Transforming Museum Management: Evidence-Based Change through Open Systems Theory

Abstract

Museum management has taken a turn into a human-focused trend in the last few decades (Lord and Blankenberg 2015; Moore 1994). As noted by Yuha Jung, museum professionals are increasingly interested in valuing “networks and people-centered approaches rather The framing of the book is that while markets in the art world are often associated with nihilistic capitalistic ideals like profit and price, arts managers and artists can use the term to understand how they can find value in sustaining creative careers. Whitaker then leads the reader on a journey through the fundamentals of the economics of art where the reader learns useful tools for managing the art market. Chapters One through Three introduce the classical economic concepts of Markets, Cost, and Price to give the reader an overall economic structure to work within. The next three chapters cover Failure, Structure, and Power to show how, within this structure, there are variables that can affect how price and value can be (mis)aligned and how arts managers and artists can think about realignment. Chapters Seven through Nine cover branches of economics that pertain to the art market, including Labor, Property, and Investments. The concluding chapter brings this all into perspective, Whitaker’s perspective, that both art and economics are subjective and creative, and in that way, they can work together. We can not only bring “economics to art” but we can also bring “art to economics.” In doing so, we can reimagine systems for how the art market can work, but only with a fundamental understanding of economics. The book starts off with appeasing the nerves of artists and arts managers who think they’re not good at math by making complicated economic topics comprehensible through simple descriptions and delightful applications to the arts world. The book transforms the artist or arts manager reader by giving them the comfort and ability to stroll through topics like marginal cost, price elasticity, and externalities. Near the end of the book, the reader has the chance to apply what they’ve learned to pertinent issues in the arts dealing with ownership, work conditions, and valuation. The conclusion retransforms the reader from thinking like an economist to using creativity to reimagine systems in the arts world, now with an underpinning of how to create value with economic tools. The book is a journey that any student of arts administration, arts manager, artist, or anyone with an interest in the visual arts market will find satisfying, and at the end, surprising that something that seems as hard as economics is not that hard at all.