Dear Listserve members:

Please excuse any cross postings of this message.

I am a graduate student in museum studies at Seton
Hall University.  I am currently doing research to
write my thesis on museums collaborating to acquire
works of art together.  Recently, the Whitney Museum,
the Tate London, and the Pompidou Center in Paris
teamed up to jointly purchase a video art piece, “Five
Angels for the Millennium” by Bill Viola.  The three
museums plan on sharing all costs of the purchase,
storage, display, and preservation of the piece.  The
flexible nature of new media art has made sharing this
work between the museums a viable option.  I would
like to discuss the influences of technology related
art on this new collecting initiative and how the
challenging nature of collecting new media art has
affected acquisitions in museums.

Art made from new forms of media, such as video,
digital, and Internet art, lend themselves to joint
purchases much more than traditional artistic mediums.
 Many new artworks require a large amount of room to
exhibit and are more difficult and more expensive to
store and preserve.  Art market prices are still
rising steadily while acquisitions budgets stay the
same or are cut.  Many museums are not able to afford
to buy new art created from technology related mediums
and must compete against private collectors and
galleries.  By combining resources, museums can ensure
works stay publicly accessible. Joint acquisitions can
ensure a much larger audience for the artwork, will
facilitate preservation, and will allow works to be on
display and out of storage for longer.

I am writing to see if anyone has any experience
dealing with joint purchases and co-ownership of art
or objects within your own or other museums.  I am
especially interested in legal issues of co-ownership,
past examples of it in museums, possible advantages
and disadvantages, personal experiences with joint
acquisitions, etc.  I would also appreciate any
sources of information or leads on where I may find
more information about this topic.  Please reply to me
directly at [log in to unmask]

Thank you in advance for your help!

Marisa Morigi


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