The Indianapolis Museum of Art in Newfields has apologized for a job offer in search of a new director who could bring in a more diverse audience but retain the ‘traditional, core art of white art’.
The New York Times reports that Newfields Museum Director and CEO Charles L. Venable said in an interview that the wording of the job offer was intentional. He said the listing is meant to indicate that the museum will not abandon its existing audience as it seeks a more diverse, inclusive crowd.
“I deeply regret that the choice of language has clearly not been worked out to reflect our general intention to build our core art audience by welcoming more people to the door,” Venable told the Times. “We tried to be transparent about the fact that someone who is going to apply for this job has to be really committed to the DEI efforts in all parts of the museum.”
Guest curators for the upcoming “DRIP: Indy’s #BlackLivesMatter Street Mural” exhibition, Malina Simone Jeffers and Alan Bacon, told the Times that they can no longer stay as hosts. Simone Jeffers and Bacon are the founders of GANGGANG, an incubator in Indianapolis that elevates artists of color.
“Our exhibition cannot be produced in this context and in this environment,” Simone Jeffers and Bacon said. ‘We asked Newfields to revisit this exhibition to apologize to all involved artists, the opportunity for the 18 visual artists to show their other, personal works with appropriate remuneration, and a deliberate strategy of Newfields to show more works of more to display black artists. forever. ”
“Until then,” they continue, “GANGGANG will not continue as hosts for this exhibition.”
The Times notes that former associate museum curator Kelli Morgan, a black woman, resigned in 2018 because of what she called ‘toxic’ and ‘discriminatory’ culture in the museum.
“Clearly no investment or attention is paid to what is taught or communicated in the training,” Morgan said when Times reached out. “Because if there were, there would have been no way such a post would have been posted, let alone for a museum director.”
Morgan added that the incident at the Newfield Museum is an indication of a bigger problem in the museum culture. As the Times notes, spaces such as museums have largely excluded people of color.
“Until the museum world is black and white and red and purple, and until we deal with the responsibility for discrimination together, such things will continue to happen,” Morgan said.
In July last year, amid renewed Black Lives Matter protests, several former Smithsonian staff members came forward with allegations that racism was traced back to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art (NMAfA) years ago.
In a letter to Lonnie Bunch III, the first black head of the Smithsonian Institution, former staff members described a culture of racism that persists through various leadership changes.
‘Recent events have brought deeper attention to systemic racism in museums across our country. In this spirit, we write to you to express our indignation at the current state of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, “reads the letter.” Our goal is to jointly express our concern and to build a fair and inclusive museum for our community. ”