Department of Publications Hillary Brown Candice Lawrence
from the director
Design Noelle Shuck
F ifty years ago, many of us protested the war in Vietnam as well as other political and educational policies with which we took exception. At the same time, we were Baby Boomers graduating from college. My friend, who leads the committee to plan this year’s 50th reunion at my undergraduate school, sent me information about the experience of Grinnell College, a similar liberal-arts school. Grinnell’s May 8, 1970, headline on their campus newspaper, Scarlet and Black (!), announced “Grinnell College Closes Doors in Protest.” At my undergraduate school, we actually held commencement in 1970, but some of us protested with peace symbols sewn on our gowns or painted on our mortarboards. Some of my classmates refused to go to the ceremony. Fifty years later both schools canceled once again traditional commencements because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it is all happening again, it seems, even at the University of Georgia. We’ve all encountered the now-cliché of “pivoting” to meet new circumstances. In our case at the Georgia Museum of Art, we didn’t pivot. We swerved! Immediately upon closing the university back in March, the staff of the museum began preparing to meet the expectations of our publics to remain relevant — in short, to continue to fulfill our mission of teaching and service through visual-arts education and research. We put exhibitions online, and we had numerous “followers,” for our classes in mindfulness and yoga. We kept our public informed through gallery talks, blogs and even lectures. One lecture by our curator of the African diaspora, Shawnya Harris, was especially effective in bringing the works and career of the neglected African American artist Vertis Hayes to light, in anticipation of a major future monographic show here at the museum. Even as we sheltered, we were busily investigating how to remain true to our mission in the present while planning for a future that, of necessity, will require virtual programming. If nothing else, our reduced budgets will necessitate fewer on-site events at the museum. Another example of our swerving to accommodate students at the university was also virtual but nonetheless real. MFA students at UGA have the requirement of an “exit show” in order to earn their degrees. Since a physical, on-site exhibition was impossible this year, we presented their exhibition online so that their requirements for graduation were fulfilled. We have also used this time to contemplate and to plan for our future. All of us at the university and museum face a new reality — a much better expression of experience for me than the overworked and inaccurate description of a “new normal.”
International groups and certainly museum organizations in the United States are grappling with how to respond to COVID-19 and to the demands of our constituents to make the museum a bulwark against injustice and racism. The French say, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” which means “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” For us, and for our colleagues on the faculty and in our sister institutions at museums around the globe, that phrase rings hollow. Change cannot continue to be “the same thing” any longer. We must develop new programs, new means of delivery, new attitudes toward means of inclusion in our planning. We cannot ignore the social—even political— components of our work, and we must strive to fight the inequities of racism and all other “isms” that include hatred or fear in their definitions. After all, homophobia and misogyny as well as racism all have roots in fear as well as in hatred. We at the museum used our time away from our building and away from each other to strategize, to develop new programming and to contemplate our future with reduced human and financial resources (while remaining active in quarantine). I am proud of what we accomplished. I know that the staff will consider carefully how we proceed into this new reality and that we accept and grow with the challenges ahead. As I have witnessed over the past 30-plus years, I am encouraged in the belief that you, our public, will help us — will “follow us” in cyber terms — as we bring this museum firmly and squarely into the 21st century.
Georgia Museum of Art University of Georgia 90 Carlton Street Athens, GA 30602-1502 www.georgiamuseum.org
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HOURS At press time, the museum is
closed to the public indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Please visit our website for online exhibitions, Art at Home projects, our collections database and more.
The Museum Shop is accepting online orders.
William Underwood Eiland, Director
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