According to this article in the Arts section of the New York Times, the American Folk Museum is dangerously close to collapse. This museum has served more or less as the center of folk and outsider art research and development in the country, if not the world for half a century. It has mounted exhibitions of outsider greats such as Martin Ramirez, Adolf Wolfi and Henry Darger, the Chicago recluse who is represented within the museum by a gift of some 5,000 artworks and related materials. Now, it is threatened by erasure from New York’s cultural skyline.

Last spring, the trustees in charge of financing the museum defaulted on a $31.2 million construction bond and sold the museum’s 10-year-old building to its neighbor, the Museum of Modern Art, retreating to the Folk Art Museum’s small, rather grim Lincoln Square branch in the process. Then, last month, word came that the trustees are exploring ways to dispose of the collection and dissolve the 50-year-old institution entirely. They are said to be considering relinquishing the collection to the Smithsonian Institution, the Brooklyn Museum, or some combination of the two.

A number of reasons have been cited for this tragedy, including failures of judgment on the part of the trustees in the choice of interior building design, an uninviting exterior, and an overly discreet building façade in comparison to its widely popular neighbor, the Museum of Modern Art. Another reason cited is the choice of a museum director who is a complete novice and totally inexperienced in folk art. Basically, the inter-related problems are: “failures of vision, leadership, fund-raising, trustee giving and marketing.” Some articles in other newspapers and magazines suggest a failure of glamour—that is, folk and outsider art is not “sexy enough” to the big spenders that the museum boards need to attract.

Whatever the reasons, the Folk Art Museum’s complete erasure from New York’s cultural skyline—which it has shared with the Museum of Modern Art and other museums for many years—would be a tremendous loss, for the city in general and for its role as a center of both art viewing and art making within the context of the world as well. The article suggests that the city officials need to look at the intact museum and collection as a civic and business asset, as well as a cultural one and that the transfer and dispersal of the collection should be fought to the bitter end, “with every ounce of passion and ingenuity that the museum and its supporter can muster.”

Frankly, I agree.