By\u00a0Michael Massing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Massing is the author, most recently, of \u201cFatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther and the Fight for the Western Mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the recent opening of its\nsleek new quarters, the Museum of Modern Art has solidified its position as one\nof the world\u2019s leading showcases for high culture. Designed by the\n\u201cstarchitect\u201d firm of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the renovation cost $450 million;\nthat comes on top of the $425 million the museum spent on an earlier makeover,\nin 2004. That redesign came under sharp criticism, and within a decade a new\noverhaul was deemed necessary. In less than 20 years, MoMA has spent almost a\nbillion dollars reinventing itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of that money has come\nfrom the museum\u2019s board of trustees. For the 2004 renovation, 50 trustees\ndonated $5 million each. For this go-round, board members have again opened\ntheir wallets, along with David Geffen, who does not sit on the board but\nprovided a\nwhopping $100 million<\/a>. The vast fortunes that make such do-overs possible\nraise questions about the composition of MoMA\u2019s board at a time when such\nboards in general face growing scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier this year, both the\nMetropolitan and Guggenheim museums announced<\/a> they would no longer\naccept donations from those members of the Sackler family linked to OxyContin,\nthe powerful painkiller implicated in the opioid crisis. In July, Warren\nKanders resigned as a vice chairman of the Whitney Museum after weeks of\nprotests directed at his ownership of a company that manufactures tear gas\ncanisters that had been used against migrants on the United States-Mexico\nborder. And on Oct. 18 \u2014 three days before MoMA\u2019s reopening \u2014 more than 100 activists picketed<\/a> an exclusive preview\nparty, calling on one of its board members, Laurence Fink, and his company,\nBlackRock, to divest its holdings in private prison companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Individual cases like these\nreflect a more fundamental reality about museums: their dominance by the\nsuperrich in an age of mounting anger over income inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MoMA is a prime example. Of\nits 51 trustees who have a vote, at least 45 (by my count) work in finance, the\ncorporate world, real estate or law, or are the heirs or spouses of the\nsuperrich. Only a handful come from outside these gilded ranks, among them the\nwriter and actress Anna Deavere Smith and the Harvard professor of history and\nrace Khalil Gibran Muhammad. As has been widely reported<\/a>, both MoMA and the Met expect\nwealthy newcomers to give millions of dollars as the price of membership.\n(Because donations to museums are for the most part tax-deductible, the giving\nis leavened with a sizable dose of self-interest.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Art has always depended on\nwealthy patrons; see the Medicis, Frick and Morgan. In contrast to Europe,\nwhere museums receive significant (though\nnow decreasing<\/a>) state funding, most American museums rely heavily on\nprivate donors. And, since the late 1990s, when MoMA\u2019s current push to expand\nbegan, its trustees appear to have been chosen overwhelmingly for their wealth,\nand the board now reads like a roll call of the 0.01 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To take a random sample:\nMoMA\u2019s president, Ronnie Heyman, is the chairwoman of GAF, a roofing\nmanufacturer that her husband, Samuel Heyman, acquired in a hostile takeover.\nPhilip Niarchos is heir to the fortune of the Greek shipping magnate Stavros\nNiarchos. Jerry Speyer is the chairman and a founding partner of Tishman\nSpeyer, the real estate colossus that owns Rockefeller Center. Marlene Hess is\nthe daughter of Leon Hess, the oil tycoon who owned the New York Jets. John\nElkann is heir to Italy\u2019s Agnelli family, Joel Ehrenkranz is a senior partner\nin a wealth management firm and Zhang Xin is a Chinese billionaire\nbusinesswoman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s museum world is\nsteeply hierarchical, mirroring the inequality in society at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of MoMA\u2019s trustees are devoted\ncollectors of modern and contemporary art, and the museum has benefited\naccordingly. One longtime trustee (and former president), Agnes Gund, has\nfunded or donated to the museum more than 800 works. And realistically, without\nthe generosity of its trustees, the Modern might have a hard time keeping its\ndoors open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet its dependence on the\nkindness of billionaires comes at a price. Today\u2019s museum world is steeply\nhierarchical, mirroring the inequality in society at large. In May, the\nactivist group Art + Museum Transparency, seeking to break \u201cthe culture of\nsilence and fear\u201d in the industry, published a spreadsheet<\/a> featuring salaries\nanonymously entered by hundreds of museum employees. According to it, MoMA\ncurators seem very well paid; people in more junior positions much less so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On May 31, 2018, when MoMA\nhosted its annual Party in the Garden fund-raiser, about 250 unionized museum\nworkers and their supporters gathered outside<\/a> to protest low wages and minimal overtime pay.