Frisky Finances

People don’t usually expect physical buildings to be considered artwork, but Austin by Ellsworth Kelly is a great attention-capturing place to start one’s artistic journey.

Art Museums and how they get funded

Photo Courtesy of Larry D. Moore

The Finance Director opens his files. There are negatives all across the pages. Panicking, he begins ruffling through several other pages detailing finances. The the Finance Director visibly withers in disappointment. He ponders his situation, long enough for the light outside his office window to begin visibly dimming. A sudden thought strikes him. Excited, he jumps and whips out his phone. The Finance Director presses on his phone several times until he reaches the number of a stock market broker. The Director hits the call button and impatiently taps his foot while waiting for the receiver to respond. The person on the other end answers and a conversation erupts between the two of them, with it ending on the agreement that the Director will gain access to some funds that are currently invested in the stock market. The line ends, and a monotonous sine wave can be heard. Sighing in relief, the Director puts his phone back down and kicks back in his chair, appearing to begin to take a quick power-nap. Art museums can seem abstract and mystical at the forefront, with their deep and meaningful art pieces, but behind the scenes, there are many logistical and concrete operations that need to be run for them to function. One of the most important aspects of museums are finances. After all, how else can art museums fund curators’ paychecks, the upkeep of museums, the maintenance of works of art, and literally keeping the lights on? Most art museums’ budgets come from various Arts In Austin | 15

sources. Funds can come from the government, entry fees, selling items, donations in the form of investments, and regular, unrestricted donations. Government funding for art museums varies widely depending on the state, county, and city the art museum is located in. In terms of income from sales and entry fees, art museums don’t typically have much to use, but they are free for the museum to spend on whatever it wishes to. Endowment funds usually make up most of an art museum’s budget. Endowments are donations that are provided in the form of investments, but most art museums’ endowments are restricted by the donors for specific areas or roles.

Similar to endowments are regular donations. These aren’t usually restricted to specific purposes, and the funds are almost always very large. Regular donations are preferred by art museums over endowments due to their tendency to be unrestricted. In retrospect, most of the finances that art museums have access to are restricted for one specific purpose or another, which leaves them inflexible. Many works of art also are loaned between various art museums, which can help offset the cost of purchasing artwork Arts In Austin | 16 and allow other museums to display unique pieces of art. Katie Bruton, a media coordinator with the Blanton Museum of Art, explains some of the work that goes into loaning art.

“There’s a big agreement that goes into that. When you loan artworks, you have to ensure that they’ll be secure, that there will be insurance to cover it, etc.” -Katie Bruton

The Blanton is simply one example of a museum that has a diverse and large network. “We loan all over the world. We [actually] just took some paintings to a Polish art museum…So right now we have [exhibitions] with loans from [a] museum in Spain, museums in Peru, and museums in Mexico,” says Bruton. Art museums also plan up years in the future when considering their finances. Bruton states, “We normally plan exhibitions anywhere from four years out. We don’t tell the public because there are still processes, contracts, and things like that.” Having restricted endowments make it especially difficult for art museums to plan forward in this manner, due to constrictions on what art museums are able to spend money on. When dealing with such a restrictive budget, art museums must be efficient with costs. When purchasing or even receiving donations of art, museums usually want to accept art pieces that they will be able to display immediately due to storage costs. This guideline becomes quite important, since art pieces in storage may often number in the tens of thousands, compared to a relatively small amount on display. Art museums have large operations that require them to work the way they work. The next time you visit one of your city’s art museums, think about the underlying facets of the museum while appreciating the main features of the artworks themselves.

Some art galleries, like Wonderspaces in Austin, are more creative with how they let people interact with the artworks themselves.

Photo Courtesy of Daniel Funkhouser