36. Philanthropy: time to refill the pot

Unpublished
3rd January 1996

While almost everything Mr. Mays has written in the last fifteen years outlaws the temptation to even momentarily consider being part of his tag team, I am drawn to the growing accumulation of published letters (particularly by his art management wrestling opponents) whose limited effect is theatrically to pin Mays to the canvas over his original remarks on the Tanenbaums’ art gift to the Art Gallery of Ontario. (Dec 23rd)
Mr. Mays can hardly be accused of heresy when every museum studies student and curator cites as fact the accompanying additional public cost of storing, caring for and interpreting new acquisitions; that a public museum cannot in any sense afford to be a “community’s attic”. In the 1994 “Impact of Massive Acquisitions” conference at Montréal’s Musée d’ art contemporain, anthropology museum curator, Carol E. Mayer details how all gifts to museums prompt discussions that argue for admitting a Trojan horse. “Museums are built on ‘wooden horses’ that have been aggressively sought or passively accepted.” At the same meeting Charles C. Hill, Canadian Curator, National Gallery stated: “Abuses of the Cultural Property Review Board benefits have resulted in holdings in certain art museums of inferior works which languish in overcrowded storage areas and which, when brought out ocassionally for the public to see, do little credit to the artists.”
Thinking in terms of voracious employment needs of such artists I would argue - in this time of public defunding - for a more dynamic recyling model. If art philanthopists such as the Tanenbaums want their surplus wealth to remain circulating within an art economy (instead of being taxed for general public use), they might more usefully sell their treasures at auction thereafter donating their gains (in exchange for equal tax credits) to arts funding agencies like the Ontario Arts Council or The Canada Council who in turn can aid further art production and dissemination by living artists.
Far from insulting the Tanenbaums, the philanthropy/tax debate usefully reminds us that it is time to refill the pot. It is almost forty years since the death duties of millionaires Izaak Killam and James Dunn were used by the federal government to provide $50 million in capital funding for universities and $50 million as an endowment for the Canada Council.
This pivotal culturally and economically productive act of transfering private wealth to public trust deserves repeating. The ‘back to basics’ nineties choice (thinking of recent Canadian bank profits, or tobacco company advertising problems) for a wide range of public spending needs might be more whether corporate heads - acting on behalf of shareholders as civic subjects - decide to make voluntary acts of generous philanthropy or are taxed an equivalent amount without accumulating public goodwill.