 Good evening and welcome everyone before we get started I want to note that Mara and Monique will be doing ASL interpretation tonight And we've reserved seats in the front two were rose to what the left Facing the stage and if you want ASL interpretation, we have an ASL interpreter Welcome everyone. I am honored to be a part of this evening introducing Arnold layman's amazing book sensation Which gives us an insider's view of an important and explosive moment in art history I know we're all eagerly anticipating his discussion tonight with Darren Walker The Brooklyn Museum is grateful to the Bank of America for helping us to make this evening happen and Proud to be a part of Pan America's programming Before we hear from Arnold and Darren, please welcome Julie Traybo Director of Artists at Risk Connection for Pan America to the stage. She'll be telling us about that program Good evening everyone. My name is Julie Traybo So I'm the director of the artist at risk connection at Pan America And it's really a pleasure to be with you all today. I would like to echo Sandra as a warm welcome To you and the organizer at the organizer of this event at the Brooklyn Museum There's also the Ford Foundation for the opportunity to speak with you both in person And I think virtually as well as we continue to adjust To the peculiarities of pandemic event planning So I'm very honored to be here today with Arnold layman and Darren Walker to celebrate Arnold's Fascinating and timely book sensation Madonna the Meyer the media and First Amendment Arnold's account of the controversy surrounding the sensation exhibition in 1999 paints a vivid picture of how quickly the freedom of expression of even a major u.s Cultural institution come can become threatened The story deeply resonates with us at Pan America and the artist at risk connection Pan America is no stranger to the Barry's censorship can present Funded by writers for writers We celebrate the power of the written word and defend free expression in the u.s And around the world the artist connection project was creating in 2017 as a natural extension of Pan America's work We safeguard the right to artistic freedom of expression and ensure that artists and cultural actors Everywhere and of all disciplines can leave and work without fear Since our inception we have assisted more than 400 individual artists from 63 countries we connect them with direct resources from our international network of organization Approximately 64% of these artists are visual artists Although most of our work is focused internationally Who also do u.s. Base work mainly focusing on issues on censorship of censorship? particularly in museums academies campus and online spaces Arnold's reflections on the sensation exhibition Hunters long-standing issue of artistic censorship in the u.s. Institution especially within museums as he as is clear in the case of sensation for Institution funded by the national government the line between government support and Convertment control can be breached very quickly But censorship is not just limited to governments in the past five years alone instances Where museums have been pressured to edit their cultural curatorial decision or have decided to self-censor To avoid pushback from the public have steadily increases Some of us may remember several highly publicized cases Such as the removal of free works from the Guggenheim art in China after 1989 exhibition in 2017 after a massive process protest by animal rights activists or the post-born man of Philip Guston's exhibition at the National Gallery of Art last year out of fear that the artist's painting of Cuckoo's clan members might be misunderstood by audience in the wake of the whispered protests around racial and social injustice So in the case of sensation the long battle between the museum the mire and moral outrage at Ultimately positive resolution, but the legacy of the historic controversy leaves on museums are in grizzling in grizzly finding themselves on the defensive or even in states of paralyzes for displaying polarizing work often with artists taking multiple sides The situation leads us to once again Question how museum and galleries can safely curate sensitive content without becoming a vehicle for censorship Are the blurred lines between what is permissible and what is not being with row? Is it not in the role of museums to display work that push boundaries and to actively Participate in defending freedom of expression What are the tension and connection between artistic freedom and making the art field more diverse inclusive and accessible Today's events provide a much needed starting point for understanding How museum can remade steadfast in protecting in artistic freedom While maintaining an open and informed dialogue about sensitive subject matter as Arnold himself put it best Museum are safe place for unsaved ideas They are the platform where those ideas must be shared and discussed So I would like once again to thank the entire team of the Brookin Museum for making this even possible tonight And I also wanted to invite you to read an interview that we will publish with Arnold on our pen website on October 7th as our pen 10 Series and I will you very much look forward to this engaged in conversation Thank you so much, and I will leave the floor the might to saudra for the for introducing our distinguished speaker Thank you very much Julie Sensation the Madonna the mayor the media and the first amendment is a page turner Chronicle in the loud and turbulent first American amendment battle which occurred in New York City and it echoed throughout the world The show had its opening here Almost exactly 22 years ago in September of 1999 Preve in previews the tabloid media castigated the inclusion in the show of Chris of Philly's Holy Virgin Mary among other works apparently sight unseen their descriptions were really off in the beginning The portrait is actually of a voluptuous black Madonna and Include several compact orbs of done which are decorated in beating there are also Miniscule photos of female genitalia on the portrait