In Conversation With Brooke Minto: Creating a Community for Change at Art Museums
ABA in conversation with: Brooke Minto, Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums (BTA)
Arts and culture institutions have been working on anti-racism activities for some time but those activities were galvanized by the murder of George Floyd in 2020. One leader in that movement for representation, equity and antiracism activities in museums is Brooke Minto, who also happens to be an advisor to ABA.
Brooke is executive director of the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums, which formed in 2020. As part of our series ‘in conversation with…” where we highlight ABA member (and affiliated) organizations’ activities, Brooke shared the BTA’s main activities since it was formed — including the creation of a nearly 300-person strong community — and upcoming milestones.
Below you can find the summary of our conversation with Brooke.
1. Tell us about yourself
The arts have always played a significant role in my life, since childhood. I studied art history and criticism, then began my career in art museums which took me to cities across the country and abroad. Since the spring of 2021, I have served as Executive Director of the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums (BTA)
2. Tell us about the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums - how did the Alliance come to be and why did it focus specifically on art museums vs the arts in general?
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in the late summer of 2020, a group of Black trustees from New York-area art museums was convened by Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation; Elizabeth Alexander, President of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and Thelma Golden, Director of The Studio Museum in Harlem, for the purpose of opening a dialogue about the state of diversity and conflict at participants’ respective institutions. The following month, a subset of the group—led by Gabrielle Sulzberger, Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Victoria Rogers, Trustee of the Brooklyn Museum, and seed-funded by the Ford Foundation—formed a Steering Committee to create a strategic plan for an organization that would help Black trustees more effectively diversify and govern their institutions. The founding Steering Committee represented a diverse range of museums that varied by city, scope, and collection type, and from their work the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums was born.
Launched initially as a three-year initiative, BTA is working to increase the inclusion of Black perspectives and narratives in art museums through research, community, and communication. BTA’s founders began with art museums, which they knew best, in order to pilot this organization and to focus our research agenda in its early years.
3. What are some things you are most proud of at the Black Trustee Alliance?
Through research and community building initiatives, we strive to create an organization of Black museum trustees that actively supports one another, artists, museum leadership, and staff. We are developing tools to enhance our trustees' ability to be more effective in navigating change and transforming their institutions.
Since 2021, we have built a nearly 300-member community, spanning more than 100 museums across North America. We’ve also used the last year to carefully hone our priorities, deciding how to best bring about change as a collective. With the support of the Ford Foundation and the Mellon Foundation, we launched BTA member programming virtually and in person; we embarked on a multi-year research agenda in partnership with Ithaka S+R; and, inaugurated the BTA’s Research and Data Fellowship program.
4. Could you tell us more about the partners you work with and the kind of work you do with/for them?
BTA has had tremendous support from individuals, foundations, and peer organizations over the past two years. The launch of our inaugural research initiative was made possible through our partnership with Ithaka S+R and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). This alliance allowed us to examine the demographics of art museum trustees from museums in the US, Canada, and Mexico. In the coming weeks, we will publish our first report on the characteristics, roles and experiences of Black trustees, which is the culmination of several months of work together.
Brooke A. Minto is an arts administrator, art historian, and educator with twenty years of experience working for museums and interdisciplinary arts organizations in the United States and abroad. As the inaugural Executive Director of the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums, Brooke is cultivating BTA’s membership and overseeing the initiation of its key mission components.
Previously, Ms. Minto held senior leadership roles at Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town; at the New Museum in New York; the New Orleans Museum of Art; and, Pérez Art Museum Miami. She began her career in the curatorial department of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
A graduate of Dartmouth College, Minto studied art history, and earned a master’s degree in Modern Art and Critical Studies from Columbia University. She is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth.