| Director's Letter Spring 2020

I joined the museum field in the 1990s, just as changes were being felt that shifted the focus of our work away from the object and toward the audience. A report commissioned at the time, titled Excellence and Equity, encapsulated many of these changes, most notably the idea that excellence alone was no longer enough, that instead it had to exist alongside equity, a commitment to the engagement of audiences that had often been ignored by museums in the past. Part of the rise of an audience-centric outlook, this report and responses to it led to the crafting of experiences for diverse audiences beyond those that had traditionally visited and supported museums.

Such an outlook blending excellence and equity quickly became second nature for me and for many in the cultural sector. Not only did the field start thinking in more varied and nuanced ways about its audiences—naming them pluralistically, understanding that there is no such thing as “the” community—but it also began to share its voice with those audiences. In many institutions, community stakeholders were invited to the table, sometimes to think about what ought to be displayed, sometimes to think about how it might be displayed and interpreted in order to forge important new connections and maximize impact. Throughout this process, some feared a loss of commitment to serious scholarship or content, or of the primacy of the object as a shaper of meaning. Against such a backdrop, the university museum has often been a bulwark, a place in which serious scholarship can and must be sustained even as we seek to extend our reach beyond the halls of art history across the whole of our campuses and into our surrounding communities.

As we face the radical disruptions of recent weeks—from stay-at-home orders to a public health crisis to economic upheavals—matters of equity and the responsibilities of cultural institutions to respond to these are again front of mind. Cultural institutions have been responding to accelerating demands for change for some time now, in response to increasing demands that museums must decolonize themselves, admitting women and artists of color to full participation in museum collections, programs, and workplaces. It was already evident that new strategies would be needed to assure that great museums continue to matter, to retain the public trust, and to make excellence of experience available to all. But with stunning speed, events of the past months have exposed the degree to which inequities endure in this country, exposing our fellow citizens to uneven levels of risk and affording them uneven levels of access and opportunity.

As is true for the majority of the great museums in this country, here at Princeton we toggled quickly in March to shaping and affording a new range of digital experiences—from live programs on Thursday evenings to new website-based content to innovative ways of supporting teaching on and off the Princeton campus. Such content is undeniably important, but it exposes the work still to be done around issues of equity when it cannot be delivered to homes and communities lacking basic necessities, smart technology, or reliable internet connections. As we face lengthening stay-at-home orders, I am thinking and reading more about whether the vulnerabilities exposed by the current crises are going to demand something different from us as cultural and educational institutions.

For me, the answer is a clear yes. Even as we build upon and honor the past, I believe we must find new ways to provide access to the wide-ranging cultural experiences that can enrich our lives and take us to new places. As the very survival of many cultural and educational institutions is challenged, I believe that those of us with the capacity to endure must take on new responsibilities and burdens—to expose, to educate, to overcome the continuing obstacles to participation. In our case, as we shape the designs for a new museum building with Sir David Adjaye and his team, we have an extraordinary opportunity to give physical form through architecture to new possibilities to overcome impediments to participation.

I do not accept the view that these are unprecedented times or that we face unimaginable challenges. They may, for many of us, be unprecedented in our lifetimes—but humanity has faced crises many times before. From the Black Death in medieval Europe, to civil wars pitting families against themselves, to two world wars, crisis has called on humans to build upon our bonds of affection, as Lincoln put it, and draw upon the better angels of our natures. From such crises has come renewal, rebirth, and innovation, arising from our capacity to think afresh and respond to new conditions. As I explored in a live digital talk I gave on May 7, I believe that this is such a time and that cultural and educational institutions must innovate and shoulder new responsibilities. When we meet again—and we will, even if I know not exactly when—I hope that we can share a dialogue of renewal and innovation, so that all our fellow citizens can be enriched by the solace, the challenge, or even the provocation of great art.

James Christen Steward
Nancy A. Nasher–David J. Haemisegger, Class of 1976, Director