The transformative role of art during the pandemic Anne Pasternak

I’d like to just start with a bit of a

setup from you to give us a framing

around your views around the role of

artists and cultural institutions how

can they be truly engaged in the civic

and democratic conversation and your

sense of how they can help us understand

heal and even build back better Thank

You Chi you know let’s be honest long

after we are all gone it’s the arts that

will remain there gonna be the

chroniclers of our time they both tell

our truths they will expose the lies

they will be how future generations

learn about our present from literature

and music architecture and design film

and the visual arts it’s the arts that

really really matter and for those of us

who are living in the here and now this

time of turmoil and anxiety and great

disruption the arts are going to help us

expand our understanding and they’re

going to bring us together in healing

and help us express pain and even draw

again the arts and in particular artists

are going to help us ignite what we love

to call the radical imagination for

rebuilding a better society and the arts

will produce the cultural change that

leads to this social change which is

necessary for political economic and

policy change and I’d like to say that

museums are particularly important in

this context we are fundamental pillars

of our society and among the few truly

public democratic spaces for people to

come together their places of

inspiration and learning and we helped

expand empathy and moral thinking we’re

places for difficult and courageous

conversations

and I believe we can and must be places

in real service of community

I personally happen to be particularly

blessed to be at a museum that takes

these roles seriously in fact the

Brooklyn Museum I’d say is a warrior

we’ve survived the Civil War in World

War two and the Spanish flu and 9/11

against adversity we come punching back

again and again we have to because we’re

one of the oldest and largest museums in

the country and we are one of the

biggest cultural institutions in a

borough of over two and a half million

people that means that if we were in the

independent city we’d be the third

largest in the United States so we’ve

got to come back strong and especially

now because we are nestled in between

numerous dynamic culturally diverse

neighborhoods in central Brooklyn and

this is one of the areas that has been

hardest hit by coded in the world

certainly in our nation and we see how

our communities are being affected by

Koba and how they’re greatly impacted by

the disparities we see in our nation

there is real grief as well as health

food housing job and economic and

security so you bet we want to come back

strong we want to act we want to serve

and we want to do this in many ways

you are you are certainly a warrior and

you are also no stranger to crisis I

remember after 9/11 you were in New York

City you were running in an arts

organization called creative time and

the response to 9/11 from creative time

was absolutely transcendent I would love

for you to just speak to that a little

bit what happened and and how did you

feel like the way that you could best

connect to a grieving and very shaken

world you know it’s an amazing story a

few hours after 9/11 I got a call from

the art director of the New York Times

magazine and she said Ann we need to be

in touch with artists about what

happened today and I thought geez we

don’t even know what happened today but

I immediately called two artists artists

who were in a residency program in the

South Tower and I said boys put your

pain and your grief into your art it’s

kind of a naive sentiment but indeed

they did that and their dream of two

beacons of light that would illuminate

lower Manhattan ended up on the cover of

the New York Times Magazine a week or so

later and that ended up becoming what we

have all come to know and love as the

Tribute in Light you know that lights

first appeared six months after 9/11 and

it felt like an eternity at the time it

was meant to be a temporary memorial and

just to last a maximum of 90 days but I

think we all know that every anniversary

of 9/11 for the last 19 years

tributon light has come back and it has

powerfully reclaimed our skyline

honoring lives lost and celebrating the

resiliency and spirit of New York and

it’s always been a go-to moment for me

because it was a very hard project to

pull together and very emotional we

didn’t know how people would respond and

I remember on

the opening night there were television

crews from around the world and Peter

Jennings and the evening news was

entering interviewing a family member

brother of somebody who died in one of

the towers and he asked him what do you

think of this and he said something to

the effect of it is the most painful

thing I have seen and I’m so glad it

exists and it reminds me all the time of

the ways in which art can be challenging

painful and still bring us together in

mourning and in healing and in sharing I

think that those two tributes and like

they think I think of that as something

that was just this ephemeral but spoke

louder than anything else to tell us

about lost and the ephemerality of those

two pieces it’s just a serious aunt who

into your into your soul really so here

we are and we’re really in the midst of

a lot and I know you as a museum

director and such a such a fierce

advocate I know you’re thinking about

all kinds of things now I think probably

just staying alive as a cultural

