NEW YORK -- IBM, which reported a $5 billion loss for 1992, will close its free-attendance art gallery in midtown Manhattan as a cost- cutting measure, it was announced Monday.
The Gallery of Science and Art on Madison Avenue at 56th Street has become the city's prime venue for traveling art shows and occasional scientific exhibitions since its opening in 1983 and is considered a major tourist attraction with 750,000 visitors a year.
It has no permanent collection of its own, nor has it ever organized an exhibition, preferring to rely on shows organized by other museums.
Jim Ruderman, a spokesman for financially ailing company, said the elegant and expansive below-street galleries in the 42-story IBM headquarters will be closed 'either at the end of l993 or the beginning of 1994.' He said the closing would save the company a substantial sum of money, but he was not specific as to the amount.
The gallery opened in 1983 with an exhibition of paintings from the Phillips Collection in Washington, D. C., and has had loan exhibitions from many other museums in the United States and around the world. Last year it housed a major Columbian Quincentennial exhibit including Columbus manuscripts, books and maps, most of which had never before left Spain.
The gallery was praised by critics for innovative, tasteful approaches to display and the scholarship of its guided tours and educational film presentations. Its most popular show was 'Seeing the Light,' a 1986 exhibition organized by the Exploratorium of San Francisco which was attended by 290,000 visitors.
Its current shows are of African-American art from the National Museum of American Art in Wahington and highlights from the Butler Institute Collection of American art in Youngstown, Ohio.
Ruderman said the gallery's staff of seven will be offered a severance plan or may look for other jobs within the company.
'Unfortunately, we don't have many jobs to offer,' he observed.
He said he did not know how the gallery, designed by noted architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, would be used in the future. He mentioned the posibility of offices or shops.
