Six years after the art heist of the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, one painting has possibly reappeared in Romania under strange circumstances. The painting, Picasso’s Tête d’Arlequin, was one of seven works by masters including Matisse, Monet, and Gauguin valued at over $23 million. Until the …
This past week many museum professionals and emerging professionals attended the New England Museum Association’s annual conference Museums on the Move. This year was a big year for NEMA celebrating its 100th annual conference. The theme of the conference was meant to investigate how museums …
In honor of Election Day, tomorrow, Tuesday, November 6th, we’d like to share a roundup of articles about American museums striving to communicate the importance of voting!
Did you know that the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, the Mummers Museum in Philadelphia, the Hammer Museum, and the Roswell Museum and Art Center in New Mexico all serve as polling sites? Since 2015, the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site Museum in Indianapolis has also served as a proud polling place for its community. Its director, Charles Hyde, is encouraging other museums to adopt the same practice.
“In an era where turnout is far from peak levels, and debate simmers over mechanisms like early voting and mail-in balloting, could museums be doing more to help the general public as they’re seeking to meet their civic obligations? I encourage other museums engaging in this act of civic responsibility to use the social media hashtag #proudpollingsite and prove that together, we can provide our communities with the enhanced experiences that cultivate a more engaged citizenry. It’s about time we all raised our hands.”
Unfortunately, millennials continue to demonstrate low voter turnout. In an attempt to change this, the virtual pop-up Museum of Voting is encouraging voters to ‘gram their polling experience…mostly by posting selfies with voting stickers.
“According to Pew Research Center, only 51% of millennials voted in the 2016 presidential election, compared to Gen X (63%), baby boomers (69%), and the silent generation (70%). In an effort to spark some excitement around this year’s midterm elections, creative studio Gold Front has created The Museum of Voting, “a one-day-only, insanely Instagrammable pop-up experience,” i.e., just your local polling station.”
The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Alabama, however, is an actual museum with a mission of exhibiting “materials and artifacts from the voting rights struggle in America, especially those that highlight the experiences, which fueled “Bloody Sunday”, the Selma to Montgomery March, and the Civil Rights Movement throughout the South. The NVRMI provides research forums, community action, and makes presentations that impact or support voting rights issues in America.”
Powerfully, the first quote to greet visitors on the Museum’s website homepage is “Hands that picked cotton can pick our presidents.” With nine galleries that exhibit artifacts from the Selma March and beyond, while detailing the civil rights events of the 1960s, the museum serves as a visual reminder of the importance of casting your vote.
Finally, check out this great article that summarizes how “Artists and Museums are Shining a Light on Democracy, Freedom, and the Importance of Voting.”
“Artists and museums have been engaged in the discourse throughout the political season, mounting exhibitions and public art projects, hosting public discussions and voter registration drives.
The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) provides its institutional members with Nonprofit Voter Resources, guidelines about how they can participate in advocacy and nonpartisan election activities.
The Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Okla., has been a venue for nonpartisan voter education, handing out sample ballots and information about issues and candidates. On Nov. 4, Philbrook is hosting a town hall. New York Live Arts is facilitating a conversation on gun ownership on November 5th. On Election Night, 100 Days Action is throwing a “Blue Wave/Red Tide” election night party and exhibition viewing in San Francisco.”
Will you be voting tomorrow?
Museums have, for many decades now, been sites of learning and exploration for people of all ages, economic classes, and educational levels. The idea of informal learning spaces assisting with civic education of newly arrived Americans has its roots in a Progressive Era ethos of …
On Saturday, the National Law Enforcement Museum opened to the public in Judiciary Square in Washington, D.C. The Museum, which cost $103 million to construct, has a collection of 21,000 objects, and is intended to educate visitors about the experience of working in law enforcement. Featuring …
In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day, we’d like to share a roundup of articles about efforts to decolonize museums around the world.
With “Donors Force a Point at the Met that Never Should Have Had to be Made”, Nonprofit Quarterly looks at the shift in location for Native American art in a new exhibit opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this month. The shift was demanded by the donors backing the exhibit, and forced the Met to locate Native American art within the American Galleries, instead of their galleries for Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, where it is usually relegated, thus separating it from “America” conceptually.
“Sarah Cascone, writing for ArtNet, says, ‘In other countries, it is common to present indigenous art as part of the wider arc of a nation’s art history.’ Sylvia Yount, the curator in charge of the wing, told Brigit Katz at Smithsonian that US museums, including the Met, are ‘really behind the curve…when it comes to displaying indigenous artworks within the framework of America’s art history.'”
NPR’s “Where ‘Human Zoos’ Once Stood, A Belgium Museum Now Faces Its Colonial Past” looks at the history of The Royal Museum for Central Africa, where Belgian King Leopold once imprisoned more than 200 Congolese to be on display for Belgian crowds. The museum, and Belgium generally, has long resisted acknowledging its violent and colonial heritage, but is currently under the auspices of a Belgium director who is attempting to rectify some wrongs.
“‘They brought me here just to reform it,’ Gryseels says. ‘Obviously, our colonial past is something that we have to deal with.’ The museum finally closed for massive renovations in 2013, after years of planning. ‘We walk a tightrope,’ Gryseels says, between those who fear this transformation won’t go far enough and others who fear it will go too far.”
In “Decolonizing the Museum Mind”, a guest post for the American Alliance of Museums’ Center for the Future of Museums blog, Frank Howarth, former director of the Australian Museum discusses the value of “welcome to country” practices that center traditional aboriginal owners of land and encourages European and US museums to embrace the idea and the values centered.
“A bit later I went to the then Getty Museum Leadership Program in 2010, with my New Zealand and Australian colleagues expecting to be welcomed to the Native American country on which the Getty Museum is situated (a comparable program in Australia or New Zealand would have a significant and very meaningful welcome to country by the traditional owners). We were surprised and disappointed that not only was there no acknowledgement of Native American place, there was negligible mention of anything Native American within the whole course. Nor was there any discussion around contemporary issues in museums and collections of the materials of first peoples.”