jeremy tessmer | curator & designer

In recent years, the number and size of museums has exploded with the influx of money provided by the twin explosion of personal wealth.  Museum professionals were beside themselves with joy as they announced lavish new modernist boxes designed by starchitects like Renzo Piano.  It seemed like the Best of Times.

Then, this pesky little recession came along, pulling the resources of private benefactors and tanking the cash flow from institutional endowments.  Big buildings need big staffs, but the money that these museums acquired was for construction.  A building with your name on it sounds like a good idea.  The Jeremy Tessmer Memorial Registrar of Santa Barbara Museum of Art sounds… a little less sexy.  As a consequence, museums are now facing the Worst of Times.

In this article from the LA Times Culture Blog, they note that museums like LA’s MOCA and Seattle’s Frye Museum of Art are laying off registrars.  My guess is that these are the lowest paid members of their professional staff, so it leaves me to wonder what they’re really saving (or saying?).  It begins…