Good sports

The Indianapolis Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art are wagering artworks on the outcome of the 44th Super Bowl, where the New Orleans Saints will take on the Indianapolis Colts for the title.

Tyler Green has been shuttling between the two directors (Maxwell Anderson and E. John Bullard). The bet now stands at a three-month loan from the home-town of the losing team to that of the winning team; the IMA has put up a Turner, NOMA a Lorrain.

There are three things that I love about this. Firstly, it's fun - it's unusual to see museums being playful in a way that's not a bit saccharine. Secondly, it's been conducted in the real voices of the directors concerned, and doesn't feel like a PR stunt - this is helped in particular by Anderson being a steady Twitterer. And thirdly, it breaks with that weird culture-sport dichotomy, and says actually, people can be interested and passionate about both.

See through

The Indianapolis Museum of Art's dashboard (a visualisation of all sorts of information about the IMA, from the current value of its endowment to its average daily electricity consumption) is now about two years old. Today Rob Stein, the IMA's Chief Information Officer, published a long post about museums and transparency on the IMA blog:

The concept of Transparency has received significant attention in the media and online recently. This attention comes at a time when public doubt in corporations, government and corporate executives is at an all-time high. High profile failures of some of the nation’s largest and most trusted institutions have shaken our assumptions about what had always seemed to be untouchable industries. Museums have always jealously guarded their trusted place in the public’s perception, but is there a risk that this trust will someday be lost? As caretakers of this trust, what is the best way to foster open communication about the challenges and opportunities that face us as we try to achieve the mission of our museums? As comprehensive and easy access to operational information becomes the norm, how can museums embrace this as an opportunity and confront internal fears about sharing their performance metrics with the public?

This is the first in a promised series of posts that I'm looking to following. I firmly believe that galleries and museums should be doing all they can to connect with their fans. Transparency is an important aspect of this.

Daniel Incandela, Director of New Media at the IMA, is the first speaker at this year's National Digital Forum (23-24 November, Wellington). There are still a handful of places left at the conference.

Well played

At the beginning of the year there was a deaccessioning furore in the States, triggered by the National Academy Museum in New York's decision to sell two Hudson River School paintings.

Deaccessioning is a touchy subject. There's money involved, of course - sometimes sizeable amounts. There's moral issues around works that were donated or bequeathed to institutions, or where money was donated to assist with acquisitions. There can be accusations of faddishness of taste, or of short sightedness. There are some who simply believe that once acquired, a collection item is forever.

I think that's why there was a little flurry of tweets last night in response to the Indianapolis Museum of Art's deaccessioning page on their website.

Not only does the IMA explain why they deaccession items (including a link to their policy) and list the collections that have been reviewed since 2007. They also have a searchable database of items that have been deaccessioned, which includes information about how and when the items were disposed of, or if the items are still waiting to be sold, transferred or exchanged.

Funds raised through deaccessioning are dedicated to purchasing new works in the relevant collection area, and the IMA notes "We will soon be linking deaccessioned artworks [in the database] to artworks newly acquired by means of the relevant funds."

They say that sunlight is the best disinfectant. In this case, I think the IMA is proving that transparency and the ungrudging release of information is the best way to tackle potentially tricky situations.

Lies, damn lies,

I love a good statistic. I like the population counter on the Statistics New Zealand homepage (4,244,761 and counting). I like it when cricket commentators tell you that the record for a seventh wicket partnership by New Zealand versus Pakistan has been broken. As a child I was fascinated by the Livestock Improvement catalogues, with their pictures and stats of bulls and their offspring (I realise that may be sharing a bit too much).

So thanks Tyler Green for pointing out the Indianapolis Museum of Art's new Dashboard feature on their website.


The Dashboard presents some figures and prercentages, in a nice round-cornered bright'n'shiny Web 2 design, that reflect aspects of the IMA's performance. I'm not sure if they're pulling the numbers from smart folders or some idiosyncratic database, but it's an interesting selection: electrical consumption per day, new plantings, number of works in the collection with incomplete World War II-era provenance, number of hours spent by conservators examining art.

It's an interesting selection ... and yet it offers no more insight into the IMA's working than the 7th wicket stand gives into the eventual outcome of the match. Most of the figures are numbers without context - okay, so 12% of visitors are IMA Members: but is visitation up or down on this time last year? The Dashboard looks pretty and all - but I'm just not sure what it's for.