This Week's Free ArtsJournal newsletter for 03/21/2021

Yes, but with an enormous asterisk.
May 4, 2011. If only it had stopped there. – David Patrick Stearns

Museum professionals have instinctively recoiled at the thought of government interference in their activities, insisting that they can police themselves. But that hasn’t worked out too well when it comes to preventing misguided museum officials from converting works that rightly should remain in the public’s patrimony into easy money. – Lee Rosenbaum

Is the “slippery slope” on the verge of becoming even more treacherous? In conversations with its members this week, the Association of Art Museum Directors discussed whether the organization should consider an indefinite extension of the two-year relaxation of its time-honored deaccession guidelines, which had prohibited the use of art proceeds for anything other than acquisitions. – Lee Rosenbaum