Reading list, 12 October 2019

New Scrutiny of Museum Boards Takes Aim at World of Wealth and Status - yet another report from the New York Times, this time with stats on the 536 trustees of America's 10 most-visited museums, the sources of their wealth

I didn't know that the Victoria & Albert provided career and skill development opportunities for young people as part of its public programme offer. They've just published Let me in: Getting young people into the Creative Industries, a report on the audiences they've serving through these programmes, which they break down into profiles:

• The Selector: Starting to make decisions that will affect their career path 
• The Multifaceted Creative: Talented and interested in more than one field 
• The Decided: Chosen a career, looking for relevant opportunities in that field 
• The Switcher: Transitioning into a creative career 
• The Explorer: Looking for new ideas, spends time critically thinking to form new opinions.

 The New MoMA Is Here. Get Ready for Change, by Jason Farago for the New York Times:

“We as institutions are so trained to treat our temporary exhibition program as the main tent,” said Glenn D. Lowry, MoMA’s director. “And we made the commitment, financially, programmatically and intellectually, that we’re going to shift that. That our main tent is our collection.” 

"Manchester Museum, which is part of Manchester University, is the first UK institution to return sacred artefacts [to Aboriginal people] under an Australian government-funded project to repatriate items of cultural heritage to mark 250 years since Cook’s voyage in 2020."

In funding:

• National Theatre to end Shell membership from next year
• Oligarchs, as U.S. Arts Patrons, Present a Softer Image of Russia
• The RSC was right to ditch BP’s money, but it must keep funding youth schemes

‘This Is a Criticism of the Art World’: Antwaun Sargent Champions Photography’s ‘New Black Vanguard’

Reading list, 5 October 2019

Sometimes an exhibition turns out so much better than the core idea suggests it might. Two reviews (the Guardian, the New York Times) suggest Gossamer, an exhibition at Carl Freedman Gallery in Margate, England, curated by Zoe Bedeaux and including artists from Sarah Lucas to Man Ray to Enam Gbewonyo who have worked in some way with woman's stockings, is one of these shows. (Check out the articles for some extraordinary images.)

Charlotte Burns of Art Agency Partners gives Max Hollein, director of the Met, a good poking on repatriating taonga, the stats on women artists & the market & collections & exhibitions,  ethics & governance, and the museum's one billion dollar package of capital projects.

Dropping this here because I'm still working cancel culture out but it's full of useful links: Osita Nwanevu for The New Republic, The “Cancel Culture” Con

And ticketing this one up for value-clashes: Massey University's statement on providing venue hire to a group called Speak Up 4 Women for an event called 'Feminism 2020' that throws the university's commitment to fostering free speech into opposition with its commitment to fostering a campus environment welcoming to all identities.

The latest from the MuseuPunks podcast: Decolonization and its Discontents featuring Sumaya Kassim and Nathan “Mudyi” Sentance.

A request from The Spinoff about gender diversity in exhibition programming circulated around public and private art galleries a couple of months ago - the outcome is Anna Knox's lengthy article Gender bias and art in Aotearoa: a Spinoff survey reveals the harsh reality which ends up focusing on dealer galleries and has some interesting insights / observations (and reveals data is indeed a slippery fish)

Aligned to the proposed re-definition of a museum by ICOM and growing focus on ethical leadership, in the NYT: Shareholder Value Is No Longer Everything, Top C.E.O.s Say:

 Breaking with decades of long-held corporate orthodoxy, the Business Roundtable issued a statement on “the purpose of a corporation,” arguing that companies should no longer advance only the interests of shareholders. Instead, the group said, they must also invest in their employees, protect the environment and deal fairly and ethically with their suppliers.

Kara Walker takes over the Tate's Turbine Hall

By me (cough, cough)

• On RNZ talking about the Amsterdam Museum's decision to no longer use the phrase 'Golden Age', and the theft of Maurizio Cattelan's golden toilet
• A short speech given to remember Paul Reynolds at the event to celebrate Gareth Seymour's award of the scholarship set up in Paul's name.

Reading list, 14 September 2019

Wow, I have a lot of reading to catch up on ...

Daniel Weiss, Adam Weinberg and other museum leaders speak out following the fallout from the resignation of the Whitney’s vice chairman and the ongoing Sackler affair - for The Art Newspaper

There was “next to nothing” about Muslims in the Brooklyn Historical Society’s century-old archives. Now there are 54 oral histories, which serve as the foundation for a new art exhibition.

The Amsterdam Museum will no longer use the descriptor "Golden Age" to for the 17th century:

The Golden Age occupies an important place in Western historiography that is strongly linked to national pride. But positive associations with the term such as prosperity, peace, opulence and innocence do not cover the charge of historical reality in this period. The term ignores the many negative sides of the 17th century such as poverty, war, forced labour and human trafficking.

The Wellcome Collection's new long-term exhibition Being Human has been designed "accessibility first" and has garnered a lot of well deserved press: No art lover left behind: how galleries are finally welcoming disabled people (Guardian); Is This the World’s Most Accessible Museum? (NYT);

A British survey shows that four in ten cultural organisations pay their junior front of house staff less than a living wage.

Lorraine Boissonneault for Slate: The Complicated Decisions That Come With Digitizing Indigenous Languages

Look, I haven't engaged with the Jeffrey Epstein thing at all so just dropping this in here for future reference: Martin Levine, Must Modern Philanthropy Be So Corrosive?, on Epstein's philanthropic relationship with MIT.

The Ford Foundation's president Darren Walker in conversation with artnet's Andrew Goldstein: ‘We Don’t Need to Demonize Wealthy People’: Ford Foundation President Darren Walker on the Unnerving Aftermath of the Warren Kanders Protests

ICOM shrugged off the vote on the proposed new definition of a "museum": Should Art Museums Be More or Less Ideological? After Pushback, a Gathering of Museum Leaders Refuses to Address the Question

Suse Anderson is teaching a new first-year course on museum ethics at George Washington University, and the course outline looks like a primer in contemporary museum discussions

Reading list, 10 August 2019

Let me suggest an alternate title: new statistics show an area of the secondary market where women artists' work is outperforming mens (it's nuanced)

In follow-up news: Artists Demand Answers [to questions they asked about revisions to the museum's funding policy] One Year After Withdrawing Work From London Design Museum

Andrea K. Scott's summary for the New Yorker: The Whitney Biennial protests and the changing standards of accountability in art

A fascinating write-up in the New York Times, Behind Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: Reframing a Tragedy. Read it for the experiences of Chaédria LaBouvier, the first black woman to curate a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim, which in its 80 year history has never employed a black curator on staff.

The Spinoff making good use of that CNZ money: Megan Dunn and Mark Amery on The art award that’s been annoying the Waikato (and Paul Henry) for 20 years  

Ticketed for reading this weekend: Kyle Chayka's long format interview with Artforum editor David Velasco, appointed in October 2017 when the magazine was in a leadership meltdown.

Jamaica's culture minister challenges the British Museum to return taonga taken when the island was a colony.

New York Magazine identifies New York's most toxic museum boards

Harmony Hammonds is one of those artists I wish I'd known about 20 years ago