Private Museums: Privatization of Art History?

In recent decades, individual art collectors have expanded their engagement in the realm of art provision by opening hundreds of private art museums. Whereas previously collectors donated or loaned their collection or exercised influence as board members of existing institutions, private art museums offer private collectors unprecedented control over how their art collections are exhibited. Among scholars of this new phenomenon a recurring question has been whether these museums allow collectors to influence the canon of contemporary art by consecrating the artists they exhibit, motivated by two related concerns.

First, private museums might not be as interested in academic, art-historical evaluation, but rather reflect the idiosyncratic taste of their founders, and possibly their financial interests. Secondly, private collectors' idiosyncratic tastes may not include progressive notions of e.g. gender equality and decolonization which have been increasingly adopted by more accountable public institutions. Private museums thus may give art collectors a way to write art history to their own benefit, without consideration for other stakeholders.

However, previous research has been speculative or focused on few cases; systematic quantitative research on the consecrating power of private museums has been absent. Addressing this gap we analyze the careers of over 40 000 artists participating in over 540 000 exhibitions using panel regression and survival models. Preliminary findings show a small but substantial increase in exhibitions in public institutions following exhibitions in private museums, and a lower chance of exiting the art field entirely. Together these demonstrate that private museums are indeed able to support the careers of the artists they exhibit, possibly leading to an art canon shaped by unaccountable private interests.

Further research will more clearly identify this effect of private museum exhibition on artist careers and explore different forms of career success via auction sales data.