Museum Merger: Weighing Pros and Cons

The long-discussed possibility of a merger between the Laguna Art Museum and the Newport Harbor Art Museum has moved closer to decisive action in recent months. A six-person committee has been actively pursuing the union of the two museums for the past three months, under the leadership of a trustee with experience in business mergers.

No one knows how a vote by respective museum trustees on whether to merge will turn out. No one even seems to know when the vote will be taken. So far, there are many more questions than answers. Issues of management, staffing, finances and location are up in the air.

But perhaps it’s time to step back and look at the bigger picture. What are the advantages and disadvantages of museum mergers in general? What kinds of issues need to be considered before making an intelligent move? Are financial reasons sufficient grounds for a successful merger?

Let’s look at what we know about the collections of the museums in question and then consider how directors at other museums assess the merger option.

The Newport Harbor Art Museum was founded in 1962 to bring modern and contemporary art to Orange County. Now numbering more than 2,000 pieces, its collection was started in 1971 with a donation from AVCO Financial Services of 34 works by prominent artists of the ‘50s and ‘60s (including Joseph Albers, Franz Kline and Louise Nevelson)--a collection hand-picked by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius.

It wasn’t until the mid-’70s that Newport Harbor decided not to compete with the broad, generalized collections of other museums in the region and instead concentrate specifically on California art from the post-World War II period. Among the nationally prominent California artists represented in the collection are John Baldessari, Ed Moses, John Altoon, Ed Kienholz, John McCracken, Richard Diebenkorn, Bruce Connor, Chris Burden, Bill Viola and Vija Celmins.

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Meanwhile, the museum has continued to acquire works by major American artists--such as Claes Oldenburg, Sol LeWitt and Carl Andre--that help put the California pieces in a broader context.

The Laguna Art Museum, established in 1918 as an artists’ association, owns more than 3,000 works representing a bigger chunk of California art history, from the 19th century to the present.

Among the California Impressionist paintings in its collection are 41 works by George Kennedy Brandriff, donated by the artist’s widow, and canvases by Guy Rose, William Wendt and Franz A. Bischoff.

The museum’s long-standing interest in regional artists has resulted in holdings of work by such minor but deserving artists as Ben Messick, Dan Lutz, Vic Joachim Smith and John Paul Jones. Modern and contemporary artists with national reputations include John McLaughlin, Lorser Feitelson, Llyn Foulkes, Ruscha and Herms. (Not surprisingly, certain contemporary artists are represented in both collections.)

On the most obvious level, the two museums could better tell the story of California art if they merged. Newport Harbor owns a larger, more sophisticated body of work by contemporary artists. But other missing pieces would have to be filled by donation or purchase. Although Newport Harbor has a key group of Bay Area Figurative paintings, neither museum is strong in Northern California work or in California photography or video.

And then there is the problem of quality. The Laguna museum probably is oversupplied with work by minor local artists to suit the broader focus merger supporters seem to have in mind when talking about a “world-class” museum that would be “larger than the sum of its parts.”

One key point the supporters make is the desirability of attracting major traveling exhibitions assembled by leading institutions worldwide, much as the Orange County Performing Arts Center hosts some of the world’s major performing-arts companies.

Prefacing his remarks by saying it is difficult to comment at such an early stage in the merger efforts, Hugh Davies, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, said that combining the assets of both museums “should make for one stronger institution, but it’s not going to take them into a different echelon. It takes years of building a collection and building a reputation to reach the pinnacles [that supporters of the plan] seem to be talking about.”

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In fact, Newport Harbor in its glory days--the 1980s--came the closest to the “world-class” goal. It exhibited numerous European contemporary artists, produced major shows on Abstract Expressionism and had its biggest viewership ever in 1982, with an exhibition of paintings from the early decades of the 20th century by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch.

But most museum professionals declare the era of the multivenue blockbuster exhibition to be over, a victim of worries about transporting fragile works as well as the downsizing of arts institutions.

In any case, said Connie Glenn, director of the University Art Museum at Cal State Long Beach, such popular but transitory events don’t solve the eternal problem of how to “bring people in on odd Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

Museums in outlying areas face new problems today, Glenn added.

“I think we always presumed, in Laguna Beach or Newport or here, that we could take great liberties [in showing venturesome contemporary art] because we were subsidiaries to a more general museum.

“[But] people who live at a great distance from [the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles] or [the Los Angeles County Museum of Art] are beginning to count on us for their only exposure” to art.

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While an attempt to create an Orange County museum with collections equivalent to LACMA would be doomed, Glenn said (“the days to do that kind of purchasing are over”), the permanent collection is likely to be the major focus of all museums in the future, including those in Orange County.

In the long run, she said, “Most museums are looking, as they should be, back toward the development of connoisseurship--an intense and meaningful understanding of works of art--in regard to their own collections.”

A successful merger between two art institutions depends on several elements, according to Dan Monroe, director of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., an art and history institution created by the 1992 merger of two museums.

“Are there audiences out there to which a new museum--with some of the previous elements and some new elements--could respond more effectively?” he asked.

“Would [a combined museum] be financially viable and able to function in terms of the collections? Could you have a broader patron and support base?” Monroe said that leaders of the boards at the Essex Institute and Peabody Museum commissioned three feasibility studies, carefully determined the membership of the new institution’s modestly sized board and formulated detailed business and transitional financing plans.

“It’s important to have people with experience in [both management and museums] come in and work with the boards,” Monroe said.

Steven Weil, former deputy director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., noted that it made financial sense for his museum and 14 others to be run with under one central administration as part of the Smithsonian Institution.

“There is a certain amount of waste inherent in running as many separate museums as we do in America,” Weil said.

But a promising financial picture alone doesn’t spell success.

“The notion that you’re going to cut overhead and therefore make the institution more stable financially ignores the tremendous internal focus,” Monroe said, referring to staff worries about the security of their jobs, a new chain of command and the fate of their projects.

The museum may effect “relatively modest savings” by merging but “get killed on the income side” by failing to immediately produce programming that attracts viewers.

Monroe further cautioned that in addition to owning related collections, two museums contemplating a merger must have a good congruence between “institutional values.”

A relevant point, perhaps, in view of what some would say are major differences between the Laguna museum, which always had a strong community focus, and Newport Harbor, prominent in national art circles in the ‘80s but never known for its support of Orange County artists.

CSULB’s Glenn underlined the need for a full examination--from both artistic and conceptual points of view--of the reasons for merging.

Added MOCA San Diego’s Davies: “If this merger is contemplated as building on the strengths of both institutions, it can be applauded as a positive move for the arts in Orange County. But if it’s seen as a somewhat cynical corporate downsizing to reduce the payroll, then it’s a very depressing moment for both institutions.”