ALTRIA BREAKUP WILL LIKELY AFFECT SEVERAL MUSEUMS

The breakup of the Altria conglomerate that begins this month is expected to severely reduce the company’s support of museums and other cultural organizations, reports Jason Edward Kaufman for the Art Newspaper. “We anticipate that our program will be significantly reduced in 2008,” says Jennifer Goodale, the vice president in charge of contributions at Altria. The museum likely to be most severely affected is the Whitney, which receives more than $500,000 per year to support exhibitions at Altria’s corporate headquarters in midtown Manhattan. Altria has also sponsored each of the past five Whitney Biennials, providing $500,000 for the 2006 edition. Other museums that rely on Altria funding include El Museo del Barrio (which got $313,000 in 2005), the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Menil in Houston ($150,000 each), the New Museum of Contemporary Art ($210,000), and the Museum of African Art in New York ($105,000). Goodale has sent notices to grant recipients alerting them that the grants they receive in 2007 may be their last.