(This
is the first in a series of articles looking at the components of
River Renaissance five years after Scott County voters agreed to
contribute $5 million to the effort. While that amount was relatively
small in the projects' financing, it secured $20 million in Vision
Iowa funding from the State of Iowa.)
Evaluating the Figge Art Museum five years after the River Renaissance vote is an exercise in perspective. The choice of how to measure its success determines the outcome.
An economic study in 2000 estimated that the Figge would draw 182,000 visitors annually. That figure was included in the City of Davenport's River Renaissance application. Yet in the first year it was open - from August 2005 to August 2006 - the museum had 84,000 people through its doors.But ... the Figge's board and administration had revised that attendance target to 80,000 visitors long before the museum opened, and by that measure the facility exceeded its goal.
And ... that attendance figure is more than double what the Davenport Museum of Art drew.
And ... the museum nearly tripled its membership, from 500 before the Figge opened to almost 1,500 after a year. "We hoped to double," said Interim Director Tom Gildehaus, "and we almost tripled."
On an artistic level, the museum has been a rousing success, with a free-wheeling slate of exhibits, from The Great American Thing's academic treatment of modernism to its companion exhibit curated by local artists to Edouard Duval-Carrié's striking history of the Americas to Martin Mull's gentle depiction of Midwestern dreams from the 1950s. In a mere 15 months, the Figge has given the community diversity in its art offerings while also remaining true to its place as a contemporary and American institution.
It also forged a stronger relationship with the local artistic community.
But ... the museum's founding director quit suddenly this spring - leaving a fledgling institution with an interim director for at least six months - and the high-end restaurant in the Figge closed last month.
That uncertainty represents the reality that the Figge, at this point, has been schizophrenic. It's experienced upheaval on an administrative and operations level, yet it's been successful in artistic terms.
So it earns an "incomplete" in any current evaluation. Until it has a director and replaces Restaurant 225, it's impossible to know if the promise of the last year-plus will continue to bear fruit, or whether those vacancies portend bad things.
And the Figge's success or failure should be a matter of intense public interest. The $46.9-million facility was built with $19.9 million in public funds - $13.4 million from the State of Iowa's Vision Iowa program and $6.5 million from the City of Davenport. And for the next 19 years, the Figge will receive a $753,000 operating subsidy from the City of Davenport - a holdover from its days as a municipal museum.
Holding the museum accountable for fulfilling its promises now largely falls to the Quad Cities community. State oversight of the Vision Iowa money is largely tied to completion of the projects as proposed; funds were disbursed after the state received proof of how it was spent.
"I think the money's been extraordinarily well spent," Gildehaus said. "This building was brought in on budget. ... There are those who would suggest it's too big, and that's entirely possible for this community at this time. But the building itself, the art that's in it, the programs that are brought to the people, and the price that people pay for admission are all a wonderful boon to the entire region."
Warts and All
Linda Downs, who became executive director of what was then the Davenport Museum of Art in September 2002, left her position in May 2006 without giving any notice. Neither Downs nor Gildehaus would talk about the circumstances of her resignation.
"I'm not going to comment on Linda's departure," Gildehaus said. "You'll have to talk to Linda about why Linda left."
In an e-mail message prior to an interview, Downs wrote: "I will not talk about my departure other than to say that I was offered this fabulous job in New York." Downs is now executive director of the College Art Association.
Downs' sudden resignation pushed Gildehaus, the president of the Figge's board of trustees, into the interim-director position. Downs said she briefed Gildehaus prior to her departure. "I certainly left my own office in good order," she said last week.
The Figge might have a new director in the next few weeks. In an interview last month, Gildehaus said the search committee for the position reviewed 36 applications and had personal interviews with eight candidates.
"I've always said I expected to be out of here by Thanksgiving," he said. "That's my goal. ... We're close. ... If I was a betting man, I'd say we'd have somebody [on-site] by Thanksgiving."
Steve Sinner, a local artist and the representative of the museum's Artists Advisory Council on the search committee, said last week that the museum was in negotiations with one candidate, whom he declined to name.
Sinner said that the museum's board and staff developed five areas of emphasis for the director search: leadership ability, community involvement, fundraising ability, art experience and knowledge, and business experience.
"Generally people were looking for somebody who could really, really get involved in the community," Sinner said. The search committee also stressed leadership and fundraising skills. He noted that it's difficult to find somebody with both art expertise and business acumen.
"I can't say there is a number-one priority," Gildehaus said. "The person we want to run this place would walk across the Mississippi instead of take the bridge. Those people are hard to find. ... Most people have warts."
Sinner said that there was a consensus on the search committee that two people were the best candidates for the job. One of those finalists dropped out, however, leaving the person with whom the museum is currently negotiating.
The Search for Stability
The
biggest challenge facing the Figge at this point is its leadership
and long-term financial health.
But perhaps its most pressing short-term need is good public relations. The transition between directors has been anything but seamless. And the closure of Restaurant 225 for lunch and dinner in early October suggests that the restaurant component of the facility might not be viable.
Steve Rosetti, the proprietor of Restaurant 225, declined to comment on the restaurant's closure. According to its voice-mail message, Restaurant 225 is still available for banquets and private events.
Gildehaus wrote in an e-mail that "we will fulfill all committed catering contracts and are booking future catered events."
But he was otherwise tight-lipped. He said he was looking for another operator but didn't have a time frame. "They're not paying rent," he said of Restaurant 225's partners.
