Museum Ethics and Show Business

(AMPAS / November 3, 2013)

The city of Los Angeles will experience the addition of two major museums within in the next few years. The Broad, a new contemporary art museum, will be opening in downtown LA in late 2014 across from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2017, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences plans to open its Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in a building that is currently unused next to LACMA. The Academy Museum aims to be a valid and respected cultural institution that will be able to attract visitors that possess a wide range of familiarity with cinema and its history. In order for the Academy Museum to be successful, this prospective institution must take many factors into consideration, including ethics, funds, and education. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times, titled “The long Yellow Brick Road to Hollywood’s new museum,” likens the goals and intentions of the Academy Museum to the three essential characteristics attributed to Dorothy’s sidekicks in the film “The Wizard of Oz.”

According to author Mike Boehm, the Academy Museum must possess the “brains to deftly balance entertainment with scholarly heft. The courage not to be manipulated by studio executives, actors or directors who might view the nonprofit museum as a tool for boosting box-office returns, gratifying egos or controlling artistic and historical interpretations that are supposed to be up to the curators. And a heart — Hollywood's collective philanthropic heart — that's eager to express itself by giving the museum the money and collection items it needs to thrive.” It is only with these qualities that the Academy Museum will be able to thrive and succeed as a new cultural institution in the heart of Los Angeles. Otherwise, the threat of failure is very tangible, as revealed by the fate of the Hollywood Entertainment Museum, which was forced to close its doors in 2006 due to low attendance and lack of funds. 

The courage to avoid manipulation by donors is yet another aspect of ethics that is important to be considered in the museum profession. In situations similar to the Guggenheim putting on an exhibition titled ‘Armani’ after a supposed donation of $15 million from the fashion house, it can be very difficult to discern when the focus or design of an exhibition leaves the control of the curators and is instead skewed in favor of appeasing the donors or funders of the show. This represents a very real danger for the Academy Museum, whose potential donors will include studio executives, actors, and directors that may retain certain expectations regarding their influence on exhibitions. According to the article, the “ethics and standards code of the American Alliance of Museums, a leading nonprofit trade organization, insists that the equivalents of script approval, final cut and the authority to green-light a project must reside with museum professionals, not with an exhibition's subject, financial contributors or artifact lenders.”  

Museum ethics is not limited to situations involving looting, repatriation, and acquisition. The ethics associated with curating are also extremely significant, and it will be essential for the Academy Museum to remain unadulterated by the politics and egos so prevalent in show business. As Boehm asserts in the article “Who's in control of the portrayal is as crucial in museum ethics as what's being portrayed.”

Los Angeles Times Article