The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will impose a $25 mandatory admission fee for non-New York residents beginning in March 2018. The Met has an annual budget of over $305 million but faces a $40 million deficit, and current admission fees only cover 13% of operating costs. Imposing the new fee is projected to increase annual admission revenue by $6 million, helping address the deficit. However, some argue it could reduce accessibility. Community groups in Boyle Heights protested an art gallery moving into the neighborhood, citing concerns over gentrification and increased rents pushing out local Latino residents. Despite receiving funding and a free long-term lease, the PSSST art space closed within a year due to harassment from protestors and an

1. Who is Art for?

2. 1.
Beginning March 2018, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC
will mandate an admission fee of $25 for non-NY residents.The
ticket gives 3 days admission to the Met and its satellite
museums, the Met Breuer and the Cloisters. NY State residents
(who total ⅓ of annual visitors) will continue to be free to “pay-
as-you-wish,” a 1970 policy that allowed any visitor admission
with a “suggested” fee of $25. Prior to 1970, admission was free.
Visitors do not need to pay an extra fee to see special exhibits
(like the current Michelangelo exhibit). All visitors must present a
valid ID when purchasing a ticket.

3. Reported the 2nd most visited museum in the world in 2016, the
Met’s current budget is more than $305 million, with a $3.1+
billion investment portfolio, and $40 million deficit. It received a
$80 million gift in 2017, the largest since 2013 when it received a
$65 million donation.
The Met has already made attempts at cutting costs, including
staff layoffs, postponing a large building expansion, and reduced
programming.
Current admissions fees cover only 13% of operating expenses.
With the mandated entrance fee, revenue from admissions is
projected to increase from $43 million to $49 million.

4. The City of New York owns the Met’s building and pays utilities.
The museum currently receives $29 million yearly in taxpayer
money, which will decrease by $3 million with the change in
admission fees.
The Met not only exhibits upwards of 50 shows a year, it also
sponsors excavation; hires scholars; maintains a world-renowned
conservation department; directs a massive education program;
and conducts free lectures.

5. Should The Met have imposed a $25
mandatory admissions fee? What are
the pros/cons of doing so?

7. 2.
PSSST, a non-profit art space, opened in 2016 to “create and
maintain an artistic community founded on the principle of artists
supporting artists. The organization’s goal is to foster fellowship,
experimentation, mindful engagement, wellbeing, and exchange
between diverse communities through exhibitions, events, artist
residencies, lectures, screenings, educational and mentorship
programs, fair compensation, and support for the production of
new work. PSSST actively works with underrepresented artists—
women, people of color, LGBTQ-identified.”
PSSST was one of a dozen art galleries that moved east to avoid
rapidly rising rent in downtown LA.

9. PSSST received a $2 million investment to refurbish a building in
Boyle Heights, a neighborhood east of downtown LA; the
landlord also gave the building to the non-profit for a free 20-
year lease.
Boyle Heights, pop. 100,000, is 95% Latino with a median
household income of ~$33,000; 85% rent and 95% do not have
a college degree.
It is home to Self Help Graphics & Art, a community art center
founded in 1970 to support the arts and art education during
the Chicano art movement. Self Help played an integral role in
revitalizing the Day of the Dead celebrations in California.

11. Less than one year after opening, PSSST closed:
“The ongoing controversy surrounding art and gentrification
in Boyle Heights caused PSSST to become so contested that
we are unable to ethically and financially proceed with our
mission. Our young nonprofit struggled to survive through
constant attacks. Our staff and artists were routinely trolled
online and harassed in-person.This persistent targeting, which
was often highly personal in nature, was made all the more
intolerable because the artists we engaged are queer,
women, and/or people of color.We could no longer continue
to put already vulnerable communities at further risk .”

13. Community activist groups—Defend Boyle Heights and Boyle
Heights Alliance Against Artwashing & Displacement—protested
the presence of PSSST and demanded that it and other art
galleries leave Boyle Heights.
Beyond protests, activist groups met with gallery owners to
communicate their concerns over rent spikes due to the influx of
developers, thus pushing out local residents. They expressed
frustration that the gallery was granted 503(c) status to rent in
the neighborhood, even though there was not an affordable
grocery store, laundromat, affordable housing, or homeless
shelter.
While most of the efforts and protests by community groups
were peaceful, several art galleries were also vandalized.

16. Protestors began using the word “Artwashing” to describe the
gentrification.
LeonardoVilchis, director of Union de Vecinos, says:
“Put in an art gallery with paintings that cost tens of
thousands of dollars and the audience that comes to this
place starts looking for other kinds of amenities.They look for
the brewery, for the coffee shop, for the place to hang out.All
of those things increase the cost and the value of the local
neighborhood.”

18. Eva Chimento, of Chimento Contemporary, commented on the
opening of her gallery:
“You know like when you cross the state line there are
empty fields that is like ‘No Man’s Land.’ It’s not Arizona, it’s
not California it’s just ‘No Man’s Land.’That’s where I thought I
was.”
She went on to admit:
“Well, when my lease is up, I may be moving, too. I might not
be able to afford the rent.”

19. PSSST concluded in its letter announcing its closure:
“The three of us will move on and forge our own separate
paths. No matter where we land or what we do, we remain
committed to the fundamental idea that birthed PSSST into
existence: in a world where the value of art is inextricably
linked to money but where scarcity prevails, in a country that
provides little to no support for the arts, where art schools
offer false promises in return for a lifetime of debt, and where
institutions privilege the already privileged, we believe art is
beyond the monetary. It is community. It is conversation. It is
critical thinking. It is the space and time to experiment. It is
empathy and generosity.”

21. • Whose side are you on? Why?
• How should art galleries/art spaces
navigate the neighborhoods they
move in? Should they move in?
• Was PSSST a good model for artists
supporting artists, especially those
underrepresented & marginalized?
Explain.