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private museum founded by
Walmart heiress Alice Walton.
“The university was in big financial trouble,” Gerstenblith
said. “They went through a whole
bunch of litigation, and in the
end, the works are going to spend
half their time in one museum,
and half in the other.”
Given the loss assumed by saturating the market, “the city might
actually get more money” by limiting the nature of the sale in such
a way, she added.
Then there is the option of
striking a philanthropic deal with
a buyer — a dream scenario that
happens to jive with the realities
of the market.
CULTURE
HUFFINGTON
08.04.13
The Free Press assessment
found the bulk of the DIA
collection to be worth
some $3 billion — or around
the same value as the city’s
pension obligations.
“Collectors buying art in China
tend to buy Chinese art, and European museums are not doing
much purchasing right now,” Gerstenblith said. “I think — I hope
— it’s much more likely they’d be
purchased by a U.S. museum or
a U.S. collector who would lend
or donate them back. There are
creative options that can
avoid an outright sale.”
Mallika Rao is an arts and entertainment reporter at The Huffington Post.
A visitor
views a wall
of paintings
by Pablo
Picasso at
the Detroit
Institute
of Arts.