the Catholic League and Maru del Juliani seized upon the criticism loudly proclaiming the Madonna and the entire show to be the desecration of someone else's religion and Proclaiming that he Juliani would have no compunction in defunding the museum evicting it from the city-owned space and firing the board if the show were not canceled Arnold layman The board's chair the late Bob Rubin and the entire Brooklyn Museum board in a unique act of courage grit and adherence to the principles of free artistic expression Refused to back down a legal battle followed if you as you've seen on the news footage In the federal court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn the case is a hallmark in its confirmation confirmation of the First Amendment rights of artists and Cultural institutions in uphold in it's upholding the museum's right to present sensation in its entirety and In preventing the museum the museum's destruction by Mayor Juliani and the city of New York Judd me Nina Gershaw noted if there is a bedrock Proposition Underlying the First Amendment it is that government may not Prohibit the expression of an idea simply because Society finds the idea itself to be offensive or disagreeable She went on to state the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them in response to the position that you've heard echoed over and over again here in newsreels that The music the city was not obligated to pay to pay for the objectionable art that was included in sensation Judge Gershaw and articulated the rule that once having Appropriated funds to an institution artist or show the government cannot Retroactively withdraw that support because it finds a particular artistic expression to be distasteful The city was actually enjoined from ejecting the museum from its premises and Ordered to pay money monies it had withheld during the dispute as well as promised capital support The battle of Sensation was very much on my own mind when a couple of months after the show opened Bob Rubin came and Arnold and asked me to join this board and My response was a resounding yes the commitment to presenting diverse points of view and social justice continued under Arnold's watch and has been upheld to this day under and past the next leadership It gives me great pleasure to introduce these two men who are both revered by the Brooklyn Museum Thankfully, they're both giants in their fields and don't really need any introduction for me We'd be here for a very long time if I went through all of their accomplishments. So let me abbreviate Arnold layman has been the prototype for a progressive and courageous museum director in His leadership of the Brooklyn Museum and before that the Baltimore Museum of Art Throughout his distinguished career Arnold has held leadership roles in major cultural organizations and entities both in New York City and Nationally, there are really too many of these for me to list since 2015 Arnold has served as a senior advisor at Phillips Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation. I think everybody here must already know that as well It's a 16 billion dollar international social justice philanthropy under his leadership The Ford Foundation became the first non-profit in the US to issue a one billion dollar social bond to Stabilize not-for-profit organizations in the wake of COVID-19 like Arnold He serves on major arts and culture focused boards as well as public Companies. Darren has been included among Times annual most 100 100 most influential people out magazines power 50 and he was named the Wall Street Journal's 2020 Philanthropy innovator. With that, please welcome Darren and Arnold Yes, I think you can hear me now Arnold my friend How Exciting is this? To be with you on the occasion of the publication of sensation which is a sensation Arnold this is a tour de force You have produced a book that as Sandra said so well is indeed a page Turner It is copious in its detail It reflects the sensibility of an art historian a political scientist an anthropologist It's you Arnold and you have achieved a Remarkable accomplishment and I think we're all eager to hear from you about sensation The process of this book the time we lived in 22 years ago But first I believe you have a little show-and-tell maybe Always a picture is worth a thousand words I'm gonna put this back. I was told that no one could see me with this in front of me But my memory at this time of the evening is not as good as it used to be so Sandra whom I thank immensely for that introduction Really gave a very good capsule Reflection on sensation of what it meant in New York City to so many people and I thought I would just share with you a few images and Then Darren and I can talk about them further The next this is the a health warning which we issued my idea which Apparently annoyed as many people as the exhibition did it was meant it was meant to be hyperbolic obviously and More or less a joke however when the Catholic League Protested in front of the museum. They distributed vomit bags So they they took me they took us at our word Anyway, I have the clicker here that you've seen I'm so delighted to be here today because Even 22 years later A sensation remains in my mind this impossibly turbulent And supremely meaningful episode in my life as a museum director for 40 plus years Despite the fact that I've been involved in extraordinary exhibitions Nothing kept me up at night entirely and still often does Except for the memory of the exhibition and what it did to our staff and to so many others in New York City This is the catalog of the exhibition that started The Bruja on New York. It was the exhibition of called sensation young British artists from the Saatchi collection which I was able to bring to New York City in 1999 through the beginning of 2000 It came as many of you know from the collection of the advertising mogul Charles Saatchi Who was then certainly the preeminent collector of contemporary art in Great Britain and perhaps in Europe as well That is a building you know But in 1997 when I was hired by the board here They asked