January 9, 2019
“Children are uniquely vulnerable to physiological effects of chemical agents. A child’s smaller size, more frequent number of breaths per minute and limited cardiovascular stress response compared to adults magnifies the harm of agents such as tear gas.” This from the American Academy of Pediatrics, an organization of 67.000 pediatricians, in response to the Trump administration’s teargassing of children at the southern border. The images that floated in the news after the events at San Ysidro did not need doctors to explain to you how bad things are.
What do you do when someone you know is involved in these kinds of unjustifiable actions? What do you do, further more, if that someone happens to provide you with a lot of money that is essential to your organization? This is the question being asked right now (by some) at the Whitney Museum for Modern Art in NYC.
Long exposition in link attached above. My summary below:
It had been generally known that multiple trustees of this museum (and for that matter many others) had links to the weapons and oil extraction industry. It took the singular case of images of these teargassed children and spent teargas canisters bearing the brand name Safariland to stir action and be outraged about Warren B. Kander, Vice Chair of the Whitney’s Board of Trustees. He is CEO of the company that is linked to the manufacture and distribution of these substances used at the border. (Safariland? Does the name point to crocodile tears, or to the chase of brown-skinned living beings on southern continents? Who comes up with these names??? But I digress.)
More than 100 staff members signed a protest letter, urging the museum to no longer accept donations from controversial donors. One of the first responses? “It seems unfair to single out a specific Board member...” Right. One should look at all of them.
The notion that people involved in weapons profiteering could whitewash their position through philanthropy disturbed as well. Activists from Decolonize This Place organized a protest on December 9th, and are now preparing for a town hall on January 26th to explore further action. Adam Weinberg, the director of the museum, responded with an appeal to accept one’s place in the hierarchy: “As members of the Whitney community, we each have our critical and complementary roles: trustees do not hire staff, select exhibitions, organize programs or make acquisitions, and staff does not appoint or remove board members.“
He might as well have reused what he wrote, in the catalogue introduction to their current blockbuster retrospective Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again, about Andy Warhol’s art. “It is about currency, in every sense of the word.”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/19/theres-still-no-escaping-andy-warhol
Photographs today are from my last visit to the Whitney in 2017;
And since it’s past time for insurrection: here is 2018 John Zorn, who used to work with the Whitney. I know, it’s an acquired taste, but he writes truly smart music!
