th e “museum baby” grows up -...

Th e “Museum Baby”

Grows Up:

32 Museum News July/August 2005

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Clockwise from top left: The author with her mother, 1973; The Dayton Art Institute’s exhibit “The Glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany,” curated by the author; the author today; as a student at the Atlanta University Center, Fleming dreamed of directing an art museum. She is surrounded here by fellow graduates in the art history/studio art program, 1994.

Being a Curator of Color in a Monochromatic Art Museum Worldby Tuliza Fleming

The DreamAs the daughter of a dedicated, politically active museum administrator, I am what various people in the museum world refer to as a “museum baby.” Like other “museum babies” of my generation, I grew up immersed in the world of nonprofit cultural institutions. During my childhood, I visited more museums, went to more exhibit openings, and listened to more conversations and lectures relating to museum practices and trends than most culturally engaged adults attend in a lifetime.

I initially resented having to be present at my father’s innumerable museum-related functions. But as I matured, I grew to love and appreciate the contributions museums make to our nation’s cultural environment. This burgeoning passion for museums and my recognition of their profound impact upon society eventually inspired me to switch my undergraduate major from English/pre-law to art history/studio art. I had decided to enter the museum field. At the age of 18, my future seemed clear—I was going to be an art curator, I was going to direct my own art museum, I was going to make a positive difference in the world of Ameri-can art and art history.

My professors at Spelman College, which is part of the At-lanta University Center, gave me a sense of pride and admira-tion for the contributions made by African-American artists to the canon of American art, and I also began to develop a strong interest in issues of diversity and representation. However, when I visited various “mainstream”1 museums, I quickly recognized that not everyone shared my admira-tion for art created by people of color. Such works often were omitted from or marginalized in the primary visual narra-tive of “American” art. So as I continued my education, I also conducted research and pursued professional projects that sought to increase the public’s awareness and apprecia-tion of diversity in American art. I nurtured these interests throughout my work in cultural institutions, museums, and art programs. As my friend Tosha Grantham, assistant cura-tor of modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum

of Fine Art, said to me recently, I wanted “our nation’s art museums to become places where everyone—regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexuality—feels welcome, included, and represented.” Unfortunately, the reality of my experience has been somewhat different.

The RealitySince 1994, I have visited and worked in a wide variety of culturally specific and mainstream art museums. Over the years, I have become increasingly sensitive to the reality that American museums are not the culturally diverse institutions that I expected to find 11 years after my college graduation. In 1996, I guest-curated an exhibition titled “Breaking Racial Barriers: African Americans in the Harmon Foundation Collection” for the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. This exhibition documented the contextual history of 42 portraits from the Harmon Foundation’s collection of “Outstanding Americans of Negro Origin,” which toured the country between 1944 and 1954. Its goal was to promote the achievements of African Americans, encourage racial tolerance among white Americans, and assist in the eradication of segregation. Yet 50 years later, I am possibly the only African-American curator heading an American art department in this country, and one of approximately 11 black curators working in mainstream art museums today.2

During the nearly four years I have worked as a cura-tor of American art at The Dayton Art Institute in Ohio, at least 50 people have asked me about some issue relating to African art. At first I couldn’t figure out why I was continu-ally being asked to comment about artwork outside of my field. Then one day it dawned on me; these people weren’t responding to my title; my exhibitions on Louis Comfort Tiffany, contemporary American art, or American Impres-sionism; or even my research on the white male 19th-cen-tury artists who painted images relating to slavery, escape, and freedom. When people asked me about African art, they were responding to the color of my skin, which even

Tuliza Fleming is the associate curator of American art, The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio.

Museum News July/August 2005 33

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Gallery shot from “Looking Forward, Looking Black,” when it appeared at the Dayton Art Institute, July-September 2002. The author curated this installation.

in the 21st century has yet to be fully accepted as visually rep-resentative of a true “American.” This recent realization of how I am often perceived within the museum world has prompted me to reflect upon the prospects of a national and collective reevaluation of our history, current practices, and future goals for diversity in our nation’s art museums and other cultural institutions.

