> On Mar 17, 2022, at 4:22 PM, Dave McGuire via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
> On 3/17/22 14:19, Ethan O'Toole via cctalk wrote:
>>> In LSSM's case, it's a wholly-occupied 14,000 square foot commercial
>>> storefront building that nobody lives in, in a downtown shopping district,
>>> as distinguished from the typical private collection in a garage, basement,
>>> etc.
>> Right, I know you have a real building and are open to the public and
>> operate what I would consider a real museum.
That's a good definition. But the fact that an organization has a building, is
open to the public, and has a separate legal identity, doesn't necessarily
protect adequately. The LCM fits that definition, I believe, yet it long acted
as a gray hole, and now seems to have gone essentially full black.
For that matter, there are examples in "traditional" musea, as in places with
paintings and sculptures in them, going rogue. I remember an infamous court
case in the USA involving a museum obliged to be in a particular town, by its
founding documents, yet it decided unilaterally to pick up and move and somehow
got a court to agree it could do so.
Another consideration is how items get removed from the collection. Often
there is a storage building that holds much of the collection, while the actual
museum displays only a fraction. That's a consideration if access is a
concern. A bigger question is how a museum can decide to get rid of
("deaccess" I think is the buzzword used) things in its collection, and if it
does so, what becomes of them.
paul
