Niklas Maak criticises cuts at public museums

An art robber staged a spectacular coup in Paris in May, stealing five extremely valuable yet uninsured paintings from the Museum of Modern Art. The theft shows above all what high risks Europe's under-financed museums are willing to take, writes the Sunday edition of the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "An abyss is opening in the art world: While the public houses struggle with budget cuts and dwindling sponsorship money, private museums are enjoying a boom. Millionaire François Pinault, who owns brands like Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, is showing his gigantic art collection at two opulent private museums in Venice. … Exhibiting your art collection at your own museum is becoming the ultimate status symbol. … On the other hand the art boom of recent years has produced a new generation of smaller collectors and amateurs. If museums paid them more attention they could become what they once were: places for shapes and paintings where society forms a picture of itself."

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