Increasing diversity in museum curatorship is the basis of a new initiative at Spelman College established through the support of a five-year, $5.4 million grant from the Walton Family Foundation.
The Atlanta University Center (AUC) Collective for the Study of Art History and Curatorial Studies initiative will create a pipeline into art museum leadership and position Spelman, Morehouse College and Clark Atlanta University to be leading producers of African-American museum professionals nationally, Spelman officials said. A new Art History major and Curatorial Studies minor at the historically Black college will stem from the initiative.
“The new grant will enable the AUC to make use of its exceptional resources in the form of the Spelman Fine Arts Museum, the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum and the Woodruff archives as well as the many resources in Atlanta to build a first rate program,” said Spelman president Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell.
“We applaud the foundation’s commitment to closing the diversity gap to ensure that leadership at the nation’s cultural institutions begins to reflect the shifting demographic profile of the communities they serve,” Campbell said.
An increase in diversity of museum leadership will advance the “pioneering contributions” of Black museum administrators, said Dr. Melanee Harvey, assistant professor of art history at Howard University and a Spelman alumna. Currently, minorities hold only 16 percent of museum leadership positions, despite making up 38 percent of the U.S. population, according to a 2015 survey by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
“Diversity in museum leadership means that decisions made around art and matters of representation will reflect the true diversity of perspectives and cultures that make up American identity,” Harvey added. “Diversity and inclusion are needed for deciding how money is spent, what artists are exhibited, how the art is interpreted as well as removing and undoing the legacy of exclusionary perspectives.”
This fall, AUC leaders will be planning efforts to enhance coursework in Art History and Curatorial Studies and work to raise awareness and attract students to the new courses and program.
