ARTS
Museums
Climb-down at the V &
Nicky Bird
The V & A has capitulated. Last week it conceded what the rest of the museum world has always known, that the 'restruc- turing' announced early this year, in which the old departmental system was aban- doned and control of objects passed from curators to administrators, was utterly misconceived. It will retain the old system, one pioneered by the V & A and copied throughout the world, whereby most de- partments are based on materials and curators are responsible for objects.
A trustee sub-committee, chaired by Professor Podro of East Anglia UniVersi- ty, had been set up after the furore erupted, partly as a sop to the critics. It has decided, sensibly, that to divorce curators from their objects and lump them together into three unwieldy 'super-departments' and a separate research section would both put the objects at risk and impoverish scholarship. Connoisseurship stems from intimate and constant contact with cera- mics, textiles etc., not from secondary sources. And ultimately only curators can decide on the display, storage and con- servation of objects the material composi- tion and importance of which must inevit- ably be a mystery to civil service adminis- trators.
This festering and self-inflicted wound has been a disaster for the V & A. What has it achieved? The enforced resignation and loss to the museum of eight senior `Theologians advise, I decide.' curators, including four scholars of interna- tional renown. A complete collapse of staff morale. Cynicism and suspicion about the trustees' competence and the director's judgment. Distrust in the international community over the V & A's proper custodianship of loan objects, leading to loans for exhibitions being cancelled. Loss of sponsorship. Dwindling attendance. A worsening financial crisis: any savings the sackings achieved have been more than offset by new administrative appointments, and the cost of the redundancies was ruinous. Most ironic of all, several of the departed have been rehired as expensive consultants because no one else had their expertise, belatedly acknowledged as essential to the museum.
This sorry saga is the climax of a decade of turmoil at the V & A. It began in 1978 when staff cuts imposed by government forced the then director, Roy Strong, to close the circulation department, which provided touring exhibitions for provincial galleries, the Treasury having forbidden him to make equivalent savings from the purchase grant. This straitjacket on finance and policy Strong found intolerable. He orchestrated a successful campaign to free the V & A from government shackles and in 1983 independent trustees replaced the old Advisory Council, which had been very much the director's poodle. But the trustees weren't his poodle. And that has been part of the problem. Almost immediately the trustees, mostly from the worlds of design, business and the media, started dictating to the director, because demarcations had not been resolved. Just what were the limits of power of director and trustees? The issue was decided by a tired and frustrated director who, dis- astrously, surrendered his responsibilities for managing staff and unions to the administration, and then devolved policy- making on to a plethora of committees on which sat increasingly powerful administra- tors, enjoying a new executive role.
Into this vacuum stormed the trustees, who regarded the director as functionary and adviser — an almost exact reversal of the previous arrangement. Many felt justi- fied in usurping his role because they blamed Strong for the decay and decline of the museum. He complied, and accepted policies like voluntary admission charges despite misgivings about their implementa- tion. But the precedent had been estab- lished whereby the trustees — with only two art historians among them — were involved in curatorial policies hitherto the prerogative of the director. Equally damaging was the promotion of existing civil servants to the equivalent of keeper grade and above, and the appointment of many more to contrived and nugatory posts. Their elevated status meant that they no longer saw themselves as the servants of the directorate, and so chiefs proliferated and things fell apart.
Sir Roy Strong agreed to go in 1987. Lord Carrington, then chairman, wanted his replacement to be different — less volatile, more reliable. Carrington and his colleagues regarded Elizabeth Esteve-Coll of the V & A Library as ideal, seemingly stolid and nicely normal. She was approached and asked to apply. She got the job. In interviews it was intimated that the successful candidate would be expected to carry out the policies of the trustees, that they weren't looking for 'ideas'. This had appalled other candidates. It appeared to be fine by her. The trustees were set to sow the wind. They had a compliant director — a libra- rian with little object-based training or experience — whose trusted advisers were civil servants. Chastised by the parliamen- tary Public Accounts Committee for neg- lecting to care for their treasures, they decided on a dynamic solution — 'restruc- turing' — after a cursory discussion of a sly and contentious document. Blaming the system, the tools, excused the workmen, the administrators.
The nature of the resulting redundan- cies, their haste and vindictiveness — after the director had denied their imminence provoked an immediate crisis from which the V & A has yet to recover. Confidence and sanity can only be restored by resigna- tions. Mrs Esteve-Coll has tried to resign before but Lord Armstrong, the present chairman, has held her to her contract. This time she should be allowed to go, along with the chairman and those trustees who so enthusiastically embraced a plan now admitted to be unworkable.
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