“The vice president of the Museum of Modern Art, is the wife of Richard Fuld, the chairman of Lehman Brothers“.

Die Welt’s Hannes Stein takes a look at the possible repercussions of the financial crisis on arts funding. “The bank crash in the United States will have a wide-reaching impact,” writes Stein, who is writing principally on the arts in New York. In New York, the crisis could not have come at a worse time, since the city recently made cuts across the board to arts funding, from theaters to museums. “It’s an absolute storm,” says Jeffrey Peek, a curator at both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York City Ballet.

Digging below the surface, Stein demonstrates the close links between the art world and the financial world. Consider “the following detail: Kathleen Fuld, the vice president of the Museum of Modern Art, is the wife of Richard Fuld, the chairman of (the now bankrupt) Lehman Brothers.” While the bank kept shares for MoMA, the Fulds privately donated not only money but also artworks to the museum. “No one knows how that’s supposed to continue now,” writes Stein.

Lehman Brothers also supported the National Gallery and Tate Modern in London the Städel in Frankfurt and the Louvre in Paris.

Source: Artforum.com

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