Yours, Mine, and Ours: Museum Models of Public-Private Partnership to Coincide with the 2017 FOG Design+Art Fair in San Francisco

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) announces a half-day symposium on the current state of collaborations between public art museums and private collectors. Yours, Mine, and Ours: Museum Models of Public-Private Partnership will take place at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture on Friday, January 13, 2017, coinciding with the 2017 FOG Design+Art Fair. This event will be presented as part of SFMOMA’s Phyllis Wattis Distinguished Lecture Series.

Yours, Mine, and Ours will bring together an impressive line-up of directors, curators and collectors from around the world with the aim of exploring the ways that museums and collectors can work together, now and in the future. Symposium participants include Richard Armstrong, director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation; Agustín Arteaga, director, Dallas Museum of Art, and former director of Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City; Neal Benezra, Helen and Charles Schwab Director, SFMOMA; Manuel Borja-Villel, director, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, founder of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros; Robert J. Fisher, collector and board president, SFMOMA; Kate Fowle, chief curator, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow; Joanne Heyler, director, The Broad, Los Angeles; Max Hollein, director, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Frances Morris, director, Tate Modern; Lars Nittve, former director of M+ in Hong Kong, Moderna Museet and Tate Modern; Sarah Thornton, writer; and Dominic Willsdon, Leanne and George Roberts Curator of Education and Public Practice, SFMOMA.

SFMOMA’s landmark partnership with the Fisher Art Foundation will be the starting point for symposium conversations. Through this collaboration, the extraordinary collection of postwar and contemporary art assembled by Gap founders Doris and Donald Fisher is on display at SFMOMA for generations to come. The integration of the Fishers’ collection with the permanent collection of SFMOMA in the newly expanded museum creates an exceptional and enduring public resource that benefits the Bay Area as well as national and international visitors.

“When we looked to the future of SFMOMA, we saw an opportunity to create a new model of public-private partnership,” said Neal Benezra, Helen and Charles Schwab Director at SFMOMA. “Our partnership with the Fishers opened up a particular new direction for us, but there can be other models too. Our colleagues at museums around the world are working with generous collectors to creatively conceive new possibilities—models that make sense for them. I am thrilled to be able to bring together this incredible group to learn from each other and imagine the future."

Yours, Mine, and Ours will take a deeper look at major examples of public-private collaborations. Participants will explore questions such as: How can museum directors steer their mission-centered public institutions while working with private collectors? How do different contexts around the world call for different approaches? How do museums weigh their options at a time when they need to be more responsive to the public? What are some of the best ways for collectors make their collections public? What can collectors expect when partnering with public museums? How should collectors weigh their options?