\nAll the while the compensation of its director, Glenn Lowry, has steadily\nclimbed and now approaches $2.3 million (including salary, bonuses and\nbenefits) \u2014 one of the largest such packages in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the biggest losers in\nthe current system are artists themselves. With art now considered an asset\nclass similar to equities and commodities, collectors are forever on the\nlookout for rising stars whose work can be bought at bargain prices and then\nresold for many multiples as their reputation soars. When the market moves on,\ncareers are often shattered (except in the case of a few ever-in-demand stars).<\/p>\n\n\n\n And even those artists who do\nremain popular usually benefit only from the initial sale of their work; as its\nvalue appreciates, the profits go mainly to collectors and auction houses.\nMuseum trustees have ready access\nto curators<\/a> and gallery owners who can point out emerging\nartists whose work they can buy at an early stage and benefit as the demand for\nit grows. And with so many rich people collecting contemporary art, and the\npublic\u2019s interest in such art growing, museums often seek to devote more space\nto it to keep donors interested and openhanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Metropolitan, for one, has\npaid dearly for such expansionism. In 2011, the museum, in a push to\naccommodate more modern and contemporary art, agreed to an eight-year lease on\nthe longtime Madison Avenue home of the Whitney, which the Whitney was\nabandoning for its new Renzo Piano-designed palace downtown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the most serious\nconcern about baronial boards is the possible constraints they place on what\nmuseums can exhibit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Met had to spend $13\nmillion to renovate the building and $18 million a year to run it, contributing\nto a $10 million deficit. The museum was forced to shed around 100 employees,\ncut benefits for curators and conservators, reduce its number of annual shows\nand suspend a planned $600 million renovation of its modern and contemporary\nwing. The Met also decided, for the first time in a half-century, to impose\na mandatory admission fee<\/a> on all out-of-state visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In September 2018, the museum\nfinally managed to rid itself of this millstone by announcing that the Frick\nCollection would take over the former Whitney building. Another casualty of the\nmess: Thomas Campbell, the museum\u2019s director, who was\nforced to resign<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the most serious\nconcern raised about baronial boards is the possible constraints they place on\nwhat museums can exhibit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With its more than 40,000\nsquare feet in added gallery space, the Modern is seeking to upend hierarchies,\nremake the canon and break from its longstanding white, male, Eurocentric\norientation. On a recent visit to the museum, I saw many dazzling and socially\nengaged works, such as Jacob Lawrence\u2019s epic series on the great\nAfrican-American migration from South to North, Michael Armitage\u2019s paintings of\nAfrican despair, and Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller\u2019s chilling \u201cThe\nKilling Machine.\u201d In one of many edgy juxtapositions praised by reviewers, the\nmuseum has placed Picasso\u2019s \u201cLes Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon,\u201d with its primitivist figures\nof five women of the street, close by Faith Ringgold\u2019s \u201cAmerican People Series\n#20: Die,\u201d a frenzied tableau of a blood-soaked race riot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I did not see much, however,\nabout such urgent matters as income inequality, deindustrialization or the rise\nof populism. Why, I wondered, was there not more on the impact of Wall Street\non Main Street or the continuing fallout from the 2008 financial crisis \u2014 the\nroot of so much unrest in the world today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A spokeswoman for the museum\nsaid that its trustees have no decision-making role in its exhibitions, which\nare determined solely by the museum\u2019s \u201cstrong curatorial staff\u201d in regular\nconsultation with artists. Yet a board\u2019s influence need not be overt to be\nprofound; curators are no doubt savvy enough to know how far they can go in\nchallenging a system of which their trustees are such pillars. In the end, it\u2019s\nhard to measure the impact of trustees\u2019 wealth on a museum\u2019s content, and no\ndoubt someone will be able to point to this or that exception, but it\u2019s a\nsubject that deserves much more discussion than it has received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the superwealthy,\nmembership on museum boards brings many benefits, including an increase in\nsocial status, access to other powerful people and an enhancement of one\u2019s\nimage. Steven A. Cohen offers a good example. As the head of SAC Capital, the\nhedge fund he founded in 1992, Mr. Cohen amassed a fortune exceeding $9\nbillion, but he sought respect and recognition as well, and the art market\nsurely helped him attain them. Over time, he and his wife, Alexandra, put\ntogether a collection of works by Picasso, de Kooning, Pollock, Warhol, Koons\nand others valued at $1 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Cohen and his firm later\ncame under investigation for insider trading. One of his managers was convicted\nand sentenced to nine years in prison, and SAC Capital had to pay $1.8 billion in fines<\/a>. Mr. Cohen himself never\nfaced criminal charges, but in\nJanuary 2016<\/a> he was barred from managing outside investor\nmoney for two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That spring, Mr. Cohen joined\nMoMA\u2019s board. In June 2017, the\nmuseum announced<\/a> that he and his wife were donating $50 million\nto its capital campaign and that to acknowledge the gift, it was naming its\nlargest contiguous gallery the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Center for Special\nExhibitions. The Cohens, Glenn Lowry declared<\/a>, are \u201cincredible philanthropists\u201d whose \u201clongtime\ngenerosity to the museum exemplifies their deep commitment to sharing the art\nof our time with the widest possible audience.