It is true that The Dayton Art Institute has an unusually di-verse curatorial staff. Our curator of Asian art is Chinese. Our curator of textiles is Indian and was born and raised in Ke-nya. Our former curator of African art is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.3 Unfortunately we are an anomaly within the art museum field. Issues related to diversity—visi-tor comfort, community inclusion, and visual representation, etc.—have been acknowledged and discussed by art museum professionals on a regular basis for more than 30 years. But ex-cept for the dramatic percentage increase of Caucasian women in decision-making positions, very little substantive progress has been made toward diversifying museum staff—beyond those departments in charge of building maintenance, food service, and security.

The EffectsGiven the paucity of art curators of color in mainstream institutions, it is not surprising that although museums in general draw more of the American public than do other cultural activities—such as live arts performances—art museums do not attract an audience representative of minority groups.4 This is especially pertinent when you consider that the nation’s largest, most esteemed, and most influential museums generally are located in urban areas with large minority populations.

In the United States introducing art to a larger public often has been justified on the grounds that it has moral or civic val-ue. What that means is that if museums aren’t conscious of the manner in which they engage (or ignore) all segments of their communities, they can easily create and reinforce inequalities in society.5 According to Leisure Decisions Influencing Afri-can American Use of Museums (AAM, 1993), a report written by John Falk, although the museum-going habits of African Americans are basically similar to those of other racial groups, there is a distinct under-representation of African-American visitors at many museums.6 This finding reveals as much about the nation itself as it does about the typical museum visitor. As Falk noted:

[A]lthough American society appears to provide an “un-even playing field” for many segments of society, one racial minority has been consistently identified as ‘at risk.’ By virtually any measure one wishes to use, Afri-can Americans, as a whole, do not appear to be receiving equal benefits from the educational opportunities avail-

able either in the formal or informal education sectors. . . . Accordingly, it has been suggested that differential early experiences with educational activities or attitudes towards out-of-school learning on the part of both chil-dren and their parents may be significant contributors to current observed differences in black achievement. Many individuals have concluded that informal education in-stitutions such as museums are important for enhanc-ing both early educational experiences and attitudes, and hence educational performance.7U.S. art museums must look beyond merely attracting a

large number of visitors and more critically at what art and culture really means—to us and to our communities. Ameri-can art is a product of a diverse mix of individuals and groups with unique historical, economic, and ethnic heritage. Under-standing these communities—their differences and their simi-larities—and their connections to our national art museums is key to improving the visitor and educational experience for all Americans. Several museums have recognized the need to im-prove audience diversity and have instituted diversity-based programming such as innovative community outreach, com-prehensive educational programming, and culturally specific exhibitions. However, in light of Falk’s analysis, it is clear that the art museum community can further enhance its relation-ships with underserved communities in a manner that is both productive and sustainable over the long term.

First, art institutions should identify the specific audience(s) they want to attract and honestly assess the degree to which they have or have not met the needs of those audiences. This is particularly important for museums located in major urban areas with significantly diverse populations. About six years ago I was a “diversity intern” at one of the largest and most re-spected art museums in the nation. One day I walked past the education department and noticed a woman frantically sifting though postcards of artworks on display in the museum. When I asked her what was wrong, she replied that she was scheduled to meet with a group of elementary students from a primarily African-American school. To help the students understand the history and relevance of art to their lives, she had intended to give each one a postcard containing African-American faces. But she was unable to locate any examples; instead she gave the children postcards that depicted animals. I will never forget the irony of a national art museum located in a city whose popula-tion was 60-percent black that, at the time, did not have a single image of an African American on display.

