Inside Out: Changing Museums in a Post-COVID World

Alan O'Rourke - https://www.flickr.com/photos/toddle_email_newsletters/21031243458/in/photostream/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79624315

This week someone sent me an infographic that read "Good libraries build collections; great libraries build communities." Although it's about libraries, it could just as easily apply to museums. It stayed with me because it gets to the perennial issue of which is more important, a museum's collection or its people.

Maybe it's the social media bubble I'm in, but I continue to read posts lamenting deaccessioning. It doesn't matter where it's happening or what's being sent to auction, the subtext is that deaccessioning is wrong, unnecessary, and museums should hold onto everything they've got. These posts ignore the fact that the museum world as a whole has undergone a 10-month stress test that shows no signs of letting up. It has exposed every fault line imaginable from the predominant white narrative, to the number of white male artists in art museums, to the gendered, genteelly racist nature of research and interpretation. It's caused staffs to unionize, spawned the Museum Workers Speak Relief Fund, raising almost $77,000 for museum workers who've lost their jobs. In short, in less time than it takes to make a human, the museum world has turned upside down.

So how will museums and their leaders move forward? To be clear, deaccessioning is primarily an art world phenomenon since it's art that commands the kind of prices that make a difference to endowments; that leaves the door open for historical societies, libraries, and college and universities to identify their big-ticket paintings and cull their collections. But to step back, maybe it's important to name the big questions first. Although we sometimes act like there are laws around deaccessioning, there aren't. Expectations and ethics exist, but nothing more. And boards can do what they like with endowments. The fact that they mostly do the same thing--invest as wisely as they know how--reflects what happens when non-profit and for-profit worlds come together. But as we know, the pandemic revealed a host of museum problems, many of which we've talked about here. Museum staff are often underpaid, especially the non-curatorial staff as is the case at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Museum leadership is sometimes lacking as we witnessed earlier this year at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the New Museum. And museums, despite their outwardly liberal stance, limit artists and staff of color in benign yet oppressive ways.

So is deaccessioning an answer? Deaccessioning is a process that can align collections with mission. Purists might be happier if collections were static, but a collection that's 86-percent white and male might need to change. Few museums serve communities that are 86-percent white and male? Is it any wonder that in Baltimore, a city that's 61-percent Black, a largely white art collection might not have the charm of a more diverse one? While judicious deaccessioning can change collections, what about the workplace? Sadly, the problems of equitable wages, poor leadership, and workplace injustice can't be solved with more BIPOC artists in the collection.

As this monstrous year comes to a close, what's on your board and staff's to-do list for 2021? Where will you build community, both inside and outside the museum?

Where are your organization's stress lines? Are they internal or external?
What changes will you make for your community once you are able to be mask-less and fully open?
Do you see your organization as a place where people--possibly people with differing views on science, elections, race or gender--could come together to talk? Could your collections serve as a catalyst?
When was the last time your board discussed staff salaries? Not as individual compensation, but as a concept. How does your museum or heritage organization's pay stack up in your community? Does it clear the living wage threshold?
Have you asked your board to talk about how important pay is? It's important in their own companies; it's important for their partners and their children. Why wouldn't equitable pay also be important for museum employees?
Are there endowed and named positions at your organization? Has your board considered creating named positions to shift monies from higher-paid positions to lower paid ones?
With a COVID vaccine in our future, what changes will you make in your staff? Will you bring back everyone who was furloughed or bring back fewer, but at better wages? How will you make those decisions?
Is there a gender equity pay gap at your museum? Is 2021 the year to do a gender/race pay audit?
If your museum or heritage organization doesn't have a DEI coordinator, would your board be willing to work with a consultant to help shift its default setting from a white lens first?

As I've said before, every board is different, but most abhor bad publicity; nor do they like being shunned by their peers, and they are disinclined to spend chunks of endowment they and their predecessors spent years amassing. That said, if 2020 taught us anything, it taught us how powerful social media can be in giving the voiceless a voice, and fair warning to any board choosing to ignore its community.

Change isn't about talking it's about doing. It might mean deaccessioning, but it might also mean simply understanding where your organizational stress points are and creating a plan to address them. If the world's scientists can make a vaccine to defeat a vicious virus in less than 10 months, what will you do to make change in the first 10 months of 2021?

Stay safe,

Joan Baldwin