CSLB Budget Cuts Threaten Future Museum Exhibitions

By SUZANNE MUCHNIC

June 12, 1989 12 AM PT

Times Art Writer

The University Art Museum at Cal State Long Beach is safely housed on the fifth floor of the library building and its reputation as a jewel in the state university system seems secure. But supporters of the museum fear that it is currently on very shaky ground. The Big One threatening the museum is a proposal to reduce by nearly half the museum’s allotment from the university’s general fund, which amounted to $530,748 in 1988-89.

The proposed reduction of $250,000 is expected to abruptly decrease the staff, cut museum hours by as much as half, lower the number and budgets of exhibitions, jeopardize the museum’s accreditation and its ability to win grants and maintain its collection and eliminate the possibility of new acquisitions. Without sufficient staff to carry them out, plans for international traveling exhibitions now in progress would have to be terminated.

The cuts may be a financial necessity, according to university President Curtis L. McCray. “I want to support the museum in the worst possible way,” he said. But McCray confirmed that “deep cuts” are indeed under consideration and that, if made, they are likely to diminish the museum’s energetic program.

“We are facing budget cuts that allow for salary increases and nothing else,” said McCray, who took over as president last summer. Under Gov. George Deukmejian’s proposed budget for fiscal 1989-90, Cal State Long Beach is required to trim its entire budget by $3 million to $4.5 million, he said. The university’s total budget for 1988-89 is $136.4 million.

A predicted $2.5-billion windfall in the state coffers could reduce the fiscal threat, but “cuts may still come,” McCray said. The university’s new fiscal year begins July 1, but decisions on the 1989-90 budget may be delayed beyond that date, he said.

The museum has been targeted for major cuts (along with the athletics program and public radio station KLON-FM) because it contains elements that don’t impact directly on instruction, McCray said. While affirming the educational value and instructional uses of exhibitions, he said, “It takes bodies to open the doors of the museum” and some jobs would probably be eliminated if reductions are made. Asked if museum employees uncertain of their future had already left, McCray said, “I don’t know, but I’m sure there is discouragement.”

Asked to comment on the situation, museum director Constance Glenn said, “I would prefer to allow the history of the museum over the past 16 years to speak for itself. Until the present time, the university has given the museum the high priority which has allowed it to become one of the most widely recognized academic resources in the country. In the context of the present situation, all of my efforts as a museum professional can only be directed toward assuring the care and safety of the university’s permanent collections.”

In contrast to college galleries that typically struggle along with a shoestring budget and part-time help, the University Art Museum has shaped up into a thoroughly professional institution that organizes first-rate contemporary art exhibitions and sometimes sends them on the road, publishes scholarly catalogues, sponsors lecture series and other educational programs, runs work-study programs for students, collects art and installs it on the sprawling campus.

Bearing a closer resemblance to the better funded UC museums than most galleries in the Cal State system, the University Art Museum has matched its half-million-dollar state budget with monies from grants and contributions.

Another measure of its special status is that Glenn is the only Cal State member of the nationwide Assn. of Art Museum Directors and one of only four members from California universities, according to executive director Millicent Gaudieri. The 150-member association, based in Washington, admits only professionally trained and experienced directors of institutions that have a budget of $1 million or more, a professional staff and a high quality permanent collection or exhibition program, Gaudieri said.

The proposed reductions have been greeted with dismay by many arts administrators and artists.

“The University Art Museum has an enormous impact on Long Beach and on Los Angeles and Orange counties. It would be a major loss to the cultural fabric of the community if such a promising program is truncated,” said Kevin Consey, director of the Newport Harbor Art Museum.

“It’s like chopping off your right foot and right hand,” said Lindsay Shields, executive director of the Public Corporation for the Arts, a regional arts council in Long Beach. The corporation has always promoted Long Beach as a city with an unusually high degree of interest and activity in the arts, Shields said, and the institutions most responsible for its visual arts image are the Long Beach Museum of Art and the University Art Museum. The mere suggestion of crippling one of those museum’s programs is “an abomination” and “a travesty,” Shields said.

“I think it’s awful,” said New York sculptor Bryan Hunt, when he heard of impending cuts. “A lot of New York-based artists know the museum and respect it as a very good place to show their work because of the scholarship and the level of seriousness of the catalogues and the shows.” One of Hunt’s metal sculptures was installed on campus in 1983.

Several administrators noted that drastic reductions in the staff would make it impossible for the museum to carry out plans for exhibitions that are funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and other agencies.

Sharp budget reductions could have “a ripple effect,” Consey said. “If there’s a perception that the university is not committed to the museum, that could undermine the confidence of California Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts. Even if cuts are temporary, it could take several years to restore the confidence of grant-giving agencies,” he said.

“It’s strange that such deep cuts are being considered. I can’t think of any other institution in the state that is being asked to make such drastic cuts,” said Henry Hopkins, director of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation and former director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Budget reductions are not expected at galleries on the Cal State campuses at Northridge, Fullerton and Los Angeles. Those three galleries have far smaller budgets than the Cal State Long Beach museum, but comparisons are confusing because funding mechanisms are not uniform throughout the system. While the University Art Museum’s budget includes salaries, the other galleries’ budgets do not.

In addition to its state allotment of $530,748, the University Art Museum had received $62,125 in contracts and grants by the end of March, plus gifts of artworks which are not assigned a monetary value, according to Toni Beron, director of public affairs.

In contrast, Cal State Northridge’s gallery currently received about $30,000 in state funds and raised an additional $5,000, according to gallery director Louise Lewis, who divides her time between the gallery and teaching art history. Cal State Los Angeles’ gallery got by on about $14,000 in 1988-89, said Charles Borman, chairman of the art department. The gallery at Cal State Fullerton received $14,000 in 1988-89 from the university’s Instructionally Related Activities fund and augmented that figure with about $7,000 from outside sources, according to Sandy Sunu, a Cal State Fullerton administrator.

Some gallery and museum directors speculated that the notably successful Cal State Long Beach museum may be the victim of campus jealousies and politics.

“The University Art Museum is an unparallelled and splendid program, unequalled on any campus in the state university system,” said Josine Ianco-Starrels, curator of the Long Beach Museum of Art. “Maybe the problem is that it’s too good and that a director with Connie Glenn’s talents should be at a higher profile institution. If so, that’s a sad comment.

“For the state university system to reduce the museum’s program at Cal State Long Beach is the equivalent of the UC system doing the same thing to the Wight Art Gallery at UCLA, and that would be inconceivable,” said Starrels, who directed the gallery at Cal State L.A. for six years in the ‘70s before embarking on a 10-year tenure as director of the Municipal Art Gallery and finally moving to the Long Beach Museum of Art.

“There’s no doubt that Connie Glenn is running a big business, and that doesn’t always seem fair to others in the system. But at the same time she is doing a giant public service for the university. That museum is very good PR,” said one Cal State administrator who asked not to be named. “She has not abused what she has. She has used it well.”

McCray said that he couldn’t speculate on the outcome of the problem or when it might be resolved.