\u201d The value of such a statement\nto Mr. Cohen\u2019s reputation was inestimable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MoMA\u2019s chairman, Leon Black,\nis also an avid art collector. In 2012 he bought a version of Edvard Munch\u2019s\n\u201cThe Scream\u201d at auction for $119.9 million \u2014 the most ever paid for a work at\nauction at the time. Mr. Black\u2019s net worth is estimated at $7 billion, most of\nit derived from Apollo Global Management, the private equity company he heads,\nwhich specializes in buying up companies, restructuring them and selling them\nfor a profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some say that private equity\nsaddles companies with debt and strips them of their assets before selling them\noff; others say private equity invests in companies to enhance their\nproductivity and make them profitable. Both cases no doubt occur, but in most instances,\nas studies<\/a> have shown<\/a>, the benefits accrue overwhelmingly to executives and\ninvestors at the expense of workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In November 2018, MoMA\nannounced that Mr. Black and his wife were donating\n$40 million<\/a> to the museum and that in appreciation it was\ncreating the Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center, spanning two floors of\nthe Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder Building (Est\u00e9e Lauder money). The gift was\nannounced at MoMA\u2019s annual film benefit and gala dinner. Sponsored by Chanel,\nthe evening featured a presentation of the work of the night\u2019s honoree \u2014 Martin\nScorsese \u2014 in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters (Helena Rubinstein money). The\nguests then dined in the Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium (Paine Webber\nand private equity money). Such celebrity mixing helps deflect attention from\nthe part that companies like Mr. Black\u2019s have played in the continuing transfer\nof wealth from the middle class to the moneyed elite over the past 30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there an alternative to the\ncurrent system? An obvious one would be to substantially increase public\nfunding for the arts in general, and museums in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there an alternative to the\ncurrent system? An obvious one would be to substantially increase public\nfunding for the arts in general, and museums in particular. The budget of the\nNational Endowment for the Arts has remained largely flat<\/a> for the past 20 years.\nIn 2018, MoMA received a paltry $22,000 in government funds (from New York\nCity), compared with the $136 million it got from private sources. In fact,\nMoMA does not seek or receive federal or state funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such a position is\nunderstandable, in light of the periodic public uproars over provocative works,\nand even their censorship, such as the infamous cancellation of an exhibition of homoerotic photos by Robert Mapplethorpe<\/a> in 1989. But MoMA in\nfact gets substantial public support through the tax write-offs its wealthy\ndonors receive as well as its own nonprofit status. The public is in effect\nsubsidizing the museum without getting any corresponding say in its governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In return for nonprofit\nstatus, the government could require MoMA and other museums to allocate a\ncertain portion of board spots to people whose lives are not devoted to making\nmoney. The presence of art critics, historians, architects and nonprofit\nleaders could force museums to consider a much broader array of viewpoints.\n(Museum boards are\nalready diversifying<\/a> when it comes to race.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the recent opening of its\nsleek new quarters, the Museum of Modern Art has solidified its position as one\nof the world\u2019s leading showcases for high culture. Designed by the\n\u201cstarchitect\u201d firm of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the renovation cost $450\nmillion; that comes on top of the $425 million the museum spent on an earlier\nmakeover, in 2004. That redesign came under sharp criticism, and within a\ndecade a new overhaul was deemed necessary. In less than 20 years, MoMA has\nspent almost a billion dollars reinventing itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of that money has come\nfrom the museum\u2019s board of trustees. For the 2004 renovation, 50 trustees\ndonated $5 million each. For this go-round, board members have again opened\ntheir wallets, along with David Geffen, who does not sit on the board but\nprovided a\nwhopping $100 million<\/a>. The vast fortunes that make such do-overs possible raise\nquestions