Naming the cost of priceless art

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Fans will shell out upward of $800 apiece for tickets to Barbra Streisand's upcoming concert tour. But ask people to spend $20 to see one of the world's greatest collections of visual art, and an uproar ensues.

Two New York art museums made headlines this summer when they announced plans to change admission fees.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's admission rose from $15 to $20 at the beginning of this month. The new fee -- which is voluntary, although the museum doesn't much advertise the fact -- brings the gallery in line with New York's other major museum, the Museum of Modern Art. It sparked controversy when it raised admission from $12 two years ago.

Another New York museum scrapped its plan to charge $50 after angry art lovers complained. Neue Galerie is exhibiting five paintings by Austrian symbolist Gustav Klimt. One, a 1907 gold-encrusted portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, was purchased by Neue founder and cosmetics baron Ronald Lauder for $135 million, making it the most expensive painting ever sold.

Neue admission is a reasonable $15. But because of high demand, the gallery decided to allow people to attend the less-crowded, members-only Wednesdays if they ponied up $50. The museum withdrew the opportunity after the outcry.

These are just two examples of a growing controversy. Some museums are raising admission fees while others are eliminating them entirely. Increasingly, these museum decisions about pricing are being framed -- and criticized -- in terms of moral choice.

It's a debate that is taking place in almost no other art industry -- not music, not dance, not theater.

As Met director Philippe de Montebello wondered a few years ago in a roundtable discussion at Harvard University, "What is [it] about art that it shouldn't be paid for?"

People of all ages and classes freely fork over big bucks to see their favorite musicians and sports stars. No one suggests the art of, say, the Broadway musical must be free. Concert and film tickets go up in price every year, but no one worries these arts are becoming broadly inaccessible. Raise prices at an art museum, however, and a public outcry is guaranteed.

Gary Vikan, director of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, thinks an analogy between painting and music is flawed. "It's wrong in my mind to equate us with rock concerts and musicals," he argues. "We're like libraries. We're the place where people come together and community is made."