Board of Regents Ending Injunction Against Museums’ Art Sales

The NY Time reported that in a surprise development in the battle over whether museums should be allowed to sell art to cover operating costs, the New York State Board of Regents on Tuesday approved the expiration of emergency regulations regarding such “deaccessioning” on Oct. 8.

Those rules, which enjoined such sales, have been in effect since 2008. After hearing views from museums statewide, “there was no consensus on the efficacy of those emergency regulations,” David Steiner, the state’s education commissioner, said in a statement. Thus, “those regulations will be allowed to expire, allowing the prior regulations regarding museum collections to once again take effect.”

Last month the board indicated it planned to make the emergency regulations permanent, in part because a bill to prohibit cultural institutions from selling pieces from their collections to pay for expenses had stalled in the Legislature. “This removes a substantial obstacle to the monetization of art held in the public trust and to the transfer of art from public hands to private hands,” said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, who led the drafting of the bill. The education department also said it was developing an advisory group to inform the Regents’ future decisions on collections and other museum matters.