NEW YORK, NY.- Museum Exchange, the democratizing “matchmaker” for art donations, will dramatically expand its network to include healthcare and higher education organizations, partnering with hospitals, universities, and libraries. Since its launch in early 2021, Museum Exchange has built a thriving network of more than 300 donors and 150 museums throughout North America, facilitating hundreds of art donations. In its expansion to the healthcare and education sectors, Museum Exchange will now offer individual and corporate donors additional avenues for philanthropic support and a spectrum of opportunities to reach broader audiences.
Museum Exchange’s new Healthcare and Education division is led by Joanne Cohen, former Executive Director and Curator of Cleveland Clinic Art Program, which she established in 2006 and built into the preeminent art collection in the healthcare industry. Cohen joins Museum Exchange co-founders David Moos and Robert Wainstein, and Chief Growth Officer Michael Darling, the former chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
“We are thrilled by the ever-growing enthusiasm and engagement of our museum and collector communities,” said Michael Darling. “But museums are not the only public institutions offering the benefit of art experiences. Expanding our platform to reach the healthcare and education sectors will enable donors to find eager recipients for their cherished artworks while supporting wellness and learning through the arts.”
For the pilot launch of the Healthcare and Education platform earlier this summer, Museum Exchange invited ten organizations to participate, including Cleveland Clinic, Rogosin Institute, and Wake Forest University, and has already yielded more than 50 artwork matches. As of today, Museum Exchange welcomes all hospitals, universities, and libraries to join the innovative platform, where they will find a dedicated catalogue of artworks available for donation that are uniquely suited for their audiences.
“We know that art enriches and enhances the healthcare setting, allowing for moments of respite, hope, beauty, inspiration, levity, intellectual curiosity, or distraction. In educational settings, art can inspire insights, challenging conversations, and interdisciplinary dialogue,” said Joanne Cohen. “By expanding Museum Exchange into the realms of healthcare and education, donors can directly impact new audiences who have so much to gain from encounters with art.”
Museum Exchange’s Inaugural Year
Museum Exchange launched in January 2021 with a radical vision: to democratize and digitize the often-insular world of arts philanthropy. Museum Exchange gives smaller, regional museums an opportunity to compete with larger, metropolitan institutions and enables a wide range of donors, regardless of geography or affiliations, to participate in giving to their nation’s art museums.
Museum Exchange publishes quarterly catalogues of artworks being offered for donation by collectors, viewable by museum directors and curators who submit proposals to receive artworks as gifts. Donors then select a museum from the various expressions of interest. After a match is made, Museum Exchange manages the entire donation process through its digital interface, streamlining the potentially complex and cumbersome logistics of a charitable gift. For its new Healthcare and Education offering, Museum Exchange will issue a second catalogue, exclusively available to hospitals, universities, and libraries, to which artworks will be added and matched on an ongoing basis.
“In the past year, Museum Exchange has boldly fulfilled its vision: empowering curators to enhance their collections with artworks sourced from across the entire continent, encouraging collectors to build relationships with museums they might never have visited before and where their artworks can have a significant impact, and spotlighting under-recognized artists,” said David Moos. “Museum Exchange has revolutionized arts philanthropy.”
Among the highlights of Museum Exchange’s first year are strong partnerships with large institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) and smaller, university-affiliated museums like the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The MFAH has worked with Museum Exchange to collect across multiple departments including a major painting by Jonathan Lasker, an early sculpture by Edward Kienholz, a print portfolio by Carroll Dunham, a signature glass sculpture by Barbara Nanning, and a rare watercolor by Jaime Davidovich. Another early adopter of Museum Exchange, the Sheldon acquired a monumental painting by Jonathan Borofsky, an early sculpture by Ursula von Rydingsvard, and a highly sought-after photograph by James Casebere, among other artworks.
As museums strive to diversify and augment their holdings in targeted ways, Museum Exchange has helped institutions fill collection gaps, build on existing strengths, add marquee artworks, and discover under-recognized artists. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts acquired Diana Thater’s Untitled (Joe and Marc) (2011), their first artwork by the pioneering video artist. An important artwork by Chicago artist Richard Hunt, Linear Peregrine Forms (1962), is the first of his sculptures to enter the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, where it is currently on display in their new collection galleries. Tony Cragg’s sculpture Versus (2013) was gifted to the Memorial Art Gallery of University of Rochester, where it will be on permanent view in the newly expanded Centennial Sculpture Park. The Estate of Ethel Fisher has placed significant paintings by the artist at the Dallas Museum of Art, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and this surge of interest has inspired new research into her contributions and career.
