The museum wrote that it was seeking a director who would work to maintain its “core, white art audience,” in addition to attracting a more diverse one.

Many of these specialists — who clean, restore and stabilize ancient objects — tell how they’ve been hurt by covid-19 restrictions.

The art museum in Florence was one of the first to use the social media platform, posting unusually irreverent videos that challenge its dignified reputation.

by Radiah Harper Dedicated to Peter Alan Harper, who showed up when I was writing. In 1979, my art history professor told me, “There are no great black artists”. I remember thinking, “What? Are you…

On building a collection that unsettles the powerful and corrupt.

"Kete enables communities to collaboratively build their own digital libraries, archives and repositories. Your community builds the repository by writing topics, uploading images, audio, video and documents and then linking and discussing them."

The remains of indigenous people from all over the world have ended up in various British institutions. Why do their descendants have so much trouble getting them returned?

A British museum has returned locks of an emperor’s hair to Ethiopia. But dealing with culturally sensitive objects is not always so simple.

With storage spaces filled with works that may never be shown, some museums are rethinking the way they collect art, and at least one is ranking what it owns.

"Witnessing other visitors’ vastly different relationships to it made the experience so intense, and at times painful."

"Developing a program or exhibition that reflects upon or invites dialogue on some contemporary social movement, such as Black Lives Matter, for example, is not the same as investing in the cultivation of black life." In the fourth edition of Soundboard, our multi-author feature, artist and Tufts professor Anthony Romero offers his 2019 New Year's resolutions for art museums.

In 2015, a demographic survey of the staff of North American art museums conducted by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and Ithaka S+R found that the staff composition of museums in the United States is not remotely representative of the country’s population....In 2015, a demographic survey of the staff of North American art museums conducted by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and Ithaka S+R found that the staff composition of museums in the United States is not remotely representative of the country’s population....In response to our report, museum directors, curators, conservators, professional organizations, and foundations have come forward to confront the challenge and launch programs that seek to address its many dimensions. To shine a light on fruitful approaches to this work, the Mellon Foundation partnered again with Ithaka S+R and AAMD to conduct a series of case studies of AAMD members to analyze how these museums have succeeded in achieving relatively robust demographic diversity among staff.

Hoping to reflect a broader range of visitors, museums are diversifying their staffs, welcoming a more inclusive generation of future leaders.

US demographics are changing, so an organization welcoming more diverse audiences than it did a decade ago is an expectation, not necessarily an achievement. A goal is to welcome diverse audiences at a representative rate relative to the population. TheRead More ›