certain things of me they wanted to move the museum directly from The 20th century to the 21st century do not pass go Directly into the New World They asked that we restore the leadership of the museum in the larger museum community and To look to Brooklyn to the nearly three million people in Brooklyn instead of our Constant competitive mode of trying to drag people across the bridge from Manhattan and With the idea that if we did Enough of the right thing the good thing the exciting things people would cross that bridge or tunnel So An ad that we One of the several ads that we Included in the newspapers While at the Baltimore Museum which Where I spent nearly 20 years before coming to Brooklyn I had worked for a decade on an exhibition of treasures from London's Victorian Albin Museum and the reason I say that is I over the course of six or seven years I Made 30 or 35 trips to London to work on the exhibition and as such I became intimately familiar with the contemporary art scene in London and in Great Britain As soon as I heard about sensation which was part of every newspaper story almost every day I Seize the opportunity For Brooklyn to become the only US venue for the exhibition which would become a huge hit in London and then in Berlin On reflection, of course, I wondered how and why There weren't 10 20 other museum directors lined up in front of me and Yeah, I think I learned that lesson clearly One painting at the Royal Academy in London Caused the sensation exhibition to become a huge controversy in London it was this enormous portrait on the back wall of the slide of Plaster made of plaster models of children's hands Of Myra Hindley who was called the Moore's murderer who became an infamous serial murderer of children in the 1960s and In addition to Myra which went without notice here in Brooklyn the exhibitions other works would be new I felt exciting and often very provocative to New Yorkers who need a lot to provoke them such as This work Sculpture children with what I've always called genitals in all the wrong places by the Chapman brothers Or dead dad a half-sized nude male figure by Ron Muick or this self-portrait Of the artist made of the artist's own frozen blood by Mark Quinn and Perhaps most astonishing to visitors and certainly most aggravating To the people for the ethical ethical treatment of animals were the works by Excuse me. I went backward by Damien Hurst such as this Shark which was called the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living A ferocious almost 20-foot long shark encased in hundreds of gallons for a milder hide and Then there were also other Hurst pieces such as this sliced cow In a dozen sections or more than a dozen sections again in formaldehyde filled cases There had been outrage in London Among the Royal Academy's elected artist members the British tabloids had truly a field day with the exhibition and one of the things I remember best about the enormous number of articles I read was One of the Royal Academy missions was quoted as saying and I want to get it right Why should I go to the RA? To experience mutilation morbidity perversion and Bestiality I can get all of that at home Despite the mostly negative media or perhaps because of it I witnessed thousands of young people in line every day to see sensation at the Royal Academy at The Royal Academy. I don't know how many visited there, but I don't think They've ever seen a long line even for the most miraculous of exhibitions, which they do very regularly So I don't want to give away all the exciting details of the book which Darren might Because you need to read it to experience it But for Brooklyn, I felt very strongly and for New York City that there was a specifically different totally unexpected Painting in the exhibition that as Sandra said set off a firestorm of Reverberated that we reverberated around the world through an avalanche of media it is hard to imagine in these days of Internet and lightning fast Communication that where each incident may be last the day in the news Or two at the most Where sensation was the front page of newspapers Week after week and on television for hours every day for over six months that painting that I talked about is This that Sandra again, I think described very well That's very beautifully crafted and almost glowing with reverence by a young British born anglo at Nigerian artist Chris Ophelia Ophelia Often used again as Sanchez so well described dry balls of elephant dung That was shellacked and intricately decorated and not with beads but with stick pins. They're often referred to as beads but they're not and He considered The reason he used this went back to his own African roots where elephant dung was considered healing and life affirming and he used that ball of elephant dung as the Virgin Mary's breast again to refer to the life-giving nature of The material and also of the subject matter in addition Ophelia used These balls of elephant dung to name the painting actually is the Virgin Mary on Mary on the other one Because his paintings were not hung on the wall, but were words against the wall So that they had more of a physical presence in the space During the exhibition I would come to the galleries every day and one day two white nuns approached me and whispered in my ear that They thought this was Among that the Virgin Mary was among the most reverent and beautiful paintings. They had ever witnessed That moment These are some of the comments That we recorded we had over 6,000 cards in the first two weeks and Hundreds of comment books which were just filled day after day after day But it was that moment with those two nuns that I think I will never forget It helped me to put aside the death threats against me the bomb threats against the museum and the exhibition and Unfortunately the people attacking me and the street and on the subway and in the press Here we go The first media explosion came after the New York Daily News Published a highly inflammatory piece about the show three weeks before it opened No one from the newspaper from any newspaper had seen the exhibition