thought they were better fulfilling his overall intent? Maybe not. But someday- in a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand years, the museum was not going to be kept just as he requested in his will. It's reasonable to expect your feasible legal directives to be carried out immediately after death, but not "forever."
Dec '11
Re: Cultural Vandalism
His trustees didn't violate the provisions... the trustees were violated!
In a country with the rule of law, it IS entirely reasonable and feasible to expect your legal directives to be carried out, especially when you fund them, they serve the public interest, and require only that the government stay out.