It's a very precarious position, given that one Van Gogh can probably make up the city's entire budget deficit for this year. I can see poor people thinking, "Why is my bus to work not operating today, while this museum is sitting on billions of dollars in assets?" I really have no idea how to respond to that other than my gut says it's a really bad idea.

Here is a communication from the DIA's director that was in this month's newsletter that just arrived today. He sounds confident:

Yes, it was quite a surprise to learn that the City of Detroit's emergency financial manager (EFM) was going to leave the DIA's collection, in his parlance "on the table," as part of the restructuring of the city's finances. Despite the obvious temptation to jump to thoughts of selling the art, we are a long way from there. The EFM himself has been quoted in the media as "not want[ing] to go there" and, although the city nominally owns the art, it's not that straightforward. We believe strongly that the city and the museum hold the art collection in trust for the public, and that it is not, therefore, subject to sale to settle debts. The value of the DIA as an asset of the people of this city and this state lies not in its financial worth but as an irreplaceable cultural and educational resource. If the ultimate goal of the painful process of restructuring is to create a more healthy and attractive Detroit, dismantling the DIA can only work against that end. We hope that the EFM and the governor will come to the same conclusion very soon. As was the case with the millage, there's a lot of talk about "all that stuff in the basement that the museum never puts on view." Well, there's a reason-or rather several reasons-that a large proportion of our collection is out of sight for much of the time. One, despite periodic reviews and deaccessioning (getting rid) of certain kinds of art, as a 127 year-old institution, the DIA has many objects that we would not bring into the collection today, ranging from early benefactor Frederick Stearn's souvenir bottle of colored sands from India to hundreds of shards of ancient Greek vases that were acquired "for teaching purposes" in 1927. Two, the DIA is fortunate in holding B+/A- pieces that we can use as substitutes when more important works on view in the galleries go out on loan. Three, we have many works of art that are light sensitive, notably works on paper and textiles. For each one of these objects that you see on view, we need to have four to six more in reserve that can rotate in and out of the galleries to prevent them from fading (being "fried," in collector's jargon!). The 6,000 works of art that you see in our galleries comprise, I would guess, about 95 percent of our most significant pieces. As dollar values in art invariably reflect deeper cultural values, it's the galleries where the ten-figure sums cited in the press will be found-definitely not the basement.

It has also been suggested that the DIA has somehow been remiss in not doing more to preclude this perilous-seeming situation, and I want to assure you that we have made every effort to do what can be done to secure this great institution. The millage has given us a measure of financial security and, even as we worked on that, we were trying to work with the mayor's office and city council to recast our operating agreement with the city to reflect the changed circumstances of the past decade and a half. That said, we did not for one moment realistically expect the city to divest itself of ownership of the art collection and, to those who ask why not, I would simply point to the recent fracas over Belle Isle as a possible state park.

The DIA now finds itself in an unprecedented situation in uncharted waters, and I assure you that we will spare no effort to secure for future generations the integrity of the incredible collection that is at the core of our social, educational, and cultural value.

Graham W. J. Beal