3 Ways To Decolonize Your Nonprofit As Told By A Black Queer Feminist Organizer
Resources
When Contemporary Art Feels Too Inaccessible
The Ugly Truth of Being a Black Professor in America
https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Ugly-Truth-of-Being-a/243234
“I wanted to hold a disagreeable mirror up to white readers and ask that they take a long, hard look without fleeing. My article, “Dear White America,” took the form of a letter asking readers to accept the truth of what it means to be white in a society created for white people. I asked them to tarry with the ways in which they perpetuate a racist society, the ways in which they are racist. In return, I asked for understanding and even love — love in the sense that James Baldwin used the term: “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
Instead, I received hundreds of emails, phone messages, and letters, an overwhelming number of which were filled with racist vitriol.”
TED-style art history platform aims to promote arts education online
“There was a national outcry in 2016 when the last exam board in England to offer A-level art history announced that it would drop the subject. Following a high-profile campaign by leading art world figures, including the Tate’s former director Nicholas Serota and the artists Anish Kapoor and Cornelia Parker, the exam board Pearson decided to plug the gap. But it was this rumble in art education that inspired Heni Talks, a new online platform for educational videos about art that launches today (25 April).”
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/new-online-platform-aims-to-promote-art-history-education
Stapleton accused of paying off history museum to remove family’s KKK past from exhibit
“A decision by the History Colorado museum to remove references to former Denver Mayor Benjamin F. Stapleton in its Ku Klux Klan exhibit, even though he’s one of the most prominent Klansmen in Colorado history, has led Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Barlock to accuse fellow GOP candidate Walker Stapleton of directing his family’s foundation to donate to the museum to cover up the Stapletons’ white supremacist roots.”
com/2018/04/stapleton-kkk-past-paying-off-history-museum/8585/#.WsZYIyXjEfk.facebook
Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-500-23970-4
Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating
Maura Reilly. Thames & Hudson, $32.95 (240p)
Reilly (Women Artists) delivers a fiery rebuke of the exclusionary art world and charges museums and galleries to be more intentional about amplifying the voices of women, people of color, and LGBTQ people.
Labor of Love: Revaluing Museum Work
http://labs.aam-us.org/blog/labor-of-love-revaluing-museum-work/
For further reading on this topic, we recommend the following pieces:
A recap of the 2015 AAM rogue session. https://storify.com/MuseumWorkers/aam-2015
Sarah Erdman, Claudia Ocello, Dawn Estabrooks Salerno, and Marieke Van Damme, “Leaving the Museum Field.” http://labs.aam-us.org/blog/leaving-the-museum-field
Michael Hare, “Hard Times at Plimoth Plantation.” https://theoutline.com/post/2511/hard-times-at-plimoth-plantation
Nicole Ivy, “The Labor of Diversity.” http://www.aam-us.org/docs/default-source/museum/the-labor-of-diversity.pdf
Amy Tyson, The Wages of History: Emotional Labor on Public History’s Front Lines. http://www.umass.edu/umpress/title/wages-history
Andy Urban, “Lifting the curtain on living history.” http://ncph.org/history-at-work/lifting-the-curtain-on-living-history
The Museum World Is Having An Identity Crisis and Firing Powerful Women Won’t Help
On Monday, the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, received an email from director Philippe Vergne with news that chief curator Helen Molesworth was “stepping down” from the prestigious position.
“No,” artist and board member Catherine Opie said to the Los Angeles Times shortly thereafter. “He fired her.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/helen-molesworth-moca-fired_us_5aa951fae4b0600b82ff60b5
Museums and #metoo
https://walkerart.org/magazine/soundboard-me-too-sexual-harrassment-theresa-sotto
How Should Museums Deal with Art by Alleged Harassers?
Since the earliest days of his career, Chuck Close’s vision as a painter has stood out—so much so that, in 1969, the Walker became the first museum to purchase his art, bringing Big Self-Portrait (1967–1968) into the collection. Since then the Walker has acquired 18 more works, including some as gifts from the artist, and organized two solo shows. Given this level of commitment, recent accusations of sexual harassment against the artist have profoundly shaken us—and the field—prompting a serious look at questions related to the presentation of work by artists accused of grave wrongdoing. How can art institutions deeply devoted to both artists and audiences best respond? How should work by artists accused of wrongdoing be presented and contextualized? How must key museum processes change—from acquisitions protocols to the writing of interpretive materials, education programs to publishing?