The Barnes raises its rates

After only 11 months of operation, the Barnes Museum has announced an increase of more than 22% in the admission price for most hours of its day (Philadelphia Inquirer, April 17). It will now be more expensive to visit the Barnes than the Art Museum, which currently charges $20 and has quite a bit more art on display, not to mention traveling exhibitions.

The reason for the hike, as given by "Barnes officials," is partly to raise more revenue, of which the Barnes should be in fairly dire need by now, but also— I quote the Inquirer—"to relieve congestion during high-traffic periods" and to encourage more appropriate "gallery behavior."

Let me take each of these points in turn.

In an article he wrote for the Inquirer in May 2010, Derek Gillman, the Barnes's President and CEO, estimated that 60% of the revenue for the Parkway Barnes would come from admissions and associated charges (parking, audio rental and bookstore purchases). This forecast caught my attention, because typical gate revenue for American museums runs in the neighborhood of 15 to 20% (the Art Museum, for example, was on the lower end of this scale when I examined it with Tom Freudenheim, formerly of the Smithsonian. Click here.).

No museum is anywhere in the vicinity of 60%— and, given that the display of the Barnes collection is fixed and its viewing space restricted, one would expect its attendance revenues to be similarly limited.

Impossible estimates

The Barnes announced a few months ago that its attendance was exceeding expectations. Even if that were the case, however, it would need to triple or quadruple its own estimates to produce the revenue anticipated in Gillman's model.

Of course that turnout would be physically impossible in a gallery space of only 10,000 or so square feet, even were the museum open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Gillman's plan also called for nearly $3 million a year apiece in revenues from donations and endowment— highly optimistic estimates for both sources. The Barnes hasn't publicly disclosed its current endowment, but it would need in the neighborhood of $60 million to spin off $3 million in interest at a 5 percent rate of return (itself highly optimistic in the current economy, with interest rates at historic lows).

I wager that the Barnes hasn't anywhere near a $60 million endowment.

Congested galleries

No wonder, then, that it needs to "generate revenue." But it's hardly going to make a dent in the problem by tacking $4 onto the price of admission, especially if it wishes to "relieve congestion" during peak hours.

"Congestion" raises its own questions. The original Barnes galleries in Merion— exactly replicated on the Parkway, at least in terms of floor space— could accommodate no more than 400 visitors at one time. If more people are being admitted, then the artworks themselves are being jeopardized.

The existence of some kind of crowd control problem is indicated by Gillman's own comments to the Inquirer: "We're seeing many more people not familiar…. with what is proper behavior…. We're seeing more transgressions of people touching things and getting too close."

More accessible?

Let's leave to one side the chilling thought of the implications for all those Cézannes, Renoirs and Matisses in Gillman's care. Let's examine instead the implications of his rhetoric for the whole raison d'être for moving the Barnes from Merion in the first place.

Albert Barnes declared the purpose of his collection to be the education and edification of the common people, specifically "men and women who gain their livelihood by daily toil in shops, factories, schools, stores, and similar places." Apparently it wasn't in close enough reach of the commons in Merion, although public transportation connected the collection readily enough to Philadelphia in Barnes's own time.

At any rate, the billionaire foundations behind last year's move to the Parkway argued that bringing the collection downtown would make it more accessible to the toilers Barnes had in mind. But now, it seems, those unwashed sons and daughters are precisely the ones to be shooed away by the new price hike.

It seems a better class of people will be shelling out that $22, and that they are also likelier to purchase the audio rentals that instruct them "against touching art and standing too close to paintings and sculptures." Or maybe the ideal gallery visitor would be the kind of person who attends the exclusive private functions the Barnes now hosts, and has a Matisse or two at home?

Folk Art Museum's demise

Anent the Barnes, a couple of other news items caught my attention. The 12-year-old Folk Art Museum in New York, also designed by the Barnes Museum architects Todd Williams and Billie Tsien, is being torn down after a bankruptcy following years of costly problems with the structure. Whether similar problems will surface at the Barnes remains to be seen; but, like the Folk Art Museum, the Parkway Barnes building is notable for its fussy, brittle detail, not to mention its almost complete disconnect from the neighborhood it inhabits.

The other item, also reported in the April 17 Inquirer, has announced the merger (effective June 30) of the Free Library of Philadelphia with the Rosenbach Museum and Library, henceforth to be known by the unlovely name of the Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation.

According to the Inquirer, "Money is ultimately driving the merger. Though the Rosenbach laid off much of its staff in June after being hit with a deficit, no immediate crisis exists, leaders say. Organized as a trust from 1950, it has no mortgage or debt, and its endowment has grown…. But operating grants are harder to land, and by living within its means the library and museum is not realizing its potential, says board chair Arthur Spector."

Cash cow for tourism

Sound familiar? The Barnes in Merion also had no mortgage or debt, and its endowment covered its expenses for 40 years, as designed (Albert Barnes forbade any admission charge or tuition for his educational program). After his death in 1951, Albert Barnes's endowment paid all the Foundation's operating bills until the Richard Glanton era of the 1990s, without other subvention (beyond the $1 admission fee subsequently authorized by the courts). Nonetheless, the Barnes was said to be "not realizing its potential," at least in the opinion of those who engineered its move to the Parkway, and money certainly drove it— the dream of turning the Barnes Foundation into a cash cow for Philadelphia tourism.

Those who know how business is done in Philadelphia can read between the lines for themselves on the fate of the Rosenbach. Meanwhile, Art Museum, with those newly available subterranean galleries, sits tight on the inevitable collapse of the Parkway Barnes, patiently waiting, jaws open.♦


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