I'm disappointed (if unsurprised) to see the @TheAtlantic article about art world "scapegoating", which misses basically ALL of the nuance of a hard-but-necessary time of change in the museum field. 🧵
As someone who worked at the Guggenheim during the Basquiat show that @chaedria curated, I don't hesitate to say that it's really unequivocally clear that she was treated badly and that her claims of racism are 100% true and well-founded. Don't gaslight her!
By framing that situation as a scapegoating of one senior leader and dismissing it as cancel culture (🙄), this article (and so many bad faith discussions of its ilk) takes a wrongheaded, oversimplified way out.
I'm sad & angry to see this piece play the false-neutrality reporting angle (#MuseumsAreNotNeutral & neither is journalism) to undermine the deeper truth that many long-serving senior museum leaders are the ones perpetuating the institutional racism and toxic culture.
The work culture at the Guggenheim when I was there was indeed hierarchical, opaque, traditionalist, retaliatory. Silence and pre-approved language were favored over open, accountable conversation. That wasn't one person's doing, but it very much WAS furthered by then-leadership.
I'm complicit in that, too, and reflecting on my own complicity has been a huge area of growth for me. It's also part of why I'm no longer interested in working full-time inside the museum system and why I quit my job at the Gugg and also my next one in Aspen.
Yes, respected artists will speak on record in support of curators. Good curators SHOULD champion artists and stand up for them. But good curators should ALSO champion their own staff. And good leaders should consider their workers' voices.
That was not often the case when I was at the Gugg, and I'm glad to see how much of the senior leadership in that museum has changed/continues to change since I left.
THAT'S THE POINT! We need the leadership in these places to change if we want the culture in these places to change. Change doesn't come smooth and easy. It comes when brave people & collectives speak out. It comes with sustained effort and abrupt departures. It's gotta be messy.
It's not scapegoating when people who are responsible for shepherding and perpetuating harm are held to account. Whether or not they intended to perpetuate that harm (a whole nother conversation, because sometimes they do), they did. Intention ≠ impact.
It's missing the forest for the trees to shake your head at a few "poor, talented" senior folks' departures (many with generous severance packages) when DROVES of museum workers have quit, protested, been fired, and left the field after working under those same folks' regimes.
I don't have a pithy final tweet for this thread, except to say to @chaedria & #ABetterGuggenheim & folks inside and outside these museum walls who are pushing for change, KEEP GOING. I'm with you.🫡
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