Five Museums Ahead of the Curve on DEI&A
For many prominent arts institutions, the murder of George Floyd and following social unrest was an urgent wake-up call to address injustice internally and in the arts at large. However, issues in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Accessibility (DEI&A) have always existed, and over the last few years and decades, a number of (typically smaller, BIPOC-led) arts organizations have paved the way for progress.
A recent New York Times article featured classical performance ensembles that have advocated for and embodied the cause of DEI&A since their inception. Here, we highlight five museums in the United States and Europe that have sustained an authentic commitment to DEI&A since before the Black Lives Matter movement became an international phenomenon.
Executive Leadership
In 2017, the Phillips Collection hired its first Black curator, Adrienne Childs. A year later, in 2018, the Collection received a grant to create a senior position for a Chief Diversity Officer — one of the first in the art museum world. Fast forward to 2021, and the museum has received a historic $2 million gift to endow its CDO position, which has been occupied by DEI&A expert Makeba Clay since March 2018.
Over the last few years, and under Clay’s leadership, the museum has developed an internship program to diversify the talent pipeline, launched an internal anti-racism training program, and made DEI&A a board focus and an integral part of its strategic plan. In a statement published on June 17, 2020, Clay wrote that the museum’s goal “is not one-and-done performative acts of solidarity, but a thorough change agenda.”
Clay has said that when considering the position, the museum’s history of progress — having regularly used its space for contemplation and healing — made it clear that she wasn’t an add-on, and that she wouldn’t have to start from scratch. Indeed, institutions are recognizing that bringing in talent to address issues in diversity and inclusion is only the first step in an effort that must involve the entire organization and community.
Professional Training & Community Education
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) launched its Meyerhoff-Becker Curatorial Fellowship in 2019, a year-long residency program in exhibition-making geared towards BIPOC and other young professionals who identify with underrepresented groups. The fellowship operates “in concert with and in complement to” BMA’s Biennial Commission, which promotes diversity in the museum and in the art world at large through its commissions of marginalized contemporary artists.
On the tight relationship between the museum’s curatorial fellowship and commissioning program, director Christopher Bedford wrote in a 2018 email: “We believe some of the most important work in the world is being made by Black American artists...[and] it is important that the same populations be represented on our curatorial staff.”
In the last few years, the BMA has also facilitated a conversation series at the intersection of art, race, and social justice, called The Necessity of Tomorrow(s). Free for all community members, the series has hosted a vast range of renowned guest speakers including activist Tarana Burke and author Ta-Nehisi Coates.
In the early 1990s, the Walker launched its Curatorial Fellowship for Diversity in the Arts, a two-year program within its Visual Arts Department designed to address the lack of diversity in museum leadership. Fellows work directly with the Walker’s own curators through an apprenticeship-like model, learning about all phases of exhibition development. Program alumni have gone on to become senior curators at various preeminent institutions across the globe, indicating that the fellowship has indeed made inroads in diversifying the profession.
The Walker also offers regular educational programming for groups often overlooked by museums, including neurodiverse visitors and children with developmental disabilities. Prior to the pandemic, the museum hosted Sensory Friendly Sundays on a monthly basis, which accommodated those with sensory processing differences by offering a calmer and quieter environment than the usual hustle and bustle of the museum. In partnership with BLIND, Inc., the Walker also developed Verbal Description and Touch Tours for visitors affected by blindness or low vision.
From diversity to accessibility, each of these initiatives stems from what the Walker sees as its fundamental responsibility: to be a catalyst for social engagement and creative expression.
Collections & Restitution
The National Museum of World Cultures (Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen)
Amsterdam, Berg en Dal, and Leiden, The Netherlands
In 2001, the Netherlands established an independent advisory committee focused on identifying and returning Nazi-looted art. The original owners or rightful heirs of these objects of cultural value are able to claim the works back (usually from the government’s possession) by submitting applications for review. While the committee has overseen the return of about 460 confiscated objects, it has come under fire for its willingness to weigh the interests of museums in keeping their collections intact against the interests of claimants.
By contrast, and to some extent in response to the failures of the committee, a number of Dutch arts leaders have pushed to expand restitutions to include objects with no full provenance records. Importantly, this means repatriating the artifacts looted from Dutch colonies through dialogue with their places of origin, including Indonesia, Suriname, and the Dutch territories in the Caribbean.
In March 2019, the director of the National Museum of World Cultures, Stijn Schoonderwoerd, announced the museum’s own guidelines for colonial restitution. Schoonderwoerd estimated that 40% of the museum’s collection was acquired under conditions of ‘injustice and inequality’ in the Dutch colonies. As part of its guidelines, the museum has promised to hear out claims and return objects that are of unique cultural, social, or national significance to the country of origin. More recently, the institution also announced a four-year research project with the Vrije Universiteit, budgeted at €4.5 million. Entitled Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums, the research will investigate colonial collections in Dutch museums.
A 2018 case study by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Association of Art Museum Directors highlighted the Brooklyn Museum’s executive leaders who, for at least two decades, “have inured themselves to controversy, weathering explicit criticism, to pursue a distinct vision of what the museum should be.”
Since before the 2000s, the museum has been known to spotlight provocative, progressive exhibits. In October 1999, the museum showcased the infamous contemporary collection Sensation, featuring works by a number of up-and-coming British artists, including painter Chris Ofili. The inclusion of Ofili’s work The Holy Virgin Mary, which had made him the first Black artist to win the Turner Prize, stirred widespread controversy in the United States. Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani called it “sick stuff,” retracting New York City financing for the museum (a move which was swiftly reversed by federal judge Nina Gershon). Meanwhile, over 100 actors, writers, and visual artists (among them, Kurt Vonnegut and Susan Sontag) signed a letter in support of the work, and the exhibit saw record opening-day attendance.
In 2007, the museum began to show Judy Chicago’s feminist installation The Dinner Party, which features a triangular table set for 39 mythical and historical guests — guests like Sojourner Truth, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Sacajawea. As of 2017, upwards of 1.5 million visitors had seen the installation, which remains housed in Brooklyn.