Stop disposal scaremongering, says Davies
Patrick Steel, 02.11.2010
MA questions tone of media stories about disposal
Maurice Davies, the MA’s head of policy and communications, has questioned the tone of pieces about disposal in last week’s Financial Times (FT) and this month’s The Art Newspaper.
The FT piece, headlined ‘Museums look to sell artefacts’, picked up on last Tuesday’s Culture Media and Sport Select Committee hearing, at which Roy Clare, director of the Museums, Libraries and Archive Council, talked of the need to rationalise collections.
The Art Newspaper is to run a piece this month, which includes comment from Davies, headlined ‘International move to curb disposals’ with the sub-heading, ‘UK position weakened, leading to calls for greater safeguards against rash sales’, focusing on the Museums Association’s move in 2007 from a hard-line presumption against disposal to one that accepts that objects might be sold in exceptional circumstances where the money goes towards care of the collection.
Davies said: “Since the Museums Association changed its code of ethics rules on selling collections in 2007, we have approved only two cases of financially-motivated sale of collections. And we have only been approached by a further two museums since 2007, one of which we have only just become aware of. I think that it is scaremongering to suggest that the UK’s collections are vulnerable.
“I have found that almost all the local authorities are very responsible stewards of their collections, and while there will always be the odd councillor who suggests sale, they are the exception rather than the rule.”
Click here to see the Code of ethics
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/013d84e4-e131-11df-90b7-00144feabdc0.html
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/
The FT piece, headlined ‘Museums look to sell artefacts’, picked up on last Tuesday’s Culture Media and Sport Select Committee hearing, at which Roy Clare, director of the Museums, Libraries and Archive Council, talked of the need to rationalise collections.
The Art Newspaper is to run a piece this month, which includes comment from Davies, headlined ‘International move to curb disposals’ with the sub-heading, ‘UK position weakened, leading to calls for greater safeguards against rash sales’, focusing on the Museums Association’s move in 2007 from a hard-line presumption against disposal to one that accepts that objects might be sold in exceptional circumstances where the money goes towards care of the collection.
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Davies said: “Since the Museums Association changed its code of ethics rules on selling collections in 2007, we have approved only two cases of financially-motivated sale of collections. And we have only been approached by a further two museums since 2007, one of which we have only just become aware of. I think that it is scaremongering to suggest that the UK’s collections are vulnerable.
“I have found that almost all the local authorities are very responsible stewards of their collections, and while there will always be the odd councillor who suggests sale, they are the exception rather than the rule.”
Click here to see the Code of ethics
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/013d84e4-e131-11df-90b7-00144feabdc0.html
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/
