Museum Resolution: Focus on Representation and Wealth Inequality

Nicole N. Ivy, PhD, is an inclusion strategist and professional futurist. Formerly director of inclusion at AAM, the American Alliance of Museums, she is assistant professor of American Studies at George Washington University. From 2015 to 2017, she was AAM’s first Center for the Future of Museums Fellow, supported by a Public Fellowship from the Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies.

I tend to balk at making New Year’s resolutions. Recently, though, I’ve been persuaded by the practice of setting intentions. Of course, nothing we resolve—as museum professionals or as humans more generally—is guaranteed to transpire successfully. But, identifying purposeful actions toward good outcomes can give us both a set of benchmarks and a horizon to look to. Art museums offer us an opportunity to slow down, to look closely, and to engage empathetically with who we have been, who we are, and how we might yet live in the world. As institutions charged with that kind of possibility, art museums—like all museums—have a duty of equitable and ethical stewardship. With that in mind, I want to propose a few things that art museums might intentionally prioritize in 2019. I invite art museums to resolve to examine who is not being represented in their collections and also reflect on their relationships to wealth inequality. These are not recommendations without precedent or proof-of-concept. In my work with art museum staff and leadership, I continue to be inspired by people who are doing the difficult work of pursuing equity. Across the field, museums are making important efforts to operate as spaces of civic discourse and social action.

My dear friend, curator Brittany Webb, forwarded me an article about a performance  by two women of color artists taking place at the Huntington Library Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California.The free movement of the bodies of women of color in spaces not intended to facilitate their access provides a radical possibility for how art museums might reimagine who belongs in them. Representation matters, and resolving to intentionally represent people of color as thinkers, artists, and institutional leaders pushes art museums toward more inclusive futures.

Andrea Fraser’s monumental book, Museums, Money, and Politics, lays bare the accretions of private wealth that undergird many US art museums. Surveying 128 arts organizations, she considers a correlation between expanding wealth inequality and increased private giving to the arts. Fraser explains that “many art museums have become prominent public showcases for highly concentrated private wealth, identifying that wealth with generosity, creativity, and cultural accomplishment.“ She also explores the ways that many museum boards “have also become prominent hubs of political finance.” Her work provides a sobering meditation on the uncomfortable kinship between museums and oligarchy in this country.

I cannot propose any easy or singular course of action that art museums can take to completely disentangle their relationships with wealth inequality. However, recent efforts offer practical examples of art museums using their resources to expand access and promote the democratic circulation of their collections. Last year, the Baltimore Museum of Art approved the sale of works from its collection in order to fund the purchase of works by to underrepresented artists. IN 2017, the City of New York linked arts funding to equity by demanding that grant recipients demonstrate increased diversity in their boards and staffs. I believe that museums’ efforts to advance diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion are doomed to be superficial and, ultimately, ineffective if they do not involve a clear-eyed look at their institutional relationships to inherited inequality.