The HopeArt museums must move out of their comfort-zones and reflect the full diversity of our communities on multiple levels. My hope is that art museums will join together—either through AAM or the Association of Art Museum


Directors (AAMD)—and truly open themselves up to the process of critical evaluation. Only when art museums have systematically and realistically assessed the current state of diversity in their institutions, both the strengths and the weaknesses, will they effectively establish and initiate concrete goals for nationwide inclusion. In the words of Lonnie Bunch, “If museums are to be welcoming places for people of different racial, ethnic, social, economic, and educational backgrounds, and if they are to use their collections to present a variety of perspectives, they must recruit, hire or select, and foster the professional growth of trustees, staff, and volunteers who reflect diverse audiences and multiple perspectives.”8

The diversification of museum staff and community volun-teers, across all levels of management and administration, is a crucial and necessary step if museums truly hope to reflect and respond to the changing dynamics of America’s population. Of course, the implementation and success of any diversity initia-tive depends upon the commitment of ongoing interest and resources from the museums most powerful and influential leaders—members of the board of trustees, directors, CEOs, and COOs. Our museum leaders must go further than merely stating the need for diversity and ensure that diversity occurs through the process of re-envisioning museum missions, goal-setting, accountability, staff development, community inclu-sion, and most importantly, inreach.9

If we are truly dedicated to increasing system-wide diver-sity within our art institutions, then we must regularly assess the unique population statistics of our region, compare the re-sults to our own institutions, and ask ourselves the following questions:• Do our employees reflect the diversity of the region or the

nation? • Are the majority of our minority employees concentrated

in hourly wage, part-time, and/or support positions? • Do we have a diverse presence on our board of trustees? • Do we partner with representatives from local schools,

universities, and cultural groups when we plan educational programs and exhibitions?

• Do we actively encourage underrepresented groups in our community to participate in internships, volunteer pro-grams, and docent programs?

• Do we incorporate a variety of viewpoints in our perma-nent and special exhibitions?

• Do we own and display art that reflects the diversity of the nation and/or the region?

• Are we accessible to all people—the elderly, learning dis-

abled, the physically disabled, lower-in-come families, etc.?

Even though I imagine that very few of our nation’s art museums could answer yes to all of these questions, we must all strive to incorporate these practices in our normative routine. These important structural changes and improvements can only occur when our institutional leaders acknowledge and seek to address the problem of cultural homogeneity within the field.

The PlanOne of the most important strategies museum leaders can institute is the training and hiring of diverse staff for curatorial, marketing, finance, development, and administrative positions. Implementing paid diversity internship programs—geared toward people of all ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds—is an extremely effective method of introducing underrepresented groups to the variety of careers available in the museum field. These internships give students with limited financial resources the opportunity to explore their interests in museums without creating undue financial hardship on themselves or their families. I benefited tremendously from my internships in a wide variety of museums, which led me to my current career as a curator at a mid-size, mainstream, and encyclopedic art museum.

Given the financial constraints faced by many of our na-tion’s museums, I suggest that professional organizations such as AAM, AAMD, and the Association of African American Museums (AAAM) work together to expand upon existing programs such as the National Museum Fellowship Program.10 The result could be a national, long-term, multidisciplinary internship/fellowship program specifically geared toward in-creasing staff diversity and diversity awareness in America’s cultural institutions. It would differ from other existing pro-grams by providing both a stipend for expenses and also need-based housing (in a dorm-like environment), particularly in museum-rich but prohibitively expensive urban areas such as New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Los An-geles. Participating museums, universities, and other cultural institutions could work collectively to raise money, create rel-evant programming, and provide the housing. The program would simultaneously encourage young students to enter the field and provide museums with trained young professionals from a variety of backgrounds.

It is also equally important that current staff, particularly those in leadership positions, are encouraged and, if need be, required to learn about and respond to the pressing need to diversify the art museum. For instance, while working as

Kevin Cole’s Hip Hop Musicians, 2002, from the exhibition “Looking Forward, Looking Black.”


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a curatorial intern at a major art mu-seum, I was invited to have lunch with a museum contractor of Asian de-scent. During our conversation, she asked me about my career aspirations. When I discussed my desire to become a curator of American art and eventu-ally direct a major American art mu-seum, the woman replied that she did not believe that black people should be encouraged to hold decision-mak-ing positions in museums. “Blacks are not emotionally equipped to handle the rigorous research, long hours, and important decisions that are required from art curators and directors,” she told me. “Blacks should restrict their careers to less-demand-ing positions in museums so that they can express their natu-ral inclinations to have fun and be emotionally and intellectu-ally carefree.” After I told her exactly what I thought of her ignorant and racist comments, I immediately recommended to my supervisor that the museum implement staff diversi-ty training. I am not sure whether this training actually oc-curred, but I mention this incident to illustrate the insidious nature of racism and how it can taint some people’s perception of individuals in the workplace.

