Council for Artists Rights

CBS televised video errs in reporting $400 million art collection gift to
Dallas Museum of Art, Texas

January 29, 2010

Dear ally of artists’ rights:

After watching the entire episode of the CBS Sunday Morning Show, "Bringing Art To
The People," which aired on January 17, 2010, I feel compelled to bring to your attention the
falsehood that is being perpetuated by the program's producer-editor Douglas W. Smith and
CBS' reporter Sandra Hughes. The program mistakenly leads viewers to believe that some
couples had donated their entire collections at a worth of $400M to the Dallas Museum of Art
(DMA). These so-called donated works were included in the exhibition called “Fast Forward:
Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art.” That is simply not true. And it reveals
a museum practice which is unethical and calls into question the proper--if not outright illegal--
use of taxpayer monies.

What has happened--and is not mentioned in the CBS program--is that the exhibition was
barely over when Cindy and Howard Rachofsky pulled their "gifted" piece, Jeff Koon's sculpture
Balloon Flower (Magenta) 1995-2000, out of the museum's future and put it up for auction. It
sold for an eye-popping $25.8 million. The work had been purchased in 2001 by the Rachofskys
for $1.2 million.

According to page 4 of the exhibition's catalogue (actually it should be called a book, for it
is much too large to be called a catalogue) “Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the
Dallas Museum of Art”--published by the DMA in 2007 in conjunction with the show--about
the Rachofsky's donation to the museum, "Unless otherwise noted, all works illustrated in this
catalogue are either partial or promised gifts to the Dallas Museum of Art or are currently in the
permanent collection." Koon's Balloon Flower (Magenta) 1995-2000 was reproduced twice in
the catalogue. And in another section of the book, page 21, the DMA's own director states "The
grand utterly transforming moment came in 2005 when the...Rachofskys...joined to commit to
the Museum by irrevocable (emphasis added) bequest their entire collections..."

When asked about the museum gift by Alan Peppard of the Dallas Morning News,
which included Balloon Flower (Magenta) 1995-2000, Howard Rachofsky replied "It was a
testamentary gift of whatever our collection was when we die..." He is telling us, in plain words,
that he and his wife had not promised the museum anything that could possibly warrant the
museum exhibition, "Fast Forward" book, museum advertising and public relations time and
expense, and even the museum's reputation itself.

If the addition of these collections totaling $400 million was to really make this museum of
major international importance then why did the director and three curators promptly leave--
pretty embarrassing, eh?
 Lest we forget the real patron of the arts--via a museum's not-for-profit status--in the United
States is the U.S. taxpayer, not the shrewd speculator or cunning investor. Every museum gift
artwork donation by these investors (really what I call "institution manipulators") is taken as a
deduction on their annual income tax return at the highest value. The value being the result of
a purely commercial promotion and not at all the result of artwork being vetted and therefore
valued
through a series of professionally juried shows. That is not to mention that artists can only
deduct the cost of materials used in creating art, and not one red penny more.

In the past, works of art entered museums in a different fashion. There is no longer the
truly professional recognition system that existed in the U.S. for more than 150 years. The
system I am referring to is the juried show. Juried shows at local, state, regional and national
levels which culminated in the inclusion of work in regular museum exhibitions and collections.
Thereby, a very real recognition was available to everyone equally and thus the works included
in public
collections of not-for-profit museums had a substantial claim of quality and future significance
granted by professional jurors and recognized by the artists themselves.

Currently, in the absence of juried shows, a single wealthy speculator--often a museum

board member--or a unified group of speculators, may be the only factor in stocking museum
collections. Do museums as not-for-profit institutions have the right to spend their money, which
is really public money, to profit a few individuals? Does this scenario sound suspiciously like the
recent Wall Street debacle?

We are not alone in voicing this concern about the art world in the U.S. The nonprofit Rand
Corporation in 2005 published "A Portrait of the Visual Arts: Meeting the Challenges of a New
Era" which echos the concern of many. In its conclusion the Rand Corporation states "We
suspect that as long as museums, in particular, continue to respond quickly and concertedly
to each controversy with public reprimands and new policies and guidelines, new government
regulations of museums are unlikely." Another way of putting it: if visual arts organizations do
not police themselves, toothy government regulations will do it for them.

Moreover, on November 10, 2007, the New York Times published an article "Museums
Solicit Dealers' Largess" which throws light on a questionable practice by the Museum of
Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. That article was followed up with an editorial written
soon after by Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts - New York attorney Sérgio Muñoz Sarmiento
called "Private Contributions and Public Museums." He posted the editorial on his personal
website Clancco.com

As recently as 2008, Heather Hope Stephen's wrote an incisive "Visualizing The Path
Forward - The Visual Artists Rights Act Of 1990 And Recommendations For A Response By
American Museums" which says that asking artists to waive their rights may be ethically and
legally indefensible and she challenges museums to consider the rights of living artists.

U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley has in the past championed investigations into the operations
of nonprofit organizations. We expect that you will begin a dialogue with Senator Grassley's
office about this incident at the DMA. Needless to say, it is an important museum and taxpayer
issue. The American Association of Museums--via its President Mr. Ford Bell--has recently
been made aware of the sale of “irrevocable” promised museum gift.

These and other issues important to the health of the arts in this country are being
addressed or soon will be. These scandals must stop. A very prominent museum director has
publicly called for art museums to be operated "transparently." Bravo.

The Council for Artists Rights is based in Chicago, IL USA. Its thrust is to educate the public
about artists' rights and advocates for artists whose work is in distress. CFAR was
spontaneously born in 2004 when devotees of public art learned a city park district had
irrevocably altered--without its creator's permission--a 20 year old work of public art.

Recognition of CFAR founding member John Viramontes:

Honoree, Huffington Post blogger Esther J. Cepeda's Chicago Latino List 2009.

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