about the composition of MoMA\u2019s board at a time when such boards in\ngeneral face growing scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier this year, both the\nMetropolitan and Guggenheim museums announced<\/a> they would no longer\naccept donations from those members of the Sackler family linked to OxyContin,\nthe powerful painkiller implicated in the opioid crisis. In July, Warren\nKanders resigned as a vice chairman of the Whitney Museum after weeks of\nprotests directed at his ownership of a company that manufactures tear gas\ncanisters that had been used against migrants on the United States-Mexico\nborder. And on Oct. 18 \u2014 three days before MoMA\u2019s reopening \u2014 more than 100 activists picketed<\/a> an exclusive preview\nparty, calling on one of its board members, Laurence Fink, and his company,\nBlackRock, to divest its holdings in private prison companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Individual cases like these\nreflect a more fundamental reality about museums: their dominance by the\nsuperrich in an age of mounting anger over income inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MoMA is a prime example. Of\nits 51 trustees who have a vote, at least 45 (by my count) work in finance, the\ncorporate world, real estate or law, or are the heirs or spouses of the\nsuperrich. Only a handful come from outside these gilded ranks, among them the\nwriter and actress Anna Deavere Smith and the Harvard professor of history and\nrace Khalil Gibran Muhammad. As has been widely reported<\/a>, both MoMA and the Met expect\nwealthy newcomers to give millions of dollars as the price of membership.\n(Because donations to museums are for the most part tax-deductible, the giving\nis leavened with a sizable dose of self-interest.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Art has always depended on wealthy patrons; see the Medicis, Frick and Morgan. In contrast to Europe, where museums receive significant (though now decreasing<\/a>) state funding, most American museums rely heavily on private donors. And, since the late 1990s, when MoMA\u2019s current push to expand began, its trustees appear to have been chosen overwhelmingly for their wealth, and the board now reads like a roll call of the 0.01 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ronnie Heyman, the president\nof the board of trustees of the Museum of Modern Art.Credit…Dolly\nFaibyshev for The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n To take a random sample:\nMoMA\u2019s president, Ronnie Heyman, is the chairwoman of GAF, a roofing\nmanufacturer that her husband, Samuel Heyman, acquired in a hostile takeover.\nPhilip Niarchos is heir to the fortune of the Greek shipping magnate Stavros\nNiarchos. Jerry Speyer is the chairman and a founding partner of Tishman\nSpeyer, the real estate colossus that owns Rockefeller Center. Marlene Hess is\nthe daughter of Leon Hess, the oil tycoon who owned the New York Jets. John\nElkann is heir to Italy\u2019s Agnelli family, Joel Ehrenkranz is a senior partner\nin a wealth management firm and Zhang Xin is a Chinese billionaire\nbusinesswoman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s museum world is\nsteeply hierarchical, mirroring the inequality in society at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of MoMA\u2019s trustees are\ndevoted collectors of modern and contemporary art, and the museum has benefited\naccordingly. One longtime trustee (and former president), Agnes Gund, has\nfunded or donated to the museum more than 800 works. And realistically, without\nthe generosity of its trustees, the Modern might have a hard time keeping its\ndoors open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet its dependence on the\nkindness of billionaires comes at a price. Today\u2019s museum world is steeply\nhierarchical, mirroring the inequality in society at large. In May, the\nactivist group Art + Museum Transparency, seeking to break \u201cthe culture of\nsilence and fear\u201d in the industry, published a spreadsheet<\/a> featuring salaries\nanonymously entered by hundreds of museum employees. According to it, MoMA\ncurators seem very well paid; people in more junior positions much less so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On May 31, 2018, when MoMA hosted its annual Party in the Garden fund-raiser, about 250 unionized museum workers and their supporters\u00a0gathered outside<\/a>\u00a0to protest low wages and minimal overtime pay. All the while the compensation of its director, Glenn Lowry, has steadily climbed and now approaches $2.3 million (including salary, bonuses and benefits) \u2014 one of the largest such packages in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Glenn Lowry has been director\nof the Museum of Modern Art since 1995.Credit…Amy\nLombard for The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the biggest losers in\nthe current system are artists themselves. With art now considered an asset\nclass similar to equities and commodities, collectors are forever on the\nlookout for rising stars whose work can be bought at bargain prices and then\nresold for many multiples as their reputation soars. When the market moves on,\ncareers are often shattered (except in the case of a few ever-in-demand stars).<\/p>\n\n\n\n And even those artists who do\nremain popular usually benefit only from the initial sale of their work; as its\nvalue appreciates, the profits go mainly to collectors and auction houses.