museums

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/12/2020
  

  Coronavirus Shutdowns and Charges of White Supremacy: American Art Museums are in Crisis

  The year of the COVID pandemic is not an opportune time for museums to weather controversies over the content of exhibits, but many face criticism from across the spectrum about racial inclusivity and provocative works. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/30/2020
  

  Smithsonian Taps N.Y. Cultural Director To Lead African American Museum

  Since 2016, Kevin Young has been director of the Schomburg Center, a division of the New York Public Library and an important cultural organization in Harlem.

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  9/28/2020
  

  Philip Guston's KKK Images Force Us to Stare Evil in the Face – We Need Art Like This

  "Art shouldn’t be polite. Guston’s work puts you into a headlock and forces you to stare into the face of evil, rearranging your sense of reality into a better one – and that’s what art needs to do more than ever."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/27/2020
  

  In His Own Words: Jacob Lawrence at the Met and MoMA

  The artist Jacob Lawrence died in 2000; he spent a day in New York museums with Times art critic Michael Kimmelman four years before, discussing art and his creative process. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/27/2020
  

  The British Museum Reopens to a World That Has Changed

  Finally reopening after a COVID-enforced hiatus, the British Museum is making concessions to an audience that is more skeptical of the museum's relationship to colonialism and the slave trade.

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• SOURCE: Vanity Fair
  8/24/2020
  

  What Should A Museum Look Like In 2020?

  "A call for divestment involves an acknowledgment of the ways that museums rely on local police departments to do the work of mental health providers and emergency medical technicians, as well as the implicit ways contracts with police departments protect property over people," said MoMA curator Thomas J. Lax.

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• 8/16/2020
  

  Abridging History is Dangerous

  by Greg Bailey

  You cannot understand the pain and purpose that constitutes our heritage by hiding.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/11/2020
  

  Museum’s Future Clouded by Chance Discovery: Swastika Hiding in Plain Sight

  The discovery of a Nazi symbol in the mosaic floor of a German museum has prompted bitter debate about its creator’s past and the institution’s role.

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• SOURCE: Foreign Policy
  7/28/2020
  

  Is It Time to Repatriate Africa’s Looted Art?

  Museums now face a moral reckoning over artifacts stolen by people who took colonial violence and racial superiority as a given. It is time to start having honest conversations about righting those wrongs.

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• SOURCE: Hyperllergenic
  7/27/2020
  

  Congress Votes in Favor of Creating National Museum of the American Latino

  If approved by the Senate, it would become the first Smithsonian museum specifically dedicated to the history and culture of Latinx communities.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  7/22/2020
  

  One-Third Of U.S. Museums May Not Survive The Year, Survey Finds

  Most of the museums surveyed made a point of providing educational resources to students during the lockdown. But those are precisely the kind of services that will need to be cut in the budget crunch ahead, according to almost two-thirds of museum directors.

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• SOURCE: Hyperallergic
  7/22/2020
  

  Tenement Museum Lays Off 76 Workers, Including Entire Staff of Part-time Educators

  The museum estimates at least a 50% budget reduction for the coming year (the museum’s annual budget before COVID-19 was about $11 million) due to the losses of revenue caused by the pandemic.

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• 7/19/2020
  

  Monumental Folly

  by Pete Daniel

  Change is on the front foot, and this is no time to allow wealth and ignorance to gain ground.  Achiever exhibits and sculpture gardens seem pathetic sideshows to the powerful history of the country.

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  7/14/2020
  

  This Year Will End Eventually. Document It While You Can.

  Museums are working overtime to collect artifacts and ephemera from the pandemic and the racial justice movement — and they need your help.

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• SOURCE: The New York Times
  6/28/2020
  

  Defenders of Roosevelt Statue Converge on Natural History Museum

  Last week it was decided to remove the image because it evoked racism and colonialism. Sunday, the other side turned out.

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• SOURCE: UNC Press Blog
  6/9/2020
  

  Rumors of War in Richmond

  by Thomas J. Brown

  Kehinde Wiley's statue Rumors of War certainly draws meaning from its location, but it is also the capstone of a series on which the artist has been engaged since an early stage of his meteoric career, long before Confederate monuments stirred wide controversy.

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• SOURCE: National Museum of African American History and Culture
  5/31/2020
  

  National Museum of African American History and Culture Releases “Talking About Race” Web Portal

  Research shows that many people feel they do not have the information needed to discuss race in a way that is candid, safe and respectful of other viewpoints and experiences.  

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• SOURCE: Women's Suffrage Centennial Commission
  5/25/2020
  

  Curator's Cut: An Inside Look at DC's Suffrage Exhibits (Wednesday May 27, 7:00 PM EDT)

  The curators of three Washington-based exhibits on the centennial of the 19th Amendment discuss the history of women's suffrage. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/25/2020
  

  How Will We Remember the Pandemic? Museums Are Already Beginning to Decide

  Historians including David Kennedy, Martha S. Jones, and Brenda Stevenson, along with curators at national and local museums, discuss the assembly of artifacts to document the COVID crisis for posterity. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/19/2020
  

  Pandemic Escape: Volunteers Transcribe Sally Ride’s Papers, Rosa Parks’s Recipes, Walt Whitman’s Poems

  Museums and research libraries are reporting huge spikes of do-it-yourself historians.