institution is no small feat but tell us

a little bit about have you started to

think about an art response to Kovach

yet this does anything start to kind of

emerge as a way to recognize the

thousands who have been lost and likely

thousands more who a loss yes you know

we’ve had a lot of conversations about

how art whether it’s in our collections

or art that we may Commission or you

know bring into the museum can really

help us with our understanding at this

moment and I will say even though it’s

quite premature that you know we had a

conversation with Laurie combo who is

our City Council majority leader and a

arts person to her

or and she said and why don’t you

project people who die have died of it

on the facade of the museum and you know

you have you just know something is a

great idea when you get shivers you know

through your body and it really stuck

with us and so we’ve started to pursue

this idea it sounds really simple in

fact to do it well is really hard not

because of the technology but because

the simple truth is is that you want to

do this with the lens of real equity and

nobody is really counting the people and

and get you know researching and making

obituaries for all the people who have

died in our city so right now in New

York City more than 22,000 people have

died of coded in the past three months

and they’ve only mostly been a number

and it’s time that we put face and story

to this inconceivable amount of loss and

but you know about a third of the people

who have died of kovin in our city are

frontline workers they’re often

immigrants or people who are not likely

to have an obituary in you know a paper

like the New York Times which is quite

expensive so finding these people

getting their their family members and

getting their participation is going to

involve a great deal of community work

and outreach but we’re committed that if

we do this project we’re going to do it

with a real lens of equity and showing

the real dimensions of what code that

has taken from us while giving people an

opportunity to come together to

collectively mourn and to celebrate logs

will live yeah but I mean that already

sounds so powerful this is this notion

that you’ve had yes we’ll forgive it

done this equity agenda that you’ve

brought to the Brooklyn Museum I mean

this is a very old and somewhat codified

institution you’ve only been there since

2015 you’ve I think you’ve really

shifted the narrative there and started

to think about what else can we put on

our walls what are we missing

who’s not being represented I think at

the Brooklyn Museum is kind of a force

in terms of really opening up the

conversation and I’d like love for you

to just talk to that a little bit about

how you’ve set the framing well first of

all I want to say that community care

and diversity is in the DNA of our

institution so this is not something I

brought to the organization it’s been

there and my predecessor in particular

did a phenomenal job of really advancing

diversity equity and inclusion before

those were kind of but buzzwords in the

field but I do want to say that museums

like ours have a hugely important role

to play in this moment of real social

and necessary social upheaval in our

country

so first Jay let’s acknowledge museums

like ours were founded on the

fundamental belief that the sharing of

world cultures would lead to greater

understanding and empathy and thereby

advance deciding sounds good I still

value this ideal but we also have to

recognize that the histories are

inextricably linked with colonialist

agendas and in many ways museums like

ours have contribute to painting because

the stories we have told through

exhibitions and collections have

privileged Western wide hierarchies and

have suppressed the truths and cultures

of others so it’s long overdue that we

acknowledge these histories our own

histories and practices and do all we

can to dismantle them within our own

institutions and as it field we have a

lot to do to spotlight untold and

suppressed histories cultures and art

Chris example since I’ve been at the

museum I’ve been super proud of numerous

shows that have put a spotlight on

suppressed histories such as

african-american and

next cultures to LGBTQ con contributions

and we’re super proud of our awesome

education team with their social justice

pedagogy and our public programs team

with their incredible events

consistently celebrating diverse

cultures and we are proud of a lot of

structural changes we’ve made like

growing paid internships to diversify

the pipeline in our field and we’re

excited about future plans but we know

that change starts with ourselves and we

know to go we have to go a lot further

we must all commit it’s just super

charging structural change within our

institutions and within society Wow yeah

I think you’re not alone and I think

almost any sensitive and tuned

institution is thinking this way we are

already bursting with questions from our

audience and I’m going to bring up the

first one is from Paul Rucker Paul s how

are you considering the health of your

janitorial staff and security staff when

making decisions about opening and

engaging with the community have these

employees been involved in the

conversations about reopening Paul

that’s a really great question and I

want to thank you for it super important

and I want to say that New York museums

and my colleagues are wonderful as well

as national and global colleagues are on

calls every single week to discuss how

