Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest

Description

In an age of protest, culture and museums have come under fire. Protests of museum funding (for example, the Metropolitan Museum accepting Sackler family money) and boards (for example, the Whitney appointing tear gas manufacturer Warren Kanders)--to say nothing of demonstrations over exhibitions and artworks--have roiled cultural institutions across the world, from the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi to the Akron Art Museum. At the same time, never have there been more calls for museums to work for social change, calls for the emergence of a new role for culture. As director of the Queens Museum, Laura Raicovich helped turn that New York municipal institution into a public commons for art and activism, organizing high-powered exhibitions that were also political protests. Then in January, 2018, she resigned, after a dispute with the Queens Museum board and city officials became a public controversy--she had objected to the Israeli government using the museum for an event featuring vice president Mike Pence. In this book, Raicovich explains some of the key museum flashpoints, and she also provides historical context for the current controversies. She shows how art museums arose as colonial institutions bearing an ideology of neutrality that masks their role in upholding capitalist values. And she suggests how museums can be reinvented to serve better, public ends.

Laura Raicovich was President and Executive Director of the Queens Museum, and prior to that was with Creative Time and Dia Art Foundation. She is a recipient of both the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship and the inaugural Emily H. Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators at Hyperallergic. She co-edited Assuming Boycott and is the author of At the Lightning Field and A Diary of Mysterious Difficulties.

Urgent -- Travis Diehl * art-agenda * [Culture Strike] brilliantly problematizes the pervasive old myth of "neutrality." -- Dessane Lopez Cassell * Hyperallergic * A must-read ... Culture Strike contains layers of honest observation from museum professionals, loving critique, historical context, and case studies that illuminate the best and worst in museum culture to offer a clear path forward. -- Cara Ober * BmoreArt * Maps out thoughtful considerations of pressing subjects that apply everywhere. Among them are the private power of philanthropy, the practical and spiritual benefits of staff diversity, unionizing cultural institutions, and the contours of museums' social responsibility. -- Christopher Knight * Los Angeles Times * Offers key contextual and historical lenses through which to consider protests that have occurred at institutions worldwide, addressing topics from museum funding to workers' rights. * Ocula * An engaging and personally invested discussion of the many controversies that have engulfed American museums -- JJ Charlesworth * ArtReview *