The past few days have brought up many questions about the obligations art owners have to the general public. The Independent reports on Russian oligarchs (or as the contrived-pun-friendly publication prefers to call them, oligarts) buying together entire collections of historical artworks and the Guardian argues that the Queen's collection of classic art is being misused by rarely exhibiting it to the public.
In the case of museums, it is pretty obvious that one of their main objectives is to display the heritage they collect. In the case of private collectors that question is a bit more ambiguous. One could argue that as private citizens they have complete right to do whatever they want with the loot that they legally acquire - display them, if they are so inclined, or chop them into pieces and use 'em as firewood, though the economic advantages of such a behavior are somewhat questionable. However, having spent the last month or so discussing how the value of cultural heritage is produced through the meaning it has for a certain group of people, one must ponder whether that value is entirely lost when the ownership of a certain piece of patrimony is transferred from a public to a private owner.
The more I think about it, the more I want to answer no to that question. On purely economic terms: If a wealthy businessman (let's call him Abramovich) buys a five-millon-dollar painting, he becomes the owner of a five-million dollar investment, one that could potentially make him a significant profit in the future. The reason why that painting can sell at such high a price, is essentially because the public considers it a unique piece of cultural heritage. It's value is determined directly by the amount of signifance different communities place in it, and it seems only logical that by creating this monetary value, that public would also become entitled to reaping the benefits.
Of course, the reality is not as idealistic as that. If Abramovich really wants to reap profits, he will shed the painting from view for twenty years, causing its price to skyrocket when he finally decides to bring the piece back to the market. Or he buys a work of a relatively unknown artist, hoping that once (s)he attains fame, he can sell the painting for a ludicrously higher price. It's how the art world has worked since the 19th century.
Fortunately, the public interest that creates the incentive for buying also creates the incentive for displaying. Often the social capital accumulated by displaying the pictures in a museum/gallery with a nice plaque saying "gift of R. Abramovich" underneath outweighs the potential financial profit and satisfaction of an excentric desire achieved by removing the artwork from the public's eyes. Hell, judging by the Van Pelt library, you don't even need to buy artwork, you can simply attach a plaque under a urinal with the words "the relief you are enjoying was made possible by X" on it. It has a vaguely duchampian feel to it, but apparently it works. Similarly, most of the Russian oligarts buying up the cornerstones of Western Art do not store them in their own private mansion in Sochi, but rather in public art galleries in center city Moscow. I hope that Royal family of Britain will recognize the potential of the social capital they would accumulate by sharing their ridiculously high-profile art collection with the ignoble lot, and put that Massacre of the Innocents on permanent display, along with, you know, some of the other 7000 paintings that they own.
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