Rose Art Museum Commissions Mark Bradford to Represent U.S. at the 2017 Venice Biennale

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Photo credit: Mark Bradford, Father, You Have Murdered Me. 2012. Purchased with funds from Mortimer & Sara Hays Acquisition Fund and the Rose Art Museum Special Fund.

In another win for the state of Massachusetts, the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University has commissioned artist Mark Bradford to represent the United States at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Commissioned and co-curated by Christopher Bedford, the Director of the Rose Art Museum and Curator-at- Large for the Rose Art Museum, Katy Siegel, Mark Bradford’s selection to represent the US in Venice is the second consecutive commission from a Massachusetts’ institution. The 56th Venice Biennale was commissioned to performance and video art pioneer Joan Jonas by the List Visual Arts Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mark Bradford will create a new site-specific installation for the U.S Pavilion in Venice, Italy to be on view May 13-November 26, 2017.

“The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University is honored to present the work of Mark Bradford as the official United States Representative to the 2017 Venice Biennale,” commented Christopher Bedford, the Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose Art Museum.  “As the leading American abstract painter of his generation and a vigorous advocate for the interests of under-represented urban communities in the U.S. and beyond, Bradford creates work that embodies art’s capacity to both inspire wonder and catalyze enduring social change.  Similarly, the Rose’s renowned collection of postwar art is rooted in a commitment to material invention and expanding knowledge through culture, while Brandeis’s investment in social justice as a core value permeates the work of every teaching and research unit of the University. It is with the greatest pleasure that we announce our collaboration with Mark Bradford: no artist could be better aligned with the character of our institution or better positioned to represent the United States in the 21st century,” added Bedford.

A recipient of a 2009 MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius’ Award, Mark Bradford was born in 1961 and lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2010, Christopher Bedford organized the critically acclaimed exhibit, Mark Bradford, a large-scale survey of Bradford’s work at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, before traveling to the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Mark Bradford’s work has been widely exhibited and has been included in group shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2014), Whitney Museum of American Art (2013), the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011), Seoul Biennial (2010), the Carnegie International (2008), São Paulo Biennial (2006), and Whitney Biennial (2006).

Congratulations to the Rose Art Museum and Mark Bradford!

All Power to the People: Stanley Nelson at Emerson College Discusses Filmmaking, The Black Panthers and His Next Film

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PBS-BlackPanthers_27x40On Thursday April 7th—as part of their Bright Lights Film Series—Emerson College screened Emmy Award winner and MacArthur “genius” Fellow, Stanley Nelson’s latest film, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. Nelson’s documentary is the first feature length film “to explore the Black Panther Party, its significance to the broader American culture, its cultural and political awakening for black people, and the painful lessons wrought when a movement derails.”

The screening was followed by a Q&A with Nelson moderated by Emerson College professor Cara Moyer-Duncan. Professor Moyer-Duncan opened the Q&A session by framing all of Nelson’s films in context to their subject matter and asking Nelson about his experience as a filmmaker, specifically about where his interest in making films came from.  “I took a class in filmmaking in college and I liked it and stuck with it. But it wasn’t like I went out there on a mission to tell these stories, it just kind of happened. For me, one thing that I learned is that it can take a long time to make a film. It took me seven years to make my first film and the film was successful and it aired nationally on PBS. It took me seven years to make the next one and it took me seven years to make the film that you just saw [The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution] and I feel I should be making films about things that are important to me,” Nelson responded.

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Stanley Nelson in conversation with Cara Moyer-Duncan. Photo by the author.

Speaking directly to the filmmaking students in the audience, Nelson said that as filmmakers they should make films about subjects that are important to them just as he has been doing, be it shoe laces, their sneakers or anything that matters to them.

The film The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution explores in depth the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party, from its founding in 1966 in a time of tremendous political turmoil to the Party’s social programs—many of which were in fact the first social programs of their kind in the nation and which were all soon adopted in one form or another, by the government.

One of the first questions of the night came from a student who wanted to know the specifics of Nelson’s research as it pertained to what was included in the film. The student claimed Nelson left out many of the Party’s social programs to which Nelson responded by saying that his intention was not to leave out anything. “You can’t include everything in a film. There’s a section in the film where Elaine Brown and I forget who else talk about the fact that the Black Panthers did not believe in capitalism. One of the things you have to understand is that it is very hard to talk about socialism in a film, because for most people, you have to define what socialism is and it’s a lot of work. That’s a whole different film. This is a film that is two hours long, so there’s a lot that was left out. One of the challenges of a filmmaker is to try to figure out what you can put in and what you can leave out.”

Using archival footage and interviews, the film highlights the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation which was then spearheaded by J. Edgar Hoover and its program COINTRELPRO (COunter INTELligence PROgram). This program targeted not only Black Panther Party members, but also at other minority organizations by surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting and any disrupting any political movements using overt racist and illegal tactics. The program landed many of those involved with the Black Panther Party in jail for simply existing and exercising their right to freedom of speech, assembly and petition. Stanley Nelson spoke of the current movement to free those members of the Black Panther Party that remain incarcerated and added that there are currently around sixteen or seventeen Panthers still in jail.

