🛠 Handiwork is dandy work

Most of us will never have to worry about what to do with that Picasso we don’t want anymore, but for museums, it’s complicated.

In May, Sotheby’s will auction eight pieces from the Whitney Museum of American Art, including Edward Hopper’s “Cobb’s Barns, South Truro,” worth an estimated $8m-$12m, per ArtNews.

It’s a process known as “deaccessioning,” and it’s a long-running controversy in the art world.

Deaccessioning…

… is when a museum permanently removes something from its collection.

This can happen with poor quality, fake, or illegally obtained items; many museums have repatriated looted artifacts to their home nations.

The controversy here surrounds the sale of valuable art. It removes art from the public trust. Plus, if museums can sell their art, why give them donations?

But, as with most things, covid changed deaccessioning and deepened the divide.

For years…

… the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) ruled that museums could only use such funds to acquire new art, else face sanctions that cut them off from other member institutions. This allowed museums to evolve and diversify their collections:

• In 2018, the Baltimore Museum of Art sold seven pieces for $16.2m to acquire works from women and Black artists.

But when the pandemic shut museums down, AAMD decided they could sell art to provide “direct care” to their collections. This led to renewed criticism as museums navigated looser rules.

• BMA tried to sell three works in 2020, including a Warhol, to increase wages amid criticism that museums exploited lower-income workers of color, but bailed after backlash.
• AAMD later defined “direct care” as storage and preservation — but not salaries.

The Whitney’s plans adhere to AAMD rules, but could still receive flak. And we’re just thirsty for art drama not involving AI for once.

Fun fact: Former President Barack Obama once borrowed “Cobb’s Barns, South Truro” to hang in the Oval Office.

Those “America is short on skilled labor” alarm bells have been going off for years now.

There are active shortages of ~500k construction workers, 600k+ auto technicians, and ~800k manufacturing jobs. (Plus, there’s a scarcity of carpenters.)

But we’re now seeing an encouraging sign that those bells may be answered — and then perhaps tuned up and served some dinner.

Recent enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows trade school interest is on the up-and-up, with double-digit increases in many vocational programs, including mechanic, repair, construction, and culinary courses.

• That’s quite unlike two- and four-year college enrollment, which is on the down-and-down (7.8% and 3.4%, respectively, for public programs).

Mindsets are shifting

These numbers partially represent a pandemic rebound — as hands-on fields strained to offer hands-on training, enrollment in the trades dropped — but that’s not the entire story here.

Young people are choosing trade schools over degree programs because, well, it’s just more financially practical at this point, according to The Hechinger Report.

• The Washington state auditor found public universities ~2x, and private colleges 10x, more expensive than a technical education.

But mostly, it’s about what happens after: The promise of actually having a job.

• Federal data shows trade school students are more likely to be employed after school than their high-spending university counterparts — and much more likely to work in their fields of study, too.

Those trade jobs are hardly paying beans. Per Georgetown University’s Good Jobs Project, many are among the 30m jobs paying $55k+ per year that don’t require a four-year degree.

BTW: Need more job perks? We assume the 50k workers the US Navy is currently seeking to build its nuclear submarines will all be hired as consultants on a future Michael Bay film.