Should State-Owned Art Be Sold to Pay for Low-Income Students to go to College?
This is a good one, especially considering our dear friends, the anti-deaccessionists (and what we believe their political positions to be).
Washington State Senator, Karen Keiser (D-Kent.), has proposed Senate Bill 6597, which proposes to auction off works from the state art collection every two years. The bill directs the Washington State Arts Commission to choose which of the more than 4,000 pieces in the collection to sell, with a goal of raising a minimum of $5 million each time. Of the money raised, 60% would pay for low-income students college tuition, and 40% would go toward the support and acquisition of art.
What do you think? Via The Daily Herald.
Tags: Art Law, Deaccessioning, Education, washington state
I don’t know why politicians have to resort to measures like this to raise revenue, when all they have to do is simply raise taxes or the like, but again, politicians *can’t* do that! They rather sell off the commons rather than deal with problems directly. All this reminds me of Randolph College’s proposed de-accession of some of their art collection: http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/2011/10/maier_massacre_again_national.html