I don’t think it has diminished. Its expectations are different from those who
enjoy
popular culture, who seek quick fixes and instant gratification.
(
Financial Times
, 1/2 December 2001)
Indeed many do not realize that the Met even has a president.
With the notable exceptions of the Met, MoMA, and the Philadelphia Museum
of Art (from 1982 to 1997) bifurcation has not taken root in the USA; moreover,
there has not been a move towards turning over the top post to a ‘corporate’ busi-
ness manager. Italy has given new legal status as foundations or nonprofit organi-
zations to formerly state-controlled institutions. Pompeii is a case in point: the
superintendent, a career professional charged with protecting archaeological heri-
tage, now works with a city manager. There was a short-lived, albeit animated,
attempt at the British Museum with a ‘managing director’ (Suzanna Taverne) hired
to work alongside the director (Robert Anderson). Taverne, with substantial expe-
rience in merchant banking and media, was hired in 1999 to offer additional
management and financial support to the director, but when it emerged, in 2001,
that she would not be appointed director upon Anderson’s retirement, she decided
to leave the institution. Selective excerpts of an interview Taverne gave to the
London
Sunday Times
(9 September 2001) have been quoted with relish: ‘There is
this priesthood of curators, who look after the relics. There’s this notion that only
they can be the intermediaries between the relics and the public. They carry this
sacred flame of the institution – the museum’; she went on to comment on the
photos of the British Museum’s past museum directors, ‘Look at them. All white
males’. A manager-scholar, Neil MacGregor, director of the National Gallery, was
appointed as the new director of the British Museum. Viewed as a talented
museum curator, MacGregor has a record in raising money and mounting crowd-
pleasing exhibitions.
Finding the right person for senior posts is increasingly difficult given the
combination of skills desired by arts organizations. For example, it is a rare prize
to find a major dancer with professional management training. In the museum
world, the Museum Management Institute was established in 1978 (by the Amer-
ican Association of Museums and the University of California, Berkeley) to offer
an intensive summer residential course designed for mid- to senior-level museum
professionals to develop and apply their managerial capabilities and leadership
skills more effectively. Admission requirements – including at least five years of
full-time museum experience and currently in a position involving direct respon-
sibility for planning, decision-making, and supervising staff and sponsorship by
the candidate’s museum as evidence of its commitment – are consistent with ‘cri-
terion for entry to management education’ namely ‘proven success in managerial
work’ gained by ‘intensive experience within at least one industry, preferably
one organization, so that the knowledge base is deep’, as set by Henry Mintzberg
(1989: 83).
Artistic leadership
67