Encroaching Museums

The National Gallery in London recently announced the Project Domani. Celebrating the museum’s 200th birthday, the Gallery intends to expand both architecturally and in the focus of the collection and programming. An international competition is underway to find a prominent architect to add an additional building on a property acquired 30 years ago. The permanent collection is to enlarge its scope, adding 20th and 21st-century art to its famous and fabulous holdings of European Old Masters.

National Gallery, London

The National Gallery and the Tate Modern are State institutions and have had an understanding that the former would collect art up to 1900 and the latter art after that date. However, this appears to have been a long-term issue of contention, most recently addressed by a 2009 agreement where the Tate conceded that the National Gallery could acquire some early 20th-century works.

Tate Modern

I am wondering why the National Gallery has now decided to change the arrangement. It is not necessary for survival or security, as that is guaranteed by the State. The timing is associated with the announcement of the success of the National Gallery in raising £375 million in private funds for the new building, and they wish to raise more for their expansion of the collection. Additional space would allow it to show more of the collection since roughly only half of it is on view. That would make sense to me, but they want to add generations more art to the collection, and I would guess that in the long run, the percentage on view will probably not change.

Inside the National Gallery

One of the supporting statements from the Gallery is that art is a continuum, which is a truism, but does not explain the incursion into the period to which the Tate Modern is dedicated. There is a great museum in London for sculpture and the decorative arts called the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is not included, though that too is part of the continuum.

In an Art Newspaper article, Bendor Grosvenor points out that this change will create a battle over audience and funds. The appointment of a joint committee can hardly be expected to avoid bad blood between the institutions. There will inevitably be competition for work in the market. Since the National Gallery is considered the more prestigious institution, those who have collections of modern and contemporary art to donate will tend to favor it. The government that supports both museums will also have to recalibrate its funds.

The official statement from the National Gallery reveals that the administration’s ambition in the field of contemporary art is aimed at getting “a larger, more diverse public’’ This follows the worldwide trend among traditional institutions. The Gallery also claims to be motivated by the wish “to elevate the visitor experience”. As has been pointed out before, the museums that want it all, such as the Metropolitan Museum, are all but overrun by crowds of visitors, mostly overwhelmed by the quantity of diverse offerings.

The visitor experience is far better at a museum that does not try to do it all. A stellar example is the Wallace Collection in London, which focuses on the fields for which it was founded. Surely the educational benefit of illustrating the influence of an old master on a modern artist can be answered with inter-museum loans without building parallel permanent collections.

Having it all does not necessarily make it better; it just makes it more.