The writer calls on museums to be free, to promote cooperation, diversity and to remove the walls of racism

Last year, most of the world's museums struggled for survival, and leading industry professionals expected many of them to close forever and declare bankruptcy. But that gloomy picture was not the only one, and alternative activities were revived in turn.
Many art institutions have resorted to displaying their works online in response to government safety and closure rules, turning themselves into what the French art theorist André Malro called 'wallless museums'. But bypassing the walls of its galleries has not solved the other kind of intractable barriers within museums: racial injustice.

In his report published by the American website "The Reader" of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Thereader.MITpress), David Gosslet indicated that, against the backdrop of the murder of George Floyd, a barrage of comments and posts on social media shed light on these cultural barriers, and manifestations of systemic racism were discussed between Professional and Notable American Artists.

Double crunch
The writer mentioned that museums are currently facing a double crisis represented by unprecedented restrictions on their activities on the ground, in addition to this there are increasing demands to end complicity with the history of racial injustice. This has raised deep questions about the future of the museums sector and aspects of societal diversity and inclusiveness in such institutions.

In an era of stagnant public funding for the arts, most American museums are supported by a small class of extremely wealthy donors. As such, civic responsibility and diversity are seen within a small group that represents barely 1% of society.

Josslett noted that modern European museums display works from a wide range of geographic regions and historical eras, but that they were in their early days a revolutionary institution aimed at establishing a modern republican social body.

The Louvre Museum was the prototype of "international museums" in Europe and America, as it was established in 1793 under the name "French Museum" to display collections belonging to the civil and ecclesiastical ruling classes of the ancient French system. These art collections were made available to the general public to affirm that the ability to practice the arts and see oneself in them is a fundamental right of citizenship.

Likewise, in the early 19th century in "Great Britain" some theorists considered that museums should be as open as libraries, where together they provided educational resources for the development of societies.

Art in Globalization
In his book "Heritage and Debt: Art in Globalization," the writer examined the attempts of museums outside Western countries since the 1990s to fight Eurocentrism that dominates the global museums sector, by presenting art forms that embody the aesthetic dimension of knowledge that shatters the imperialist and neocolonial perspective underlying the The claims of these museums represent them for utopian and idealistic values.

And if European modernity is based on the idea of bringing something new - that is, on transcending the past, often by stigmatizing "traditional" societies - then global contemporary art revives the past as a resource for the present, according to the book.

In this discussion of what globalization means to contemporary art, Gosslet argues that the creative use of ancient traditions by artists from around the world acts as a means of combating the modern art legacy of Eurocentrism, as modernity claimed to live in the future and lower the rest of the world into the past.

But contemporary art shatters this myth by reactivating and invoking various forms of heritage, such as literary ink painting in China, and the aboriginal arts of Australia, in an attempt to build a new and different future.

This focus on "decolonization" has been essential to modern American efforts to democratize museums. An example is the "decolonization" movement that successfully forced Warren Canders, vice chair of the Whitney Museum, to step down from his post over his relationship with a company of tear gas products that may have been used against immigrants on the US’s southern border with Mexico.

The author believes that it is possible to dismantle the structural racism within museums by addressing three dimensions: museum programs, patrons, and museums access by various layers of society. For example, non-Western galleries sought to revise museum programs or put an end to their colonial character by pursuing some organizational strategies, such as collaborating with community experts (elderly people familiar with the Native American heritage).

When it comes to sponsors, the "Decolonization Here" movement, in its moves against the Whitney and other museums, has revealed the contradiction in the funders' values and their distortion of the values the foundation is proud of. However, not enough attention has been paid to accessibility to the arts, despite the revival of the idea of a "museum without walls" in the 21st century.

Egyptian novelist and writer Ahdaf Soueif resigned in mid-2017 from the membership of the ancient British Museum’s board of trustees, criticizing what she called the museum’s complicity in “washing the face” of the British Petroleum Company, which sponsors the museum’s activities, and the museum’s silence about the file of returning looted artifacts from the colonial era. To their home countries.

In her article containing the reasons for her resignation and published on the London Book Review website, Soueif said that there is a moral responsibility attached to cultural institutions, and the museum should take clear moral positions on the topics of climate change, the huge economic disparity between people and the legacy of colonial times, in addition to issues of democracy, citizenship and human rights.

The issue of artworks and antiquities looted from their original countries is still the subject of great controversy, as some believe that looting the heritage is wrong, and that the stolen items should return to their countries, while some believe that their presence in other countries is one of the types of promotion of civilization, in addition to some believing that Looted artworks and antiquities receive more attention in their host countries than their legitimate owners.

The "Decolonization Here" movement is active on issues of protecting indigenous rights, black liberation, the Palestinian issue, and economic inequality. It focuses on the museums and cultural institutions sector, and targets colonial tendencies within the art world.

The movement organized many activities, including an activity at the Brooklyn Museum in mid-2016, which linked global issues such as the rights of indigenous people in America and the Palestinian issue, with the participation of Palestinian-American activist and academic Amin Hussein.

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