Opinion: For better or worse, our greatest museums are built on the backs of billionaires
Visitors approach the Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on March 28. By Hugh Eakin March 29 at 1:21 PM Hugh Eakin is a 2018-2019 National Endowment for the Humanities public scholar.
Coming after months of protests, this week’s announcement by the Guggenheim Museum and two British institutions that they are severing ties with the Sackler family and its $13 billion OxyContin-fueled fortune has been presented as an unequivocal stand against dirty money. Indeed, as multiple lawsuits pile up against the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma, the case may seem unusually clear-cut.
But museums have always been exceptionally good places to convert roughly obtained private wealth into social prestige. And in the United States, where there is minuscule public funding and museums with ever-growing ambitions, that process has become an essential part of the cultural landscape. At the same time, museums have been virtually priced out of the art market. They depend on gifts from top collectors, which account for three-quarters of today’s acquisitions.
Now, having given so much power to the ultra-wealthy, we are dismayed that their money sometimes comes from dubious sources. Until now, protesters have focused on a few high-profile cases. Clearly, no museum should take money from blatant lawbreakers or those who profit from causing others pain. Other countries are not so lucky. In Britain, officials told the Guardian this week that government cuts in the public Art Fund will require more, not less, reliance on wealthy corporations and private donors.
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