Troubles deepen for museums: layoffs, budget cuts and cancelled shows

News: Jason Edward Kaufman
The Art Newspaper

NEW YORK. The financial crisis reached US museums in force during the first quarter of 2009. The storm clouds of the recession that had been gathering since last autumn unleashed a deluge of layoffs, budget reductions, salary cuts and cancelled exhibitions as museums across the country sought to rein in deficits and work out budgets for the coming year.

The portfolio of the wealthiest arts institution, the Getty Trust in Los Angeles, lost $1.5bn in the second half of 2008, falling to $4.5bn with additional losses since. The trust—which operates two museums and conservation, research and grantmaking programmes— will cut 25% from its 2010 budget, reducing operations from $284m to $216m. President and chief executive James Wood says the cuts will affect staffing, programming and operations, and that “the Getty’s acquisitions budgets will be reduced substantially”.

The Metropolitan Museum’s endowment, which generated a third of the institution’s $220m budget last year, shrunk from $2.9bn to less than $2.1bn. The loss of income would yield deficits of “$20m to $30m in four years” if not corrected by expense reductions, says a spokesman. Major cuts have come from a restructuring of the flagging retail business. The museum has closed eight of its 23 stores nationwide—making 127 merchandising positions redundant—and plans to close another seven. The goal is $10m in staff reductions for the coming financial year, says a spokesman, adding that another 10% of the museum’s 2,500 employees will be let go before 1 July.

As a result of the banking crisis, the Seattle Art Museum has lost $5.8m in annual rental and related income from its tenant Washington Mutual. J.P. Morgan acquired the failed bank last autumn, but in February backed out of the lease on eight floors in the museum’s tower. J.P. Morgan provided a five-year $10m grant to help bridge the gap, which is heightened by a 27% drop in the endowment. “We need a tenant in there as soon as possible,” says a spokeswoman.

The Detroit Institute of Arts is hard hit, laying off 20% of its 301 employees and trying to cut $6m from its $34m budget for the coming year. The 56 full-time and seven part-time positions include six curatorial positions.

“People are stunned,” director Graham Beal told local reporters. The Indianapolis Museum of Art has cut 10% of its staff and 15% of its operating expenses, and slowed the pace for opening its Fairbanks Art and Nature Park. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, a project of Wal-Mart billionaire Alice Walton, has rescheduled its opening from 2010 to 2011. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is cutting as much as 15% from its 2010 budget, has delayed renovation of its Lacma West building.