Black life—our joys and our oppression—has been embedded into American history since the first ship of enslaved Africans arrived in 1619. Now we’re seeing a seismic shift in how individuals, corporations, and institutions are reckoning with our nation’s racism.

On social media, companies use marketing dollars to value signal their “wokeness”; a trend that has made its way into the cultural sphere, with museums sharing the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag alongside works by African American artists. In an ideal world, this show of solidarity would be powerful. But, as a former employee of Creative Time, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I, like many art workers and visitors, have been underwhelmed. Watching museums like the British Museum and the Met—institutions with historic ties to colonialism—use a slogan rather than admit to their own roles in the “race problem” ignites a desire for a more holistic investigation of museums not only as homes for art and culture, but as entities with both the buying power and the political ties to make a lasting impact on life beyond this uprising.

There is a chasm between institutions issuing newsletters about “standing in solidarity” and those, like the Walker Art Center, that have, for example, stopped contracting their local police force for public events. Historically, museums have used themed exhibitions, acquisitions schemes, or public programs to signal a shift, but otherwise they continue with business as usual. Real shifts must be seen from the sidewalk to the boardroom. There is an urgent and long-standing need for long-term commitments to diverse hiring and executive leadership, divestment from the police, accessibility, and a zero-tolerance policy for racism from staff or visitors.

Of course, none of these demands are new. They’ve been introduced by the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition, the Art Workers Coalition, Women Artists in Revolution, and others since the turn of the century and before. Until changes are made, there is no volume of social media posts or public letters that could undo museums’ willing complicity in white supremacy. Here, a group of art workers share testimonials, observations, and ideas for a path forward.

ART + MUSEUM TRANSPARENCY

Workers’ collective

“Some museums have been talking about taking this moment to support and lift up those already doing this work, which we applaud but have not seen concrete action on. One way would be to redistribute wealth to museums in the Association of African American Museums, many of which operate on budgets magnitudes smaller than places like MoMA or the Met and, unlike those museums, are under existential threat from COVID-19.”

THOMAS J. LAX

Curator, MoMA, New York City

“Okwui Enwezor used to say that museums are repositories of the human imagination; Linda Goode Bryant, founder of Just Above Midtown Gallery, says that cultural institutions should be in the business of turning can’ts into cans. The Black curatorial tradition is one of radical possibilities; any claim to do otherwise under the name of Blackness is a travesty to our collective inheritance.”

JESSICA LYNNE

Art critic, ARTS.BLACK

“Meg Onli, associate curator at ICA Philadelphia, organized the Art for Philadelphia Community Bail Fund benefit, and I have been really energized by her effort. The benefit featured a suite of prints by seven Philly artists, with the proceeds going directly to the city’s bail fund that posts bail for individuals who are not able to do so, with the mission of ultimately ending cash bail entirely in Philly.”

LAURA RAICOVICH

Interim director, Leslie-Lohman Museum, New York City, and author of a forthcoming book on art and protest

“There’s something that really has bugged me about a lot of the statements coming out, and it’s about listening. I think that the conversations and the demands, especially around race in the United States, have been made for so long that if you’re still on ‘listening,’ there’s a problem. You’ve got to be figuring out what to do and doing it.”

TIONA NEKKIA McCLODDEN

Visual artist

“Black artists should not stop working or presenting our work at this moment. Art is language, and for many of us that is how we process and work through the intersections of our lives. Cultural institutions must understand that they will have to be reworked from the inside out. Change will not occur without conflict in the attempt to repair many years of exclusion, and institutions must care for the Black artists and staff within these spaces.”

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TAYLOR RENEE ALDRIGE

Art critic, ARTS.BLACK

“I appreciated MoMA’s response to Trump’s entry ban of people from Muslim countries in 2017. The museum facilitated a quick rehang of their permanent collection to feature works by artists from majority-Muslim nations. I do believe, however, that the pervasiveness of anti-Black violence (that is so foundational to the making of many American museums) will require more than a curatorial shift, and rather a systemic institutional one.”

LEGACY RUSSELL

Curator, the Studio Museum in Harlem

“I’ve deeply appreciated Jackie Wang, Sarah Lewis, Bryan Stevenson, Glenn Ligon, Tina Campt, Xaviera Simmons, Alexandra Bell, The White Pube (Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad), Mona Chalabi, Nina Chanel Abney, Che Gossett, and Christina Sharpe as voices always, but also right here and right now. Each in their own way is taking time to center the issues at hand as well as providing critical feedback on, and analysis of, this moment in time.”

HANS ULRICH OBRIST

Artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, London

“Edouard Glissant’s activities as a poet, philosopher, public intellectual, and curator not only encompassed literary and theoretical work, but he consistently said that what matters is the production of reality. Glissant imagined the museum as an archipelago; it would not house a synthesis but a network of interrelationships. Glissant wanted to create a museum which would not only point at urgencies but also find agency to respond to these urgencies.”

TAYLOR BRAN DON

Curator

“Yes, you have the work of a Black artist on your wall, but do you have staff that are a representation of that and can speak authentically to the cultural nuances of said work? Are that same staff equitably paid? Are they listened to and cared for? Do roles for them exist outside of educational and community engagement departments?”