In the works years before the current Black Lives Matter movement, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution has served as a tool for activists to continue doing the work they’re doing. “The Panthers can serve as an inspiration, they’re not a model. Nobody is saying that do what the Panthers did and go back to that time, but they can be an inspiration—I hope—for young people, and young people can understand that you can make change. I have great confidence in young people. We’ve seen things change, the attitudes of young people” said Nelson.

On taking a serious subject such as the Black Panther Party and injecting bits of humor into his films, Stanley Nelson said that much of the subject matter in his films are too serious and that he wants to make films that are accessible to as many people as possible, “but again, you don’t want to lose the heart and soul [of the film],” said Nelson, adding that humor in his films serve as both to open people up as well as a kind of release in the seriousness of the subjects he engages with. “This is an entertainment too, if you don’t want to watch it, then it doesn’t matter how much information you have in there,” Nelson emphasized.

One of the most delightfully surprising aspects of the films was how much emphasis is placed on the role of women in the Black Panther Party and the Panthers’ views on black masculinity and gender roles.  “We wanted to have women throughout the film. We wanted you to see that it wasn’t just pictures of men standing around looking militant, but that there were women in the pictures—in the front and in the background. We wanted that to be central,” said Stanley Nelson on this aspect of the film. “I didn’t know that women were over fifty-percent of the party. I did not know that,” concluded Nelson.

The lively evening ended with Stanley Nelson speaking about his next project, a film on historic black colleges and universities and how the black middle class was created through these schools. Stanley is exploring among many things, the role historic black colleges and universities continue to play in American society. “It’s a very difficult film. It’s very different from this film [The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution]. They’re all difficult, but we’re right in the middle of it.”

Stanley Nelson was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2002 and the National Humanities Medal by President Obama in August 2014. His films include Freedom Summer, Freedom Riders, Jonestown: The Life and Death of the People’s Temple and The Murder of Emmett Till.

Pro-Selfie Just Not Pro-Selfie Stick: The Gardner Museum Changes Their Photo Policy

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Gardner Museum Courtyard in January. Instagram taken by the author.

In a surprising turn of events, the Gardner Museum has changed their photo policy to allow photographs throughout the museum. In a recent blog post, I urged the Gardner to consider simplifying or clarifying their confusing new photo policy. As you may recall, the museum changed their policy this year to allow photographs of only the first floor—basically the courtyard and its surroundings, prompting visitors to take photos of the courtyard from the upper floors, but coming to find out these were not allowed when approached by the museum’s security guards.

The policy, effective on March 10 now allows photographs throughout the museum with the usual restrictions: “The use of tripods, monopods, and selfie sticks is not permitted. No professional photo shoots for personal or commercial use or large group photos is allowed.”

While lighting is an issue at the Gardner Museum, there’s nothing a good Instagram filter can’t fix.

Tweeting in response to a visitor question, the museum said, “We’re excited about it, and hope our visitors enjoy!”

This is fantastic news and I know museum goers can’t wait to share their experience with their friends and followers on social media.

Congratulations Gardner Museum on embracing change and enhancing the visitor experience. Well done!

UPDATE: To give credit where credit is due, the “pro-selfie just not pro-selfie stick” is taken from this FastCompany article in which the Met Museum’s Sree Sreenivasan talks about how the museum is staying relevant in the age of the smartphone.

Broken Record: On Museum Photos, The Gardner Museum and Their New Photo Policy

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I often go to museums and share my experience on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. What I’ve learned in the almost six years I’ve been on Twitter, is that there are museums that make it very easy for visitors to share their experience and then there are others that don’t. Those that do, even go as far as encouraging the use of specific hashtags as well as taking photos in the galleries. For someone like me and the thousands of fellow museum-goers part of the worldwide #ITweetMuseums community, these museums represent a sliver of what heaven must feel like.

In the months of January and February, I visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum three times. On a couple of my visits, I tweeted a bit and on one occasion, I didn’t even look at my phone. On my first visit, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that visitors were not only allowed to take photos in their marvelous Carlo Crivelli exhibition in the Renzo Piano addition, but also in the first floor of Fenway Court—the original Gardner building. This caught me by surprise knowing that I was at the Gardner Museum, an institution with a very strict no-photos policy. “Awesome!” I actually said out loud, thinking that this was a great first step for the museum to let loose a bit and start embracing change.

After learning of the change in their photo policy, I visited two more times. While looking around in the Titian Room, I began to quietly observe visitors and their interactions with the museum guards. What I witnessed and heard, was something very uncomfortable, I even tweeted about it.

