As Guillaume Cerutti steps into his new position as president of the Pinault Assortment, he’s elevating essential questions concerning the place of museums and alternatives for European Union funding. In a put up printed on LinkedIn right this moment (Aug. 12), Cerutti introduced that he had simply submitted a proposal for a European Fund for Joint Acquisitions by Museums as a part of AgoraEU, the European Fee’s newly introduced flagship program for tradition, media and civil society, working from 2028 to 2034. This system is described as aiming to supply “areas the place residents can meet, create and change, freely specific their opinions and turn out to be extra conscious and appreciative of range,” in accordance with its web site.
Its construction displays the coverage areas it covers, with three corresponding packages: Artistic Europe – Tradition; MEDIA+; and Democracy, Residents, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV+). AgoraEU builds on Artistic Europe 2021-2027, which is allocating roughly €2.2 billion to help cultural and inventive initiatives throughout Europe, together with museum collaborations, digitization efforts, exhibitions and transnational partnerships.
As one of many program’s central goals is to strengthen worldwide cultural partnerships and exchanges, Cerutti sees this new European fund as a well timed alternative for museums to discover cooperative fashions that enable them to boost, broaden and correctly care for his or her collections, whereas additionally selling and circulating them via shared networks of assets and funding.
The proposal for a €50 million joint acquisitions fund, offered to the European Commissioner and Director-Basic for cultural affairs, Glenn Micallef and Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen, outlines clear software standards to help bold, pan-European purchases. Cerutti argues that E.U. help for collaborative institutional initiatives via further monetary help—similar to protecting one-third or one-quarter of an paintings’s buy value—may function a catalyst.
“On this context, I imagine that collaborations between museums on the European stage needs to be inspired,” he writes. Whereas museums in Europe already collaborate extensively on non permanent exhibitions via loans and co-productions, joint acquisitions of artworks by establishments from totally different nations stay uncommon.
Among the many few current examples is the acquisition of a pair of full-length Rembrandt portraits of an prosperous couple, collectively bought by the Musée du Louvre and the Rijksmuseum. To safe these masterpieces—resurfacing after years in personal palms—France and the Netherlands struck an unprecedented intergovernmental settlement, generally dubbed the “Rembrandt Treaty,” to accumulate them collectively for €160 million (€80 million every).
It marked the primary time two nations collectively acquired high-profile works from the market, however Cerutti notes in his put up that such instances are usually pushed by distinctive circumstances somewhat than a coordinated technique amongst museums.
Even with works prevented from export attributable to their “extraordinary nationwide curiosity,” nations such because the U.Ok. and France are struggling to lift the mandatory funds to accumulate them—a requirement below their respective export-bar methods, not like in Italy, the place works can linger below cultural heritage restrictions for many years.
Most lately, the British authorities deferred the export license for Barbara Hepworth’s 1943 work Sculpture with Color (Oval Type) Pale Blue and Purple after it was offered abroad, permitting time for a U.Ok. establishment to match the worth: £3,652,180.63 (plus £129,800 VAT). The preliminary deferral ran via February 26, 2025, and was later prolonged after an choice settlement was signed. The lead bidder is The Hepworth Wakefield, working in partnership with Artwork Fund, which launched a nationwide fundraising marketing campaign in June. By late July, stories indicated that the marketing campaign was inside a number of hundred thousand kilos of its goal, boosted by main grants—together with from the Nationwide Lottery Heritage Fund—and donations from artists and foundations such because the Henry Moore Basis. The result stays unsure, with a public fundraising deadline of August 27, 2025.
In the meantime, the U.Ok. Division for Tradition, Media and Sport (DCMS) is dealing with a real-terms spending reduce of 1.4 p.c throughout 2025/26–2028/29, together with a 1.2 p.c discount in useful resource spending and a 2.8 p.c reduce in capital expenditure. Its administration price range is about to shrink 15 p.c by 2030.
France’s cultural sector has additionally been hit laborious this yr, with the federal government slashing €2.2 billion in state subsidies. Arts funding has been reduce by as a lot as 70 p.c—a pointy departure from the so-called exception culturelle that has lengthy protected France’s cultural sphere from market forces. A number of of the nation’s most iconic museums and monuments—together with the Louvre, the Château de Versailles, the Château de Chambord and the Arc de Triomphe—have raised ticket costs for all non-E.U. guests whereas looking for new income streams to take care of operations.
Germany is following the same path. Berlin’s tradition price range was slashed by €130 million—almost 13 p.c of the town’s complete arts allocation—in a single transfer, with one other 12 p.c discount slated for subsequent yr. These cuts threaten the survival of unbiased theaters, galleries, artist studios and festivals and have triggered widespread protests throughout the cultural sector.
Cerutti acknowledges that this can be a fragile topic for curators, who usually really feel strongly about retaining full possession of assortment works and limiting their circulation to make sure correct conservation. However with acquisition budgets shrinking and costs for main works persevering with to climb, he argues that joint purchases have gotten a necessity somewhat than an choice. To maintain nationwide collections related, participating and consultant of evolving identities and histories, establishments should pool assets.
“I imagine that pooling assets for joint purchases—and defining insurance policies for the long-term rotational show of collectively acquired works amongst companion establishments—needs to be a precedence for public cultural coverage,” he writes.
Whereas Cerutti’s foray into cultural politics might shock some—particularly with such an bold proposal—it aligns along with his background. He’s extensively identified within the artwork world for holding management positions at main public sale homes, serving as CEO of Sotheby’s France, then as deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and, extra lately, as CEO (2017–2025) and chairman (from 2023) of Christie’s. But earlier than coming into the personal sector, Cerutti held a number of senior positions in French cultural coverage and administration, together with chief of workers to the Minister of Tradition (2002–2004) and director of the Centre Pompidou (1996–2001). In 2016, he co-authored the guide La Politique culturelle, enjeu du XXIe siècle: Vingt propositions, and he has recurrently contributed articles on cultural politics to publications similar to Le Monde, Les Échos, Commentaire and L’Opinion.
Although he stays chairman of Christie’s board, the January shake-up within the Pinault empire positioned him on the middle of the household’s broader cultural and creative agenda, which is carefully aligned with France’s ministry of tradition. How the Pinault Basis would possibly play a bigger position in supporting France’s embattled cultural sector stays to be seen, however it’s now led by a culturally savvy govt with firsthand expertise navigating each private and non-private establishments who seems intent on constructing stronger bridges between cultural stewardship, public coverage, philanthropy and the market. On this context, it’s going to even be value watching how worth circulates between private and non-private spheres within the artwork world, notably because the broader cultural sector urgently searches for brand new fashions to make sure sustainability.
