Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times Graham Beal, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts.The Detroit Institute of Arts, whose world-class collection has become a target for creditors seeking billions of dollars in Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy case, said it planned to amend its policy for accepting donations of art, to try to provide an extra layer of legal protection against forced sales of work for purposes other than acquiring new art.
“We are inserting into our deed of gift a line stating that from any sale of the work, the proceeds can only be used to buy more art,†the museum’s director, Graham Beal, told The Art Newspaper.
The amendment does not change the museum’s own practices about sales of art. Like all art museums around the country that are accredited members of the Association of Art Museum Directors, the museum uses money from the de-accessioning of pieces in its collection only to buy new art, a longstanding museum convention.
But unlike most art museums around the country, which are owned by nonprofit corporations that hold a collection in trust for citizens, the institute is owned by Detroit, as is much of its collection. The city’s emergency manager, Kevyn D. Orr, has said he has no intention to sell pieces from the collection to satisfy creditors, but he has added that the city must know the value of all its assets and that his office has hired Christie’s auction house to appraise many of the major pieces of the institute’s collection. Michigan’s attorney general issued a formal opinion in June stating that the collection, though owned by the city, is held in charitable trust for the people of Michigan and cannot be sold.