we’re going to create a safe as safe as

can be and healthy environment in light

of our koban reality for our staff first

and foremost it’s not if it’s not safe

for them it’s not safe for our visitors

and so yes at the Brooklyn Museum we

have organized a very diverse team of

people working on these problems

together and by the time we open will

have gotten the museum as responsive and

safe as we possibly can

excellent

our next question is it comes up well

though so a question from our community

how can we place at the center of

conversations around about

revitalization and recovery I’m sorry

how can we place art at the center of

conversations about revitalization and

recovery in this moment and so one of

the things I want to say is that a lot

of artists are actively participating in

the movements that we’re seeing all over

the country and all over the world they

are real players in helping to shape the

movement buildings so I’m very very

encouraged about that and you know I

think the bigger challenge is probably

how we bring community into the center

of art to make sure that we are being as

responsive as we must be excellent thank

you

I am I wonder if you’ve also been in

conversation with artists in terms of

some of the responses that you’ve been

seeing out there how are artists

responding and using this moment of

creativity you know it’s a very good

question and I think time will tell

you know the artists that I’m speaking

with are very concerned about the

disparities that COBIT has made even

more explicit than they already were and

are creating work about that they’re

creating their own types of change

within their own communities really

participating actively as citizens and I

think that we’re gonna see a lot of

extraordinary artim already seen work

that I’m very inspired by and I’m sure

I’m seeing not even a hundredth of a

percent of the work that’s being a

millionth of a percent of the work

that’s being created out there so time

will tell and artists will have a lot to

be sharing with us that will be

extremely important as we imagine the

future right right right

so just going back to the kind of

kind of hard problems those wicked

problems of opening a museum in time

makovan what does that look like do you

have a huge reduction in the numbers

is it like done through staggered timing

what’s what’s the game plan so all of

those things so first of all we all have

equations of how many peoples can safely

be in a gallery you know if you haven’t

been to the Brooklyn Museum it’s a giant

old Bozarth we’re nearly 150 year old

building you know it’s it’s huge so we

could accommodate a lot of people but

it’ll still be 3/4 reduction of what our

capacity would be before and we also

think so we’ll have timed entrances

we’ll ask people to RSVP in advance so

that people don’t have to wait in lines

and visitor services people don’t need

to take tickets or pay what you wish

museum and most you know half of the

audiences are young and local and and

don’t pay anyway so you know just are

hopefully most people were RSVP although

we’ll take walkins as well and you know

we will monitor social distancing and

this friendly and joyous is a way as we

possibly can masks will be required and

I do want to say you know I

I know people hate crowded museums but I

can say that I hate an empty museum so

I’m prepared for a lot of heartbreak

when we reopen because you know

three-quarters less people doesn’t make

me happy about the numbers of people

were touching and inspiring and and and

you know meeting and I’m especially sad

because it looks like the New York City

Department of Education will not being

able to have field trips for the next

year and I cannot imagine how it’s going

to feel not to see children filling our

galleries every single morning so so

we’re in for some tough times but we’re

going to try to make the experience as

joyous and intentional as we can and I

mean having been in your museum when it

feels almost like a rave opening party

when some

something’s happening there and the joy

really does reverberate through the

institution other ways that you can

bring the museum outside as as you’ve

done your whole career with creative

time you’re thinking about other ways of

just touching your audiences yeah so the

memorial is one idea if we can get that

done you know we have an exhibition in

the Museum of the artist TED Prize

winner Jay are at the Museum right now

and jr. and his team have been out

photographing the frontline workers in

particular hospital workers in Brooklyn

and we will wheat paste on the facade of

the museum portraits of those of those

wonderful people who have you know

really risked their life to say save

others so there are a whole bunch of

things that in fact we are planning that

will activate our public spaces yes we

we attend to share your passion and

enthusiasm for JR he’s just doing

wonderful things he’s a man magical

unicorn of a human being he’s really

extraordinary and I think Ted very well

yes that’s right um yes we’ve had we’ve

had great experiences with jr. and we’re

so happy to see his work I have the

Brooklyn Museum and even extending

beyond the Brooklyn Museum and we talk

at the Museum at part of that show

and it is always such a pleasure to see

mute man to talk to you and I know you

know he will not be held back this this

is going to be something that you and

Brooklyn Museum embrace and we’ll make

something extraordinary surprising and

really passionate so thank you for your

work my job