And Now for Some Culture, or: Museums in Numbers

The husband, who loves when subjects in the humanities are analyzed in numbers, read to me the following piece from his favorite econ blog, “The Marginal Revolution” (the blog is quoting NYTimes’ piece by Robert H. Frank):

Fortunately, costs are easier to estimate, and those for displaying a painting derive largely from its market value. Consider “The Wedding Dance,” a 16th-century work by the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Detroit museum visitors have enjoyed this painting since 1930. How much would it cost to preserve that privilege for future generations?

A tidy sum, as it turns out. According to Christie’s, this canvas alone could fetch up to $200 million. Once interest rates return to normal levels — say, 6 percent — the forgone interest on that amount would be approximately $12 million a year.

If we assume that the museum would be open 2,000 hours a year, and ignore the cost of gallery space and other indirect expenses, the cost of keeping the painting on display would be more than $6,000 an hour. Assuming that an average of five people would view it per hour, all year long, it would still cost more than $1,200 an hour to provide the experience for each visitor.

What do I think about it, you may ask?

Weeel. Unlike the husband, I dislike it when we think about culture in numbers. Almost every time culture turns out to be economically NOT viable. And yet, somehow, invaluable.

In this case, a couple of issues are implicitly implied in this little citation, but not explored:

1) Detroit, once a successful paragon of an American metropolis and an American industry, is a dying city where packs of wild dogs rule the streets, houses sell for single digits, and whole street blocks are empty of people. Description that frankly reads like the zombie apocalypse.

2) The numbers for the upkeep of an artwork is calculated based on an ‘average’ – but the average of visitors in museums differs radically from museum to museum, and city to city. The world’s major museums average many more visitors than a smaller museum in a non destination city, let alone a city like Detroit which no one wants to visit.

This two issues (or, maybe one, since they are related) make me ask the following:

Are museums in provincial cities ever profitable?

What if the Bruegel was moved to a bigger city, to a major museum, say my favorite museum, the MET? Surely many more people would see it. Hell, I’d take a trip right away. But is that a justified move? It smacks of the good ole imperialist strategy of looting your provinces (say, Egypt) of its culture and moving it, lock, stock, and temples. Then again, the removal of artifacts and architecture from Egypt saved great parts of it from ruin. If only the antiquities on the bottom of the Aswan Dam were light enough to be moved before they were flooded into eternity… no?

I don’t have a good answer.