Business Class
The Big Business
of Museums
A new breed of
museum director is
bringing business
marketing savvy and
P.T. Barnum-worthy
showmanship to the
world of culture. But
can high art and mass
commerce coexist?
BY FRANCIS X. ROCCA
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANDRIO ABERO
Traditionally, the art museum has been
viewed as a temple of high culture and
has brought rewards, but also misgivings
and controversy.
a sanctuary of timeless values—the
antithesis of the business world, with
its emphasis on competition, efficiency
Pitching and Promoting
Of museum directors active today, none
and profit. In the words of Philippe de
is better known as a promoter and popu-
Montebello, former director of New
list than Arnold L. Lehman of the Brook-
lyn Museum. Since 1997, when he took York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
museum’s role is to preserve the “mys-
the helm at an institution distinguished
tery, the wonder of art” in “our largely
for its collections of African, American,
prosaic and materialistic world.”
Egyptian and pre-Columbian art, Leh-
Yet as Montebello well knows, after
man has repeatedly attracted publicity—
all his years of prodigious fundraising
not all of it favorable—in innovative
for the Met, museums have prosaic
ways. For instance, a 1999 show of con-
needs, and their survival in this all-too-
temporary British art led to sniping with
materialistic world is a bigger challenge
New York’s then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
every year.
over a painting that many viewers con-
sidered blasphemous. The following year, Even before the global financial crisis
slashed funding from government and
the museum hosted “Hip-Hop Nation,”
which was largely an exhibition of cloth- private philanthropic sources, museums
were under rising pressure to rein in
ing styles associated with rap music. And
spending. Facing competition from the
in 2002, it put on a show of costumes
proliferating varieties of digital enter-
from the Star Wars movies.
tainment, traditional cultural institu-
To make the museum building more
tions are now harder pressed than ever
inviting, Lehman altered its Beaux-
to prove their relevance to modern life.
Arts neoclassical facade with a curv-
The people who run art museums
ing glass-and-steel entry pavilion that
recalls the architecture of a contem- are thus increasingly adopting practices
more commonly associated with busi-
porary airport and installed synchro-
ness—such as branding, merchandising
nized fountains designed by the firm
responsible for those at The Bellagio in and aggressive marketing—to make their
Las Vegas. Last year, the Brooklyn part- operations more efficient, profitable and
engaging to the public. This marriage of
nered with the cable TV network Bravo
to produce a reality show in which convenience between art and commerce
