Inside the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. (Unsplash) When Warren B. Kanders resigned from the Whitney Museum of American Art’s board of trustees last year, the disgraced multimillionaire penned a sour letter lamenting a demise in decency.
His involvement with the weapons manufacturer Safariland, he claimed , had little to do with the museum’s mission or his position as vice chairman: “The politicized and oftentimes toxic environment in which we find ourselves across all spheres of public discourse, including the art community, puts the work of this board in great jeopardy.” Artists and workers felt otherwise.
Whitney staff members signed an open letter calling for Kanders’s resignation after Hyperallergic first reported on Kanders’s connections to Safariland. Withdrawals from the Whitney Biennial exhibition accompanied weekly protests in the museum’s lobby organized by the artist-activist group Decolonize This Place (DTP).
Many in the media wondered how someone who profits from tear gas used by the US Border Patrol could rank so highly at such a prestigious cultural institution. One year later, New York’s art museums are regularly in the news for similar controversies. Waves of protests at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) have called out trustees for […]
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