Before that even so it was headlined Brooklyn Gallery of Horror gruesome museum show stirs controversy and Unfortunately, I saw the news that day just after I came from the dentist so it really hit home The first paragraph is worth quoting The Brooklyn Museum is about to unveil a shocking Contemporary art exhibition that features real animals sliced in half Graphic paintings and sculpture of corpses and sexually mutilated bodies The R rated show is sparking outrage over such works as a painting of the Virgin Mary splattered with elephant tongue and Not to be outdone the post screamed is this art Butchered animals a dunce mirrored Mary and giant genitalia Spark outrage at the Brooklyn Museum The Catholic League our own Bishop here in Brooklyn and the Cardinal Despite the fact that I tried to speak to all of them Denounced the painting and the exhibition There were huge demonstrations outside the museum such as this one both and pro and con that hourly Came and went in front of the museum We also had hourly coverage by the newspaper and Kate by excuse me by cable TV Congress debated sensation and defunded the exhibition Although they had never funded it in the first place It just tells you something Comedy Central and every I've always wanted to be on television I'm not sure this way Comedy Central and every late night TV host featured me and the exhibition For weeks on end But most seriously the then mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani who is an undeclared war For the Senate against Hillary Clinton and also without seeing the exhibition Which was several weeks away from opening Said that the Ophelia offended him And that the museum had to remove the painting of the holy virgin Mary from the exhibition Or he would demand that the exhibition be canceled And in short order Giuliani proceeded without authority because that's the city council's authority Not the mayor's office to remove seven million dollars in city operating funds From the museum and almost 30 million dollars in capital funds He then tried to replace the museums obviously out of control board of trustees and director And to evict the museum from its century long City home in which we are sitting tonight All this supposedly over one painting However, it was a painting about which the publisher of the Amsterdam news The largest black owned and run newspaper in the country wrote a black Madonna Giuliani's worst nightmare And speaking of the Amsterdam news Who supported the exhibition and the museum from the beginning to its end Other than more local papers such as Newsday and the village voice and several others The major new york papers attacked the museum Over and over with false statements that had almost entirely been thrown out by the courts No, here we go Represented by the great constitutional lawyer floyd abrams Who I can't see anyone in the audience So I don't know if floyd is here tonight or not if he there who is The real the real hero of sensation and so many other constitutional battles in this country and I Floyd knows how much I'm grateful to him as we all were Um With floyd's representation We sued rudy Giuliani both in his capacity as mayor and personally In federal court a process that took almost six months from filing to settlement During those six months, however, my bodyguard taught me defensive driving Um, I refused to wear a bulletproof vest because it made me look fat And instead of letting my office know or me know immediately About a threat that morning to blow up my car with me in it A note was sent to me by inter-office mail Which arrived the next day More importantly the brooklyn museum became The most talked about museum in the world Um I think we're going to do more of this story But I leave it more to my conversation with darin Now these were the highlights Um, this is what I spend Many nights every week even now thinking about Um And so now you can join me in that by reading this book Yes, thank you I give you arnold layman So arnold I mean this was a seminal moment in art history and political history In The battle for free expression in new york What do you think today Are The implications for Sensation both. I know you're not a legal scholar. We have the great float abrams but How do you see today the relevance of that The resolution in your favor And the whole idea of free expression Validated both in the court of law and the court of public opinion Um A perfect question darin. Um, I didn't expect anything else um The problem is that while the courts validated that of course I'm not sure public opinion Really accepted that validation Uh, perhaps in new york But in other parts of the country, I'm not so positive Um And to me what has become Very clear Over the past Well, this is 22 years ago, but certainly over the past 10 years or more Is that There has been so much self-censorship A people who Have a lot to say Who work in museums and other educational institutions Um Who are fearful about The implication of their words how their words are received and What might happen to their tenure What might happen to their exhibitions What might happen to their novel or their piece in a journal and And built in Certainly over the past. I don't want to I don't want us to become a political form But built into the past four or five years I think there is a fear that while Even the people who are most committed to free expression Pull back And and Try to balance more What they say When they would not have Perhaps done that 20 years ago 30 years ago Um And that that's a really a cautionary tale to say the least um I know many actually it was fascinating Uh, the sondra mentioned some I know many museums Um who have taken a step back and not Not included things and exhibitions That they might have And we heard about things being demanded to be withdrawn from major museums including New York City Which in my belief, you know, I'm I'm not a a rabble rouser, but I think You have to learn how to say no And This is what we believe. This is what's right I mean, that is very much why I wrote this book And there's only one answer and that's