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Virginia Dwan Interview  2-2-2

E.V.: It goes down the line. They approached you to organize the show for them. Great contribution.

V.D.: As far as the other museums are concerned, one of the very great problems, in New York, particularly, wasn't so much when I was in Los Angeles, was finding towards the end of the season that there were numerous universities and colleges who suddenly in late May decide, or let us know, that they are planning an exhibition for the summer period and need works just as we are about to close the gallery. It of course presents the problem of a great deal of work, and we always run the risk of damage to the works, and when it's the open season, not having those works to show ourselves, and therefore to sell. Because, after all, those works are very often going to Iowa, Kansas or North Carolina and whatever, which are not really large market areas. So we have to think of it as an educational matter rather than a selling mission. There is always the possibility of course that somebody will come from one of those places to the gallery and ask to see more works of the artist, but --- we are more interested in getting the works out to be seen and let people know what is happening in the visual arts.

E.V.: That's very generous of you. I know that in shows here, of course it probably is because I'm in the metropolitan area, in some of my exhibitions everything has sold and goes back to a different source than where I borrowed it.

V.D.: That's marvelous, but I venture that doesn't usually happen because people have great reservations about approaching a museum or a university, they have a feeling that things are not really for sale.

E.V.: I wonder if something shouldn't really be done about that. There should be some way, in the catalogue perhaps, of presenting that these works are for sale, the way the Pittsburgh Biennial is, they even have prices for it. And I think the Whitney, in their last show said, that the works were available for sale and some of them were sold.

V.D.: Museums supposedly have a different function from the gallery, I would imagine that they would be hesitant to give too economic
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[[right margin]] not market areas educational   museums should not sell.[[/right margin]]

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