So I thought, if I’m allowed to take photos of the first floor, which includes the luscious courtyard, the Chinese Loggia and the Spanish Cloister and its exquisite painting by John Singer Sargent, then it must be okay for me to take a photo of only the courtyard, looking down at it from the upper floor windows. Makes sense to you, right? Well, it made sense to me and to the handful of visitors who were caught by the museum guards taking photos of the courtyard. I do confess that I did take a couple of photos of the courtyard from the upper floors on a separate visit, but did not get caught. While I felt a bit embarrassed for those visitors who got caught when I was there, I attribute my luck and discreetness to my experience visiting dozens of museums and historic houses throughout the country. At some point in my museum-going experience, I got fed up with being yelled at for taking photos (to be clear, not at the Gardner), so I sneaked in some photos whenever I had a chance. Nowadays when I go to the admissions desk at any museum, I ask about the museum’s photo policy and gladly comply with whatever the policy is. This impacts whether or not I share my experience with followers, regardless of how pleasant my visit is. By asking at the Gardner on my first visit in over a year, I learned I could take photos in the Crivelli exhibit. That change in policy allowed me to share some really stunning works with my followers on Twitter and Instagram.

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Before I continue, I want to clarify that this post is not about making the Gardner Museum look “bad,” but rather to keep bringing attention to an issue that many museums continue to grapple with in 2016: allowing photography in their galleries. It so happens that the Gardner Museum is currently in the midst of some changes in their photo and communication policies. I want my opinions to persuade and better inform the staff and decision making process at museums and historic houses I visit. I want to underscore that I’m not asking that the Gardner Museum change their photo policies immediately, but rather to clarify it for visitors, myself included. At the end of this post, I have a separate comment on the bending of this new policy at the Gardner Museum.

Embracing change takes time whether it’s at museums as old and grand as the Gardner and the Museum of Fine Arts or as “new” and not-so-big like the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. That said, many of the museums I’ve called out and even praised for their outstanding/not-so-outstanding work have begun to embrace social media and even change their photo policies. Of course, I don’t take credit for all or any of these changes, but when a museum hears how their visitors feel when confronted with one of their policies, especially if it’s a silly no-photos policy, museum staff begin to engage in conversations with top decision makers at their museums, eventually causing change to happen. At least, this is what I hope goes on behind the walls of every museum.

After years of not allowing photography in their galleries, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston now allows and even encourages their visitors to explore the art on view throughout their very active social media accounts. On that same note, the Peabody Essex Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum as well the Harvard Art Museums have also embraced their social media by not only interacting with their followers, but also encouraging their visitors to take photos, share them on social media using specific hashtags and even hosting #instameet nights where their followers are invited to take photos of either a special exhibition or of the museum in general and share on Instagram. (Both the Peabody Essex and the Harvard Art Museums have organized these #instameets, I’m honestly not sure about the other museums, I list here) Anyone, regardless of who you are, is invited to attend, as it should be. (In the case of the Harvard Art Museums, all the university student were invited to attend)

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The Gardner Museum recently announced on Instagram that they’ve partnered with @IGERSBOSTON—an Instagram account “made up of photographers and artists inspired by our beautiful city,” with almost 63,000 followers. The museum is organizing an #InstaMeet and they’re calling it “GardnerOffTheWall with the assistance of @IGERSBOSTON. In the museum’s own words, this would be an “exclusive event” that “will offer the museum’s guests the opportunity to experience the museum like never before. For two hours and while closed to the public, the Gardner will offer guests exclusive access to tour the museum and the ability to photograph its galleries and exhibits,” reads the caption under the photo below.

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Sounds incredible, right? Indeed, everything sounds incredible until you realize that this is not what you think it is. Let me get this straight, in order for me to win an opportunity to experience the magic of the Gardner Museum and take photos to share with my followers (luring some of them to pay full admission if they ever visit in person), I have to go over to the @IGERSBOSTON account, comment on their post (which is a photo of the Gardner courtyard) and tell the staff what I love about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum? That’s right, but after doing all that work, you then realize that only the museum’s favorite comments—five in total—will be chosen as winners.

To bring this to a close, here’s what I think about all this: I think this would have been an exceptional opportunity for the Gardner to allow photography throughout the museum for one day— call it a special once-in-a-lifetime-capture-the-allure-of-the-Gardner-Museum event or something along that line)—regardless whether you’re on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or whether you comment on a post or not. Too often we see institutions operating in the 21st century, but deeply stuck in the 20th century because they refuse to change and get with the times. Why must we keep insisting on limiting access to museums, or giving exclusive access to an elite or handpicked group of people when those who need or can benefit from a museum the most can’t even get through the front door because their admission is outrageously pricey? I think there are many ways of building community, but this is not one of them.

We can organize clever marketing events like #GardnerOfftheWall and still be inclusive and engage with everyone in the community at-large. What’s a museum without the community that sustains and lives around it?

Unless you hold a membership and are invited to preview an exhibit or take photos of rarely photographed places inside a museum, that’s understandable because those perks come with that membership, but hand-picking members of the public has no place in community engagement, that’s if “engaging” your community is the ultimate goal of a museum. I think it should be, but not every museum agrees with this.