In terms of bringing down deductions, one way of doing that would be to say everybody gets---I'll pick a number---$25,000 of deductions and credits. And you can decide which ones to use, your home mortgage interest deduction, charity [emphasis added], child tax credit and so forth. You can use those as part of filling that bucket, if you will, of deductions. But your [tax] rate comes down, and the burden also comes down on you.

Another argument that has been circulated holds that capping the value of the charitable deduction will not change the behavior of donors. Art museums know this argument to be untrue.

The tax treatment of gifts of art has been altered several times since 1969, and donors' behavior has responded directly, immediately and always negatively. In 1969, Congress restricted the ability of artists to take a fair-market value deduction for gifts of their own art; as a result, artist gifts have been relatively rare ever since. In 1986, the Tax Reform Act made gifts of appreciated property a preference item under the Alternative
Minimum Tax; gifts of art plummeted by 90 percent by 1989, causing Congress to reverse itself and restore full deductibility in 1990, upon which giving resumed.

Most recently, the Pension Protection Act [my link, not theirs] so tightly restricted the deductibility of fractional
gifts of art that such gifts have practically ceased. In sum, we have a long history of
experience with tax deductibility. We understand that donors give for altruistic reasons,
but the tax code influences the size, timing, and form of gifts.

You're absolutely right and we have to find ways to do something about that while remaining competitive with other venues. One of the ways is to get [grant] money to support people who cannot afford [the ticket price]. We don't have them [grants for adult admissions] yet. But we'll work at it.

We'll make it accessible as soon as we can... What you have to do is make it financially viable and then you add on accessibility wherever you can... I'm British. I love free institutions... In America [unlike in Great Britain, where museums get substantial government subsidies], what it takes is a broad base of support. So you build a broad base of support, you make it financially viable, and then you can make it as free as possible. But you can't if the institution is not viable.

The deliberately theatrical, disorienting experience Gardner contrived with her original building is not just being altered: It is being openly contradicted by a new ethos of transparency, orientation, and explanation.... One can no longer plunge into the experience of the museum without first being enticed by all the clean, new offerings of the new building.

My art will never change. It is deep in my bones. But it has made many things clearer. I have been working in the direction of freedom of expression. I think that is most important for my art.

It became well known that there were examples of police brutality at some of these protests. A lot of people have surmised that this was a time when Ai Weiwei would have started to see the power of individual voices and how individual voices can actually make a difference, through those protests that he saw.

The company has certainly been busy making clothes for guests attending the Costume Institute gala on May 2, in honor of the late designer and his work.

I think the direction of the curators and directors is too fashionable. People are hopefully coming back to their senses, saying, "We want something really sculptural, or painting, or video, whatever it is. We don't want something that's a bit of life."

I don't think art can be quite "a bit of life." It says something about life.

I tend to shut up, if I can, because who wants to hear what an old guy has to say? You very easily get put in that box: "Well, he would like the old stuff, because old people always like the old things."

I'm a child of the '60s; I'm not a child of 2010. It was great in those days. Things do change, not always for the better. I can't easily come to terms with most contemporary work---say, Damien Hirst. It's a kind of storytelling and I don't like that.

I always had a lot of respect for sculpture and painting as things in their own right. One should just be using the eyes and say, "Does it turn you on or not?"

The shirt's painted designs probably represent war exploits: Single lines are stylized rifles, bifurcated lines are quirts (riding whips), the abstract triangular torsos with faceless heads on the back of the garment might indicate coups, and the horse tracks on the right sleeve indicate successful horse raids.

This scene may relate to an incident in which Rain-in-the-Face is said to have saved the daughter of the Upper Yanktonai Black Prairie Dog by extending his quirt to her and swinging her up onto his horse when their camp was attacked by the U.S. Army.

The gallery building which will house the permanent collection should be finished by the end of this summer. At the moment, the construction team is putting up the stone all around the exterior of the building. Inside the gallery building, they are plastering the walls and finishing installing the windows and clerestory on the second floor. The steel framing was completed back in January.