The value of art

The Freep Film Festival is happening. For those not from around here, “Freep” is the nickname of the Detroit Free Press, the more progressive of the two local newspapers. For the last few years the newspaper has sponsored a festival of documentary films with a variety of related events. The first couple years all the films had something to do with Detroit or Michigan. Starting last year they dropped that requirement, though many of the films do focus on the area. Out of the more than 50 films (I didn’t count), I may see three – one this afternoon, two tomorrow.

Today’s film was Beauty and Ruin. It’s about how the Detroit Institute of Arts got caught up on Detroit’s bankruptcy four years ago. It is fitting I saw the film at the DIA, in their lecture hall.

The film includes a history of the DIA. Back in the late 19th Century there were 100 art museums opened across America in the span of maybe 25 years. And all these art museums needed art. Detroit, a very rich city at the time, built a museum, outgrew it within 45 years, and built another. The museum in Detroit was a bit different than in other cities – it was owned by the city, not an independent non-profit foundation. City money bought some of the art. In the boom years that didn’t matter. In the bust years …

One of the people in this story said it is not possible to accurately talk about Detroit without talking about racism. Black people came North for jobs and many got work in the auto plants. But the oppression they knew in the South continued here. There were race riots in 1947 and again in 1967. Detroit hit its peak population in 1950 (1.8 million). Since then 95% of the white population has fled to the suburbs. The population is now above 600,000, a bit over a third of what it had been.

And when whites fled, they took their middle class tax dollars with them. Through the 1990s and into the early 2000s the city was able to muddle through. But the auto industry hit a downturn well before the big financial crisis that brought on the Great Recession in 2007. Detroit was his especially hard with foreclosures. And, in a highly irresponsible move, the city government started borrowing money to pay basic expenses. And those loans likely had some shady elements.

So Detroit was assigned an Emergency Manager by the state, usurping all local elected officials. He uncovered the size of the debt and initiated the largest municipal bankruptcy. He looked over the city’s assets – ah, an art museum, with lots of famous art. I’m sure we could tap that resource for a few million bucks.

And so the tussle began. On one side Graham Beal, head of the museum, talked about the value of art, both in dollar amounts (the city forced the museum to get everything appraised), what it means to have such art available to all of the citizens, and the role the museum plays in attracting talent to the city. If the art were sold it wouldn’t go to another museum, it would be snatched up by a Chinese or Russian oligarch, whose wealth would make such a purchase seem like a pittance, and the art would disappear into a private collection.

On the other side were the city pensioners, those who had worked for the city for 30-40 years and faced getting their pensions and health care drastically cut. What’s more important, a Picasso or actual people? We heard the pensioners tell their story, sat in on some of their meetings, and saw their protests.

One of the talking heads revealed it was a manipulated and false choice. If the DIA – the building and all the art in it – was sold all of the money would have gone to creditors and the pensioners would have still taken the same hit. The choice that was not presented was between the pensioners, who were mostly black and highly dependent on this money, and the creditors who were already rich.

Finally, a Grand Bargain was worked out. The city’s philanthropic organizations chipped in $50 million and the DIA was put in private hands. With that on the table the state, usually quite willing to let the city sink on its own, chipped in an equal amount. Then the pensioners were told we’re going to chop your pension and health care by this huge amount. You can vote no, but if you do your final settlement will be less (and we get to portray you as the group that scuttled the deal to save the art). They grumbled, but approved it. Even the most vocal creditor approved it (we saw him on camera too). So the DIA was saved and Detroit completed bankruptcy. And now the city, at least the cultural core, is doing pretty good.

Afterward we met the filmmaker, Marc de Guerre. He said he started the project as a history of the DIA, the largest of those museums started in the late 19th Century. Then the bankruptcy happened and the DIA got drawn into it. So he felt he had to change the focus of his story.

The audience was able to ask questions and share comments. One of the pensioners spoke. They’re still not doing well. Their income has been slashed. They can’t afford health insurance. And after the Grand Bargain was done the world forgot about them. Want another documentary subject? Here you go.

The DIA is open late on Friday evenings. So after the film I went over to the painting featured in the film as the most expensive piece in the museum, The Wedding Dance by Bruegels the Elder.