Though he was buried in a vast, treasure-filled tomb, King
Tutankhamun probably never would have dreamed that thousands of
years later, a comparable sum would be spent to share his story
with the world.
Indeed, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new
rotating exhibit “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the
Pharaohs” is estimated to be their most costly undertaking
ever. And with increasing insurance costs and continual cuts from
public funding sources, museums such as LACMA must devise
innovative strategies for bringing an exhibit of King Tut’s
caliber to the United States. Somewhere along the line, compromises
are inevitably made.
Tutankhamun’s tomb was discovered in 1922, but his
treasures were not brought to the United States until 1978, in the
hugely successful exhibit, “The Treasures of
Tutankhaman.” (The spelling of his name has been changed
since 1978). Recently, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art decided
to bring the legend of King Tut to a new generation.
“We didn’t just want to bring the same exact pieces
back,” said LACMA co-curator and Stanford University teaching
and research fellow Kathlyn Cooney. “It’s a larger
selection of pieces and there are only 13 repeats from the 1978
exhibition. We didn’t want to make it “˜King Tut Part
II.'”
Approximately 50 artifacts from Tut’s tomb are currently
being displayed through Nov. 15 at LACMA as a part of the exhibit,
along with over 60 objects from additional tombs in Egypt’s
Valley of the Kings.
In order to procure the exhibit, LACMA teamed up with
Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and the national
curator of the rotating exhibit, David Silverman of the University
of Pennsylvania. As part of the arrangement, LACMA pledged to send
the majority of their profits directly back to Egypt in order to
strengthen their antiquities and museum culture.
“The museum isn’t really making any money on this
exhibition. We were very enthusiastic about the idea when it was
brought to us,” Cooney said. “Even though we
don’t benefit monetarily, we benefit by bringing members into
the museum, and bringing people through the doors, which is a good
thing.”
Yet all benefits are accompanied by costs. The museums
interested in the Tutankhamun exhibition, including LACMA, agreed
to charge $22-30 per adult solely for entrance to the special
exhibit.
“It is more expensive than other exhibitions, but the way
I look at it is Egypt as a country is really benefiting from the
ticket prices,” Cooney said. “I’m very pleased
that we as a Western country can help to fund (the construction of
new Egyptian museums), because we benefit from it. It’s a
culture that everyone shares and I think that everyone in some way
should pay for it.”
Though Egypt will benefit from LACMA’s venture, several
critics of the exhibit have questioned whether the museum’s
actions still make the museum accessible to the residents of Los
Angeles. Every museum walks a fine line between procuring popular
exhibits and ensuring that they won’t alienate local
residents.
The Egypt Supreme Council of Antiquities also approached New
York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art as a potential Tut
exhibition site. Because of the expected costs to its attendees,
the Met declined the exhibition.
“We have a long-standing policy at the Met that we
don’t charge for tickets to special exhibitions,” said
Harold Holzer, senior vice president of external affairs at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Because of the financial
requirements of mounting this show, there was no way to do it
without imposing tickets. So the decision by the board of trustees
was not to do so.”
LACMA does recognize that the exhibit won’t be accessible
to everyone. As a result, they pushed from the beginning to include
a free children’s exhibit at the Boone’s Children
Gallery alongside the exhibition, which is open to everyone and
offers family-friendly Egyptian-themed projects, such as
hieroglyphics writing and a colorable wall mural.
“We wanted to make sure that something associated with
this “˜Tut mania’ would be accessible to everybody so
that everybody can participate somehow. That way I think even
people who can’t approach a $22 ticket price during the week
can still come and enjoy some materials for absolutely free,”
Cooney said.
But the ticket prices may still affect the ability of some
members of the public ““ including UCLA students ““ to
see it, and there are those who have looked for ways to get in for
less.
Second-year world arts and cultures student Robby Nadler
received a discounted ticket price from his father, who is a
schoolteacher and purchased tickets as part of a group rate through
his district. But he doubts he would have made the trip to LACMA
without the reduced cost.
“(The exhibit) was really interesting in the sense that it
was very historical,” Nadler said. “But without (the
discount), it would be one of those things that I’d probably
not go to see, just because it really costs a lot, like
$20-30.”
Fourth-year art student Samantha Rose also received a reduced
rate to the exhibit because of her LACMA membership, but believes
she would have gone to see it regardless.
“I understand it’s a lot of money to pay, especially
if you’re not upper middle class. The money is going to the
new museum in Cairo, so it makes sense that it’s really
expensive,” Rose said. “But at the same time,
it’s hard because it does make it less accessible and more
elitist. I still would see it again though. I thought there were a
lot of really nice pieces, and they did a really good job with
it.”
Acquiring an exhibition of the scale of King Tut requires
compromises in other areas. With the rising cost of insurance, it
has become more and more difficult for museums to self-fund
rotating exhibitions.
“The costs are difficult right now because, particularly
since 9/11, insurance costs are very high,” Holzer said.
“So the costs of borrowing works of art from around the world
is increasing. It’s a struggle.”
The federal government has consistently cut funding to the arts,
and so museums have decided to team up with private corporations
instead. About half of the annual rotating exhibitions at New
York’s Met are assisted by sponsorship from private donors,
foundations or corporations.
LACMA employed a similar strategy for its Tutankhamun exhibit
and enlisted the support of companies AEG and National
Geographic.
“This is something that the museum world is grappling with
because they have to find other sources of income and other ways of
bringing very expensive exhibitions over to their museum spaces to
get people into their doors,” Cooney said.
“Museums are really being cut out of government
sponsorship, and as that happens more and more, they have no choice
but to turn to corporations. How that partnership happens is a
dialogue that is still being created. It’s a brave new
world.”
LACMA hopes that overall, the King Tut exhibit will encourage
more interest in museums and membership subscriptions, both of
which will go a long way toward building support for future
exhibitions that likewise will be informative as well as
engaging.
“Everything’s more expensive. We’re all trying
to grapple and deal with how that functions,” Cooney
said.
“That’s not an easy thing to figure out, with
something that’s very expensive, that has to be insured, and
still do the public a service. It’s a tough and tall
order.”