\nMuseum trustees have ready access\nto curators<\/a> and gallery owners who can point out emerging\nartists whose work they can buy at an early stage and benefit as the demand for\nit grows. And with so many rich people collecting contemporary art, and the\npublic\u2019s interest in such art growing, museums often seek to devote more space\nto it to keep donors interested and openhanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Metropolitan, for one, has\npaid dearly for such expansionism. In 2011, the museum, in a push to\naccommodate more modern and contemporary art, agreed to an eight-year lease on\nthe longtime Madison Avenue home of the Whitney, which the Whitney was\nabandoning for its new Renzo Piano-designed palace downtown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the most serious\nconcern about baronial boards is the possible constraints they place on what\nmuseums can exhibit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Met had to spend $13\nmillion to renovate the building and $18 million a year to run it, contributing\nto a $10 million deficit. The museum was forced to shed around 100 employees,\ncut benefits for curators and conservators, reduce its number of annual shows\nand suspend a planned $600 million renovation of its modern and contemporary\nwing. The Met also decided, for the first time in a half-century, to impose\na mandatory admission fee<\/a> on all out-of-state visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In September 2018, the museum finally managed to rid itself of this millstone by announcing that the Frick Collection would take over the former Whitney building. Another casualty of the mess: Thomas Campbell, the museum\u2019s director,\u00a0who was forced to resign<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With its more than 40,000\nsquare feet in added gallery space, the Modern is seeking to upend hierarchies,\nremake the canon and break from its longstanding white, male, Eurocentric\norientation. On a recent visit to the museum, I saw many dazzling and socially\nengaged works, such as Jacob Lawrence\u2019s epic series on the great\nAfrican-American migration from South to North, Michael Armitage\u2019s paintings of\nAfrican despair, and Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller\u2019s chilling \u201cThe\nKilling Machine.\u201d In one of many edgy juxtapositions praised by reviewers, the\nmuseum has placed Picasso\u2019s \u201cLes Demoiselles d\u2019Avignon,\u201d with its primitivist\nfigures of five women of the street, close by Faith Ringgold\u2019s \u201cAmerican People\nSeries #20: Die,\u201d a frenzied tableau of a blood-soaked race riot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did not see much, however,\nabout such urgent matters as income inequality, deindustrialization or the rise\nof populism. Why, I wondered, was there not more on the impact of Wall Street\non Main Street or the continuing fallout from the 2008 financial crisis \u2014 the\nroot of so much unrest in the world today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A spokeswoman for the museum\nsaid that its trustees have no decision-making role in its exhibitions, which\nare determined solely by the museum\u2019s \u201cstrong curatorial staff\u201d in regular\nconsultation with artists. Yet a board\u2019s influence need not be overt to be\nprofound; curators are no doubt savvy enough to know how far they can go in\nchallenging a system of which their trustees are such pillars. In the end, it\u2019s\nhard to measure the impact of trustees\u2019 wealth on a museum\u2019s content, and no\ndoubt someone will be able to point to this or that exception, but it\u2019s a\nsubject that deserves much more discussion than it has received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the superwealthy,\nmembership on museum boards brings many benefits, including an increase in\nsocial status, access to other powerful people and an enhancement of one\u2019s\nimage. Steven A. Cohen offers a good example. As the head of SAC Capital, the\nhedge fund he founded in 1992, Mr. Cohen amassed a fortune exceeding $9\nbillion, but he sought respect and recognition as well, and the art market\nsurely helped him attain them. Over time, he and his wife, Alexandra, put\ntogether a collection of works by Picasso, de Kooning, Pollock, Warhol, Koons\nand others valued at $1 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Cohen and his firm later\ncame under investigation for insider trading. One of his managers was convicted\nand sentenced to nine years in prison, and SAC Capital had to pay $1.8 billion in fines<\/a>. Mr. Cohen himself never\nfaced criminal charges, but in\nJanuary 2016<\/a> he was barred from managing outside investor\nmoney for two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That spring, Mr. Cohen joined\nMoMA\u2019s board. In June 2017, the\nmuseum announced<\/a> that he and his wife were donating $50 million\nto its capital campaign and that to acknowledge the gift, it was naming its\nlargest contiguous gallery the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Center for Special\nExhibitions. The Cohens, Glenn Lowry declared<\/a>, are \u201cincredible philanthropists\u201d whose \u201clongtime\ngenerosity to the museum exemplifies their deep commitment to sharing the art\nof our time with the widest possible audience.