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