There's also the question of whether the museum can maintain attendance numbers. Its attendance target for the second year is 80,000, but that might be hard to accomplish considering that the honeymoon period is over.
"It'll be a little bit more challenging to reach 80,000 this year because the novelty has worn off," Gildehaus said. "You have to assume some of our attendance was the curiosity factor."
"Communication with the community is the biggest challenge now," Downs said, citing the importance of marketing and education.
Reaching attendance goals is undeniably important, but they're still modest compared to the 2000 projection of 182,000.
In fairness, Downs expressed skepticism about those estimates when she was hired in 2002. In an interview on the day she was introduced to the public, Downs called the attendance goal optimistic. Davenport City Administrator Craig Malin told the River Cities' Reader around that time that a target of 182,000 visitors was "ambitious at a minimum. ... I don't want to say it's unattainable. I'd rather say it's a lofty goal." But Davenport Museum of Art Board of Trustees President Glen "Budge" Gierke said, "We have no reason to doubt their [the consultant's] expertise."
Nonetheless, the climate for museums had changed between when the consultant came up with the attendance figure and when the museum opened, Downs said. "Museums were doing very well in terms of attendance and ... financial support" prior to late 2001, she said last week.
But the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, diminished both the financial and attendance prospects for cultural institutions, she said.
Lower expectations underscore that the Figge at this point has a long way to go in terms of market penetration and community ownership.
It's also important to note that the museum's official attendance figures include, according to Gildehaus, things such as classes, dining at the restaurant, and private events. "I would point out that this is the standard way of calculating attendance in the museum world," Gildehaus wrote in an e-mail.
And with 30,000 children coming through the museum as part of school groups in its first year, the number of individual adults coming through the museum's doors to look at art is substantially lower than the attendance figure.
Paid admissions, though, do not translate into financial stability. Attendance is a testament to how well a museum is fulfilling its community mission, but nearly all museums require subsidies to keep their doors open.
Gildehaus would not say what the museum's revenues were in its first year. "The hard numbers are not in, and they're not audited," he said.
But he said that the museum has an operating deficit in its budget, which is just under $3 million. "The revenues generated by the museum do not cover the museum's operating costs," he said, "and we have a deficit of some substantial amount to cover through donations and fundraising events throughout the year.
"That's not in and of itself an alarm bell," he added. The deficit and its amount are "more or less what was expected."
That points up the importance of an endowment for the museum. Presently, the museum's endowment stands at about $3 million, but Gildehaus said the goal is to have a $20-million endowment by 2015. Fundraising, he said, will be the biggest challenge for the next director. "There is tremendous ongoing fundraising for operating deficit," he said.
In 2002, Downs said she thought an endowment of $20 million to $25 million, built over 10 to 15 years, would be appropriate for the Figge.
Last week, she said the Figge should try to build its endowment to $10 million over the next two years. She also noted that the income from a $60-million endowment would fully support the Figge's annual operating budget outside of special exhibitions.
Toilet on a Pole
Where the Figge has been undeniably successful is in building a bridge to the artistic community.
Downs helped start the Artists Advisory Council, and that organization curated the 41º/90º landscape exhibition.
Gildehaus said he understood that some people were fretful that Downs' departure would mean a reduced role for local artists in the Figge. "There's apprehension, because Linda was great," he said. "They loved Linda."
Gildehaus said local artists should play an important role at the Figge, but he also noted that there has to be a balance. "The artists are an important constituency, but it's only one of many constituencies," he said.
Yet so far, artists are pleased with their role since Downs left. "There was a concern," Sinner said, "but Tom put that to rest in a big hurry. ... The AAC [Artists Advisory Council] is still very much a force."
In addition to Sinner's position on the search committee, the AAC is actively involved in two upcoming exhibitions. One will be a companion to next spring's show of work by sculptor Deborah Butterfield and will feature horse-related work of 12 local artists, said artist Bill Wohlford.
The other, The Mississippi Palette, is an AAC-led collaboration among the Figge, local schools, and Chad Pregracke's Living Lands & Waters. For that exhibit (which will be on display next summer), local artists will lead groups from area high schools that will create sculptures out of garbage collected by Living Lands & Waters.
"It's an idea I had to expand the clientele of the Figge," Wohlford said. "Museums are looked at as elite," and many people don't have an interest in fine art. "They might go down there if they knew there was a toilet on a pole."
The toilet on a pole probably won't do, but Wohlford has hit on what is arguably the Figge's biggest shortcoming: its connection to the community. With an expansive glass edifice that dwarfs the entrance, it almost looks as if the public isn't welcome there. The lack of parking in the museum's immediate vicinity isolates it further.
The museum has explored regular free-admission days as one way to get people in the door but to-date hasn't found a sponsor to offset the cost.
Gildehaus acknowledged that with all the leisure opportunities available in the Quad Cities, marketing will remain a key for the Figge. "The challenge is to get your share of the audience," he said. "We have to do a better job of marketing and informing."
Downs said that the Figge is a work in progress - and so different from the Davenport Museum of Art that it's nearly an entirely new entity. She also said that it will take time for people to get used to looking at art, and to get into the habit of frequenting the museum.
"There's a certain impatience [by people in the Quad Cities] to have the museum meet all the expectations immediately," she said. "Just like any new business or any new operation, the art museum needs time to develop. ... Any new business takes five years to really establish itself."