Human nature often compels people not only to judge oth-ers based on social and ethnic stereotypes but also to gravitate toward those with a similar upbringing, ethnic heritage, and class background. To move beyond this tendency, we must consciously place ourselves in situations that differ from our normal experience. More often than not, the museum staff who attend diversity-related conferences and workshops ei-ther fall into the diversity category themselves or already have exhibited a long-standing commitment to expanding the field. Their attendance tends to illustrate the old adage of “preach-ing to the choir.”

But what if institutional leaders required all staff attending such conferences to report on those sessions to their super-visors and colleagues, thus aiding the continued growth and development of the museum? And once the museum becomes more successful with its diversity efforts, staff members then could chair their own panels at future conferences.

Of course, staff participation in diversity efforts must go beyond the occasional conference. Museum leaders and staff also must show interest in the cultural activities organized by the communities they wish to attract. The practice of part-nerships and reciprocity is essential to gaining the trust and respect of any group. We must encourage all staff members (not merely the few minorities) in the museum to attend eth-nic-specific cultural events organized by other groups and

reciprocate by inviting their staff to attend our events. When directors and administrators visit the leaders of local cultural, religious, and so-cial-service institutions to discuss community concerns, improving the museum, and possible future collaborations, they must treat these leaders as they would any other pro-fessional. Far too often, we bring in members of our underserved com-munities, pick their brains for ideas, and then neglect to compensate them for their critical contribu-tions. If we want community lead-ers to share their expertise with us,

then we should pay them the standard consultant’s fee and/or publicly recognize their contributions to our institutions.

Art museums also have to critically evaluate and enhance the effectiveness of their marketing strategies to underserved communities. We must ask ourselves questions such as: • Do we advertise on culturally specific radio stations, in lower-

economic neighborhoods, and in community centers? • Are we marketing all of our exhibitions and programs or

merely the “ethnic” ones to our underserved communities? • Are our shows advertised to non-English speakers?

Even so, many museums make the mistake of reaching out to minority communities solely when they are featuring an exhibition or program related to that particular group (e.g., mounting exhibitions on African-American art only during Black History Month). The problem with this strategy is that it presumes that ethnic groups are just interested in art about or related to their own culture. It discriminates against white people as well by assuming that they would not be interested in seeing art by or about people of color. Even if this assump-tion is accurate, by catering to this limited viewpoint muse-ums inadvertently support it.

If a museum installs and markets its exhibitions creatively almost any subject can be made interesting and relevant to a diverse American public. Art created by African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Latino and Hispanic Americans is by definition American art and can be equal-ly appreciated by all Americans. In the same way, nonwhite Americans have a profound appreciation of art from all eth-nic groups and should be marketed to accordingly. In 2002, I was the in-house curator for a traveling exhibition we hosted. “Looking Forward, Looking Black” focused on the controver-sial strategy, used primarily by contemporary African-Ameri-can artists, of appropriating stereotypes as a method of post-modern deconstruction. Because this was an unfamiliar topic for The Dayton Art Institute’s audience base, I expanded the


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The Dayton Art Institute acquired this painting by Hughie Lee-Smith after hosting “Looking Forward, Looking Black” in 2002.

exhibition to educate our community about issues of racism, stereotypes, and identity in American art. This included add-ing a significant number of works artists created during the 1960s and ’70s to illustrate the differences and similarities be-tween the post-modernism of the contemporary artists and the black nationalism of the previous generation. One gallery explored the social and economic history of popular racist imagery. This section, which the audience viewed prior to see-ing the artworks, showed that racism and stereotyping have a detrimental effect on all Americans—not just the groups that have been the victims of caricatures.

