In January, I bravely/naively attempted to predict the key events to occur in 2022 from a collections professional point of view. How well did I predict the year’s events?
Collections tarot
Prediction: Broad adoption of remote work
I know that some people have positions where they can still work from a distance With a monthly or quarterly in-person meetup but doubt they are the norm. I think in some cases, though, a “hybrid” option may exist. In general, I think it it fair to say that “broad adoption” is not there.
Exhibitions and acquisitions have not slowed and thus required a steady presence of people to tend to them.
We will begin outsourcing jobs to cheaper countries in similar time zones. NO. Not yet anyway.
Museum studies degrees will begin to lose their gloss as work specializes to accommodate remote workers (for example, someone to just work remotely on the database). NO. To be fair, should this happen, it will take a lot more than a year to realize.
Once you embrace remote you will look to hire the best anywhere and foster more specialization. Curator of Asian Art for a US museum but based in Asia? Or, outsourcing more exhibitions to traveling exhibition companies. Companies that just manage museum databases in India? NO. Not yet anyway. Could take time.
Create new hubs for institutional professionals in less expensive cities. Think about the reclaimed wood and bottomless beer on tap of co-working spaces in Mexico City, Marrakesh, and Bangkok instead of NY, London, and Hong Kong. NO. This could take a decade to establish. What was I thinking?
Remote work will empower IDEA initiatives by reducing barriers for entry into jobs. Probably not. I do not know but would guess that it has not begun yet.
Those who can work remotely will [continue to] leave big cities for less expensive towns. Not broadly, but it exists. I doubt, however, people continue to leave the city, but if they left, they probably do not come back.
Losers: permanent employees. Many jobs lost during the pandemic will not return or will be moved to less-expensive places or less-expensive people (contractors/temporary employees). Those still employed continue to do more work to maintain the pre-pandemic work levels. Yes. This seems to be the case on some scale.
Winners: Contract workers. Art services companies. Both will get a lot more business. Yes. Especially with shipping companies who seem short staffed.
Winners (honorable mention): Collections stewards who still have their jobs. Those still working on-site to care for collections are now more important since fewer people will do this work. So, by my own measure, these folks have won and lost. They still have their job but are overworked due to fewer people. Due to fewer people, they have become more important.
A realization that NFTs and blockchains are not a gimmick
Hahahahahaha! The market for NFTs has crashed in such a public and spectacular way that it may seem a shut case. That said, NFTs are not just sellable, screenshot-able jpegs. They are a technology that can provide scarcity for digital “objects”. I explain this a little more here, here, and here.
Anyway, the market for artwork NFTs got smashed on the mainstream level as wild speculation propped blew over with only moderate wind. But, the technology behind it continues. In fact mega institutions like Art Basel and the Luma Foundation helped fund a blockchain initiative called Arcual. Perhaps, we have simply begun another phase of its deployment.
Blockchain mining will dramatically reduce its energy consumption. Some folks use this fact as a hate trigger, but solutions already exist and will mainstream like NFT art in 2020. YES! The Ethereum blockchain, the one most used for NFTs, moved to a radically more efficient “proof-of-stake” mining protocol that apparently reduced energy consumption by 99.9%.
Creating digital scarcity is priceless. Creating an immutable record of the history of an object is priceless. Accurate and unchanging records is literally everything we want in the maintenance of collection data – our fountain of youth.
Scarcity is literally the definition of creating value – i.e. the reason that we all have jobs. Professionals stewarding high-value collections…
The Gucci prices for generic-quality NFT artworks may or may not be a trend, but who cares. A) Artists using NFTs existed for years before 2020 “discovered” them. B) Artists will innovate with NFTs like an unofficial team of scientists at Los Alamos using them as their tools, mediums, documentation of authenticity, income (resale royalties). This blew up like an art world IED. That said, it will likely purge the speculators and leave the dedicated few.
In antiquities, blockchain can certify authenticity and the legal acquisition of objects (assuming proper research). This is still happening but not at a rapid scale.
Institutions will monetize their biggest asset: their collections
Surprisingly, I did not mention anything about deaccessioning in here, but behold an interesting article about how institutions reckon with it after the fact.
Anti-money laundering will hamper “art-washing” attempts by donors. Maybe.
A continued culling of Sackler-style investments and board members in museums like pigs rooting truffles. MAYBE. The Sackler name itself has proven hard enough to remove.
Lack of donors means need for new revenue streams - not just new donors. Well, MAYBE. The answer is, of course, “yes”, but it will not happen this quickly.
Institutions looking to cut back will continue to cite sustainability as the reason. I have no idea.