\u201d The value of such a statement\nto Mr. Cohen\u2019s reputation was inestimable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MoMA\u2019s chairman, Leon Black, is also an avid art collector. In 2012 he bought a version of Edvard Munch\u2019s \u201cThe Scream\u201d at auction for $119.9 million \u2014 the most ever paid for a work at auction at the time. Mr. Black\u2019s net worth is estimated at $7 billion, most of it derived from Apollo Global Management, the private equity company he heads, which specializes in buying up companies, restructuring them and selling them for a profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leon Black, second from left,\nchairman of MoMA\u2019s board.Credit…Krista Schlueter for\nThe New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some say that private equity\nsaddles companies with debt and strips them of their assets before selling them\noff; others say private equity invests in companies to enhance their\nproductivity and make them profitable. Both cases no doubt occur, but in most instances,\nas studies<\/a> have shown<\/a>, the benefits accrue overwhelmingly to executives and\ninvestors at the expense of workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In November 2018, MoMA\nannounced that Mr. Black and his wife were donating\n$40 million<\/a> to the museum and that in appreciation it was\ncreating the Debra and Leon Black Family Film Center, spanning two floors of\nthe Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder Building (Est\u00e9e Lauder money). The gift was\nannounced at MoMA\u2019s annual film benefit and gala dinner. Sponsored by Chanel,\nthe evening featured a presentation of the work of the night\u2019s honoree \u2014 Martin\nScorsese \u2014 in the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters (Helena Rubinstein money). The\nguests then dined in the Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium (Paine Webber\nand private equity money). Such celebrity mixing helps deflect attention from\nthe part that companies like Mr. Black\u2019s have played in the continuing transfer\nof wealth from the middle class to the moneyed elite over the past 30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there an alternative to the\ncurrent system? An obvious one would be to substantially increase public\nfunding for the arts in general, and museums in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there an alternative to the\ncurrent system? An obvious one would be to substantially increase public\nfunding for the arts in general, and museums in particular. The budget of the\nNational Endowment for the Arts has remained largely flat<\/a> for the past 20 years.\nIn 2018, MoMA received a paltry $22,000 in government funds (from New York\nCity), compared with the $136 million it got from private sources. In fact,\nMoMA does not seek or receive federal or state funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such a position is\nunderstandable, in light of the periodic public uproars over provocative works,\nand even their censorship, such as the infamous cancellation of an exhibition of homoerotic photos by Robert Mapplethorpe<\/a> in 1989. But MoMA in\nfact gets substantial public support through the tax write-offs its wealthy\ndonors receive as well as its own nonprofit status. The public is in effect\nsubsidizing the museum without getting any corresponding say in its governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In return for nonprofit status, the government could require MoMA and other museums to allocate a certain portion of board spots to people whose lives are not devoted to making money. The presence of art critics, historians, architects and nonprofit leaders could force museums to consider a much broader array of viewpoints. (Museum boards\u00a0are already diversifying<\/a>\u00a0when it comes to race.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Credit…Karsten\nMoran for The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for more direct public\nfunding of museums, this might seem a long shot in modern-day America, but the\ncurrent political moment has created new opportunities. If taxes on the rich\nwere raised, which most Democratic presidential candidates support, more public\nfunds could be earmarked for museums \u2014 and for libraries, performing arts\ncenters and other cultural institutions. These are popular in communities\nacross America, and providing support could become an effective rallying cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MoMA, the Met, the Whitney and\nother top museums are vital and essential repositories of American culture, but\ntheir dominance by the 0.01 percent makes them highly vulnerable at a time of\nsuch social ferment. If they don\u2019t change, the protests will only grow and get\nlouder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Credit…Karsten\nMoran for The New York Times<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for more direct public\nfunding of museums, this might seem a long shot in modern-day America, but the\ncurrent political moment has created new opportunities. If taxes on the rich\nwere raised, which most Democratic presidential candidates support, more public\nfunds could be earmarked for museums \u2014 and for libraries, performing arts\ncenters and other cultural institutions. These are popular in communities\nacross America, and providing support could become an effective rallying cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MoMA, the Met, the Whitney and other top museums are vital and essential repositories of American culture, but their dominance by the 0.01 percent makes them highly vulnerable at a time of such social ferment. If they don\u2019t change, the protests will only grow and get louder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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