“Looking Forward, Looking Black” allowed our entire audi-ence base to see the controversial issues it depicted as “Ameri-can” rather than “African American,” and we were able to engage a much broader community than we originally antici-pated. In addition, the exhibition increased our staff, docents’, and volunteers’ interest in African-American art. Since then, the museum has acquired seven works by Herbert Gentry, a painting by Hughie Lee-Smith, a sculpture by Alison Saar, a dance floor by Sanford Biggers, and a sculpture by Kevin Cole, many of which are featured in our educational programs and tours. However, perhaps our most influential discovery was the fact that ours was the first mainstream American art museum to mount a significant exhibition on the art of the Black Power Movement. This discovery, among other factors, prompted me to propose that The Dayton Art Institute mount a major retrospective traveling exhibition on AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), the artist collec-tive founded in the late 1960s. The exhibit is scheduled to open in 2008 and will travel around the country.

The Dream RevisitedTwenty-five years ago, professionals in the American museum field questioned whether women had the ability to enter and succeed in leadership positions in large-scale national cultural institutions. Today this question is no longer an issue as women have not only succeeded in attaining and retaining leadership positions but are also the largest group currently working in the field. As an African-American woman who once dreamed of becoming a director of a major national art museum, my question is, How many more years do we have to wait before color, class, and other diversity-related categories cease to be a major barrier to success in American art museums?

My hope is that within the next few years art museums will organize a network, perhaps in cooperation with other institu-tions sharing similar goals, and proactively begin to diversify all segments of the field. As history illustrates, significant so-cial change does not occur without courage or sacrifice. My dream is that our museum leaders will find it in the best inter-ests of their institutions, staff, and communities to participate in the struggle and hold themselves accountable for their suc-

cess or failure. Only then will the rhetoric of inclusion become the reality of experience.

Notes1. The term “mainstream” is used to indicate museums that do not con-

sider themselves culturally or ethnically specific (i.e., their primary mission does not specify serving and/or representing “nonwhite” communities).

2. When I initially set out to write this article, I intended to begin with a brief commentary on the state of diversity within the art museum field. After contacting representatives at AAM, AAMD, and the Col-lege Art Association, I discovered that there is virtually no compre-hensive data on diversity within America’s art museums. Due to the lack of information relating to the number of curators in American art museums and African-American curators in particular, I relied on friends and colleagues to generate these figures.

3. When The Dayton Art Institute hired Niangi Batalukisi in 2000, she was the first African woman to curate an African art collection in an American art museum.

4. Vera L. Zolberg, “Barrier or Leveler? The Case of the Art Museum,” in Michéle Lamont and Marcel Fournier, eds., Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality (Chicago: Univer-sity of Chicago Press, 1992), 190.

5. Ibid., 188.

6. Though in this article, which has been written from my personal per-spective and experience, I have privileged the “African-American community” in my discussion of diversity in American art muse-ums, I do not want to imply that African Americans should be con-sidered as a monolithic group. In addition, many of my suggestions and criticisms can and should be applied to other underserved con-stituencies, including Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latino and Hispanic Americans, disabled Americans, American seniors, gay and lesbian Americans, and Americans of lower socio-economic status.

7. John H. Falk, Leisure Decisions Influencing African American Use of Museums (Washington, D.C.: American Association of Museums, 1993), 4-5.

8. Lonnie G. Bunch, “Flies in the Buttermilk: Museums, Diversity, & the Will to Change,” Museum News (July/August 2000), 33.

9. Bunch defines the term “inreach” as a “concept that challenges the profession to be more introspective, more deliberate, more honest, and more explicit in its efforts to change itself.” Bunch, “Flies in the Buttermilk,” 34.

10. Formerly known as the Atlanta Museum Fellows Program, the Na-tional Museum Fellowship Program originally was developed in 1994 by Dr. Rick Beard and Dr. Billie D. Gaines. Its mission is to aid the diversification of the museum profession through field-specific education, work experience, and professional contacts. Additional information on the program can be found at www.atlantahistory center.com.


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