Boijmans Depot open storage is an example of providing more access and income for museums (a major up-front investment though). No one seems to have plans to repeat this. At this point it is a one-off accomplishment.
NFTs of exhibitions will continue to evolve and proliferate. NO. Got that wrong.
People will finally figure out what to do with the NFTs they buy :) NO.
Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
This issue will permeate for generations. My solid ideas below may never catch fire or they will require years. The simple answer, now, is that they have not happened.
The Burns-Halperin report which just came out illustrates the tepid results that IDEA initiatives in collecting have yielded.
Hear the report authors discuss the implications of their finding below.
The following did not necessarily happen but still could down the road.
New Tech can and should empower IDEA
DAOs will create funds to endow Conservator or Collections Manager position (i.e. positions typically NOT-funded by donors) that take diversification into account.
Remote work can encourage inclusivity by removing geographical or commuting obstacles
Unfortunately, the steps forward will resemble a Nissan Leaf instead of Tesla Roadster.
Repatriation & Restitution
Unquestionably yes! Whether the Benin objects or the Parthenon Marbles (we do not call them “Elgin” after their plunderer anymore). Almost weekly we see more information about the repatriation of objects.
Some other highlights:
Washington man repatriates objects from his own collection.
Indigenous leaders welcome historic repatriation of stolen Nisga’a memorial totem pole
Smithsonian Returns 29 Benin Bronzes to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria
Pope Francis to Return 3 Parthenon Marble Fragments to Greece
Along with anti-money laundering legislation, the United States will take a more active role in the repatriation of objects as a natural tributary of the process
More scrutiny on museum collections due to the continuing cascade of restitution cases will begin to change the face of museum collecting (long-term project) and move object provenance from brick wall to foggy glass levels of transparency. I doubt we will ever see (pun intended) full transparency.
Winners
Contractors (I have bet on this!) To a degree
Vendors taking on some of the work overflowing from institutions. Yes and no. They are overworked and understaffed.
Collections stewards now deemed essential workers. Well….
Those professionals who left the field or threaten to do so. Why continue to work as an art handler risking your health in a global pandemic for little money when you can earn more doing remote work [selling NFTs – haha]? Move back to your hometown from the big city and live cheaply and spend more time making art. Plenty still leave.
People working for our vendors. They need so much help that they will have to provide attractive employment situations to fill demand.
Unionizing. The pandemic has nurtured the perfect environment for those employees looking to unionize by leveraging the lack of staff and highlighting their subsequent lack of pay against their employers desperate to fill positions.
Employee scarcity (that word again) begets better pay. YES! YES! YES! YES! This is unquestionably the issue of the year in the United States with the Philadelphia Museum strike as the talisman. Years of organizing continues to gain momentum and the conditions that the pandemic has created fertilize the moment.
Funny enough, in looking for articles about the subject, most seem to predate the Philadelphia Museum strike which suggests the reckoning wafted in their direction.
New York Times From October: Philadelphia Museum of Art Reaches Tentative Deal to End Strike
Losers (or, at least not-as-much-winners)
Permanent staff: doing several jobs making up for those who who got laid off or who left for greener pastures. Their positions may not come back. TBD
Collections care. Until institutions properly adopt instead of simply fostering the contractor, the quality of care for their collections will suffer. TBD
Programming schedules. Fewer flights, fewer trucks, fewer materials, and plenty of pandemic left to hold back potential employees. Vendors need people, and their underemployment coupled with the supply chain disruptions mean unexpected schedule changes, fewer materials, and reduced capacities. I would not expect real improvements here for a while. YES. Still a major issue
Diversity and inclusion initiatives. I ride the fence about this one but feel that “just getting through the pandemic” attitudes will too-easily allow administrators to ghost this push. But, then again, remote workers… It is a coin toss. CORRECT. GOING TO TAKE TIME.
Budgets. Everything will cost more. Services and employees alike. This is why we will have to operate more efficiently (Hence contractors! I will keep saying it!) CORRECT. When are budgets not an issue?
Hear another year-end roundup of the year’s key events below.
In the end, the accuracy of my predictions varies like a penalties in the World Cup. Perhaps, some issues were destined to dominate, but we can choose to see many of these changes as progress to despite the semi-negative tone that wafts through the industry.
That said, I probably rely too much on technology to bring about significant change. In the end, though, people have to interface with that technology and the quality of that interaction alone will dictate many of the tech platforms that we adopt.
Ultimately, I hope for an infusion of optimism in the new year that we can use to electrify the steps we took in 2022.
