Monday, September 13, 2010
Politics / Arts and Entertainment Fisk Prayer Vigil Tonight Protests Attorney General's 'Attempt to Steal This Art'
Posted by Jim Ridley on Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 4:39 PM
In the latest skirmish in the battle over Fisk University's Alfred Stieglitz Collection — which took a legal twist last week when Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper proposed placing the collection under the temporary auspices (not ownership) of the Tennessee Arts Commission and the Frist Center — Fisk students will hold a prayer vigil 6 p.m. this evening in Fisk Memorial Chapel. The vigil protests the proposal, which organizers call an "outrageous theft of private property from a fully-operational institution."
Press release from Fisk University after the jump. Also, in case you missed last week's broadcast premiere of the NPT documentary The Gift: The Alfred Stieglitz Collection at Fisk University — which concerns the art, not the controversy — it will be shown again next Monday, Sept, 20, on NPT-Channel 8 at 9:30 p.m.
Fisk University Students Host Prayer Vigil in Opposition to Attorney General’s Proposed Taking of Fisk’s Stieglitz CollectionUrge Metropolitan Development Housing Agency (MDHA) to Vote Against Expansion of the Rechter Room as a “permanent” exhibition space for the collection.
Fisk University students will host a vigil at 6p.m. today in Fisk Memorial Chapel in opposition to Attorney General Cooper’s proposed taking of the Stieglitz Collection of Modern Art from the University.
The vigil will be led by alumni leaders and will include performances by the University Choir.
The board of the MDHA is scheduled to vote on Tuesday September 14th on a measure that would expand an exhibition room in Nashville’s Frist Center for the Visual Arts for the purpose of permanently housing and maintaining Fisk’s collection. The vote is a critical element of Attorney General Bob Cooper’s proposal filed with Davidson County Chancery Court.
The Attorney General proposes that MDHA pay $250,000 to make changes at the Frist Center necessary to house the art.
Fisk is opposed to the Attorney General’s proposal on the basis that it would take private property from a functioning private entity and redistribute it. Between 2007 and 2010, Fisk spent nearly $1.0 million to renovate the Van Vechten Gallery into a state-of-the-art facility for the display of the Collection.
The University has called on Nashville to reject this outrageous theft of private property from a fully-operational institution.Fisk President Hazel R. O’Leary has stated:
“This proposal was developed without an invitation to or participation by Fisk from the Attorney General, the Frist Center, MDHA, or the Tennessee Arts Commission. This so-called partnership between the FristCenter, the State and the Metropolitan Government is nothing more than the display of raw power in an undisguised attempt to steal this art from its rightful owner. We will use every ounce of our energy to oppose this proposal.”In a letter to the MDHA Board, Fisk University Chairman Robert W. Norton stated:
“The Attorney General’s proposal entirely misses the point. Fisk does not need the $138,000 or so it takes each year to exhibit the art. It has and will continue to allocate funds for that purpose. Its problem is the $1.0-$2.0 million shortfall each year in its operations. That cannot go on, and without the cash infusion, Fisk will eventually close. When it closes, it will then be unable to care for the collection, but not until then. Its purpose in proposing the sharing arrangement is to prevent its closure by rebuilding its endowment.
The Attorney General’s proposal will take the art from Fisk and leave Fisk to its fate of withering on the vine and dying. The Attorney General says that the move to the Frist Center is temporary, just until “Fisk gets its house in order.” In the meantime, the Frist Center would have absolute control of the collection. The plan provides that Fisk can only get the art back if approved by the court. The reality is that once the art goes to the Frist Center (for which Fisk will receive nothing), Fisk will be unable to complete the sharing arrangement. Without the $30 million, Fisk will close. When it closes, the Attorney General will undoubtedly ask that the art remain at the Frist Center permanently. For a few hundred thousand dollars, mostly funded from taxpayer dollars by governmental agencies, the Frist Center will acquire an art collection worth at least $74 million. Fisk has called this action a theft, and that is an entirely appropriate characterization.
Because MDHA owns the Frist Center facility and you are proposed by the Attorney General to give $250,000 to the Frist Center as part of the transfer, the Attorney General’s plan cannot go forward without your approval.
Fisk University objects to MDHA’s secret negotiations with the State which resulted in the proposed confiscation of Fisk University’s Stieglitz Collection, its most valuable asset, for the exclusive benefit of a private party.”
The vigil is open to the public and the University encourages the Nashville community to attend.
Comments (8)
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Man, this is something else. Both sides seem, truly, to suck.
First there's Fisk, trying to get rid of half of the ownership that art for only $30 million dollars, when one or two individual pieces from the collection could probably get that much. There's something really and truly not right there--not just because it so undervalues the collection, but because it sells Fisk short. $30 million dollars is not that much money in the grand scheme of things and Fisk has a lot of problems; its leaders have a responsibility to get fair-market value for that art. So, the people responsible for this sale are terrible stewards of the collection and of the school.
But then, just when you think, "Oh Fisk is the villain in this little drama," you've got the MDHA trying to swoop in and steal the collection.
O'Keefe gave the collection to Fisk. If Fisk can't or doesn't want to meet the obligations attached to the gift--which is, in part, that it is displayed in Nashville--then they should have the right to sell it to someone who can meet those obligations.
But they shouldn't be forced to give the collection to someone who can.
Am I missing something here? That seems ridiculous.
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"then they should have the right to sell it to someone who can meet those obligations"
The problem is that they DON'T have the right to sell it. The collection was deeded to Fisk because they happened to be a cultural institution where both black and white Nashvillians would be able to view the art. The donation was explicity intended to present modern art to all Nashvillians, not to provide an asset to Fisk that they could liquidate.
They don't have a moral right to sell it, but I don't think it's been established that they don't have a legal right. I mean, shoot, look at what you're saying--"where both black and white Nashvillians would be able to view the art."
I have been to that gallery ten times during times when they are supposed to be open and only once have I been able to get in. So, they're already not meeting that part of the bargain.
Anyway, there's a difference between their moral obligations and their legal obligations. I, too, think they have a moral obligation to O'Keefe to keep the art and display it, and, if they can't, to give it back.
But I think we're going to have to wait and see whether they have any legal obligation. I doubt they do. It was a gift.
can somebody explain to me why fisk is perpetually in fiscal calamity? seriously, pretend for two seconds that there is no art to discuss.. what is the problem with this university, and what is required to fix it? (i'd wager a 30M cash infusion today wont have these core problems, whatever they are, solved ten years from now)
Betsy,
It was a permanent loan, meaning it can be there as long as it is displayed there, if they don't want to or can't display it, then it should revert back to the estate. In other words they don't have a legal right to sell, nor does imo the state have a legal right to move the art unless the will or other contract that created this agreement stipulated the art must always stay in Nashville then the State might have an interest.
I can't help but think that the best option here is sending the art back to the estate, maybe the estate would put the art someplace that is not in danger of selling it. Like the Met, or MFA Boston or maybe even the Frist.
Milkman, if that's true (I'm not saying I doubt you, just that I don't know), then yes, for sure, it should go back to the estate. I wonder how this can even be an issue, frankly, if it is indeed a loan.
Shoot, it could even go in the O'Keeffe museum (though I agree it would be nice to have it at the Frist.)
Betsy as I recall I got that from a Tennessean or City Paper Article.
Regardless they shouldn't sell it.
http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city…
TCA Ruled they can...
Then a Chancellpr Ruled they should
http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city…
Apparently the Georgia OKeefe Museum is of the opinion they cannot.
This article is the first I read and is where I got the idea that it was a permanent loan. But those are apparently my words not the article
