Ethics v. Morals

As this is de rigueur to recent posts and I'm trying to put together a writing sample for grad school soon, I figure that I should try to get some basics down on screen so you could laugh at me and tell me that I'm wrong.

I'm going to be focusing mostly on ethics, but let's describe the difference first between ethics and morals. It's unethical to put your self into an exhibit that you curate. It's not immoral though. Morality is a question of right and wrong. A state of being and if it's right or wrong for your soul-- usually tied to a religion or creed. The religious stuff, don't kill, sleep with your neighbor's wife et cetera has nothing to do with the professional ethics of a curator. Usually there is not much of an overlap, so this question doesn't come up often.

For some it's both immoral and unethical to have sex with a museum professional in order to get your show on the schedule. Christianity says you shouldn't do that for moral reasons and the ethic of your profession says your show should be scheduled because it's a good show, not because you are good in bed.

There is nothing immoral to showing a work from a member of your board. It is usually considered outside the norms of museum ethics though to show a collection from a board member though. Even if the show is outside the norms of museum ethics, we can still view and critique the show as a show.

When the MoMA was founded, they expected to deaccession work regularly. Needless to say that they changed that as soon as they had some work worth a significant amount of money. There is no argument to the morality of collecting work but there is one for the ethic. A collecting museum has a different relationship to work than a non-collecting one but no one asks if they are breaking rules that will keep them from heaven.

What would the MoMA be today if they sold off all of their mid-century work and purchased work produced from 1990- 2010? Imagine if they couldn't own anything from before 1960. This is not a question of right/wrong, but rather questions how a professional would and should engage in their job. Is it ethical to show art work from 1945 in 2010 at a museum that wants to define and explore modernism? The founders thought it was unethical and put it into the rules of the MoMA. Should the public complain about the work that they hold from the 40's? No. But should they consider selling some old stuff that may be looking less modern by the day? Sure.

In the coming months I would like to explore some of the details I just glossed over. From the non/collecting issue, the deaccessioning of works, the sourcing of curators and collecting of collectors, to the gray ethical ares for specific museums. There are unending examples to talk about.

PBS hip hop

Finally watched Byron Hurt's Beyond Beats and Rhymes.

If 50 cent and Jadakiss and all those people I'd like to vote off hip hop's island are stacking bank so that they can become indie label producers, than I'll forgive them for ruining one of the liveliest sectors of contemporary music. If they are secretly planning on systematically taking down the crap that they produce, than I think they are more hip hop than the stuff I listen to.

I hope. But it's not going to happen.

When Attitude Becomes Form

Harald Szeeman's exhibition at Kunsthalle Bern, May 1969.


Daniel Birnbaum on Szeemann

Complete list of artists

Carol Thea interview with Szeeman

David Levi Strauss about Szeemann and Hopps.

Brief obit for Szeemann.

Museums serve the public right?

The Guggenheim has auctioned off stuff practically directly from their gallery.

Powhida talks ethics and morals.

Hashtag class has just finished its run.

We seem to be fighting with what art is and should function in terms of ethic or morals. Sure. But I believe that these three have a subtext about the non-profit and its assumption of non-profitness.

Let's review. The non-profit art space is granted that legal status why? It serves the public by being a location of reference. It becomes a location where we store our physical goods that are deemed to be influential and of note. Like the news paper of yesteryear being the paper-of-record, the museum serves a similar function. We ask that the non-profit museum acts in our interests, or at least pretends to act in our interest.

The question of how the museum is or isn't a public institution is the question at hand. It has to be profitable and raise insane amounts of money yearly. One part of the Museum's job is collecting the work, the collectors, the scholars, the curators, the staff into one place to make the museum function as a public institution. But the museum's morals and ethics are often stretched by this basic job.

Gathering the coffee sales people is not usually a decision fraught with ethics, but an artist acting as curator, who has been collected by a board member who is a major benefactor to the institution is. Selling art from a show should bring up red flags. The questions raised by Brandeis with the Rose is a similar situation. Does the non-profit status of the art museum allow for gathering of property that will be sold off at an opportune time? Not at all by most people's estimation. One cannot start a collection, say it's in the public's interest and then just change your mind that it was actually a liquid collection that will be up for sale to the highest bidder.

So, instead of going all Andrea Fraser and critiquing the museum through our art, we seem to be talking about this in public via words?! Amazing. We might be growing up yet. One thing I hope is that as people like Powhida are smart competent thinkers, I hope that the opportunity to self-publish constantly, and without much editorial challenge won't keep them from working these ideas out completely and writing what would be a fascinating book about this subject. 140 characters, no matter how often, does not allow for full thoughts.