Referring back to Laura Berman's column, did anyone else find it odd that Wayne State's Jeffrey Abt thinks Alfred Taubman and Richard Manoogian have more influence on Detroit's DIA collection than Dave Bing and Charles Pugh? Even though Taubman and Manoogian are billionaires, Detroit's DIA collection makes it far wealthier than they are and Dave Bing has the power to appoint Arts Commissioners to boot. Remember, Detroit's Arts Commission -- Taubman is chair of the commission -- supervises the head of Detroit's Arts Department, aka the DIA's director Graham Beal, for the mayor. I believe they serve at his pleasure. So, if Dave Bing and the City Council want to generate cash for the Detroit's budget, it's certainly within their power -- as long as an EFM and/or a bankruptcy judge doesn't remove their power. Here's hoping the way Detroit's powers-that-be ultimately generate cash with its DIA collection -- whether Mayor/Council, EFM, or bankruptcy judge -- will keep tight control over Detroit's cultural rights, offering the City's art collection as a store of value in a museum much like gold in a vault, rather than dispersing Detroit's artworks to places like Qatar and Dubai. Avoiding an EFM/bankruptcy judge makes it more likely the Detroit can end up with its Monet and money too.

By the way, every time the Founders Society complains that their ~$80 million operating endowment is too small for a museum of their size [[which it is -- Detroit can and should have a multi-billion dollar operating endowment for funding essential services and the arts, sciences and humanities), don't think of the ~$160 million they spent for building renovations, think of the ~$190 million Arts Commission Chair Al Taubman spent on settling his restitution and fines from his Sotheby's price-fixing felony conviction. If he had just skipped those friendly visits with Christie's Sir Tennant, he could have put almost $200 million into the DIA's operating endowment and been little-the-worse financially [[losing only those stock dividends he got from fixing the auction fees that museums and collectors paid) -- and could even have avoided the many months he spent cooling his heels in federal prison.