the right answer If you can afford to give it When you came to brooklyn You Before sensation You were a disruptor There was no doubt allowed to say that there was no doubt that You had a vision That was most certainly not In alignment with some of your peers across the river You had a more radical idea as you said of really thinking about brooklyn and serving this community With the most excellent Programming and exhibitions and if you did that You would attract people from across the river and around the world And you did that Do you feel validated by By the success and take up of some of your ideas I recall one exhibition. Well, I recall one interview with a museum director who shall go nameless Who criticized you for Inviting the community for dance parties Because you felt that the community liked to have dance parties and the museum Was a great place And you were criticized for that And now everyone has dance parties I was at a dance party at the whitney for julie marrattu I was at a dance party at The med for carrie james marshal So do you feel on all that some of the the the criticism some of the stinging critiques you received during those days Do you feel validated now That again, that's a very big word and um, you know, I don't I don't Kind of think of myself in those terms Um But over the years You know, I've seen the critics Embrace What we've been doing here in brooklyn. In fact, what we had done in baltimore for for good while as well um You may recall darin that one of my first exhibitions here was Uh an exhibit called roots rhymes and rage Which was the first exhibition done about hip-hop and um The media just condemned the museum and me Me first And while While there that condemnation was out there The museum was swamped With people who never set foot in the museum before And not necessarily Who you might think from the community It was it turned out to be perhaps An audience that was two-thirds white And one third made up of people of color But I'll never forget a young blonde man Who told me he was at juliard And he was um a pianist And he Was a great Fan of two-pack Shakur And he said that We had in the exhibition um two packs Notations For many of the much of the music he wrote And this young man jazz pianist Said he stood in front of it and cried I don't quite know what more you could want than that Seven years later The smithsonian did a hip-hop exhibition And it was entirely embraced by every newspaper Certainly every newspaper in washington dc, which is a tough crowd So That Was a great memory in this path To Trying to Create more community-centered Institutions I also have one other memory which i'm glad my children aren't here But you're my wife. My wife is here There she is for for hip-hop We did a first saturday a big first saturday event And I went out to address The crowd and before I I got halfway on stage And Oh my god Cool j. What was this? L. L. Cool j. Thank you. It didn't take me long l l cool j grabbing me by the hand Pulled my pants halfway down Gave me his hat which he put on backwards And he said You go out there and you say is brooklyn in the house With your pants halfway down Well luckily i'm not i'm not so thin that they would fall down And I did we had we had um, I think four thousand three Almost four thousand people In the court just around the corner And I had a thunderous Yes to that and then cool j yelled at me said ask it again and That night the museum became a community center It's a great story on old Okay, let's talk about writing this book So we just mentioned pam and of course we know that pam was the copious archivist for Everything that was in the media Much of what we saw tonight was pam's production you Had to have had ptsd or something in writing this book I mean, what was the process for you? Well, I waited nearly 20 years um, both when I had more time I could focus and that More material I could access more material, but not a lot because in the midst of it The city had a lockdown as and all of its research materials that I needed were Locked away somewhere But as you said Pamela kept day by day hour by hour notes for six months And recorded everything that could be recorded We bought every newspaper every morning And she clipped Everything there was I mean it looked like swiss cheese by the time the papers were finished We actually bought two New York Times and sometimes two of other newspapers because the articles were back to back and that wouldn't work And it was that research Pam's notes and and I have to thank you and the Ford Foundation for a grant to hire a researcher editor Who was key? To keeping me organized. He might be here tonight, too Um Rob Kulak. Hi Rob um and So I really do believe without without Fords Well, it's true. I'm the book might not be here tonight. I might be I might be here, but the book might not be And um It was I'm not a terribly organized person Uh Pam and Rob are very organized. So I uh sat at my computer Um for very long intervals um Sometimes doing other things Because it was I'm I've never talked about uh sensation really before before tonight It was really hard. Was it painful for you? It was Why? Because every every page everything in the book brought back memories of My staff at the museum all thinking they were going to be fired Of our curators wondering what was going to happen to the objects If in fact Giuliani evicted us. I mean we talked about the world's greatest yard sale um Which it would have been say the least The Every moment of every day of the exhibition It was it was not just the external forces, but the internal forces Of our staff Being so upset. How did you deal with the stress? I would imagine we had I don't know how many staff members Are here today who were here how many of you are staff who were here? 20 years ago, we have a few bma staff Is there a Some conservators there that I see I don't know but in any event There were these pressures Because it was one of the most difficult exhibitions to put together In the book I tell a story about our art handlers opening crates and finding legs and arms from works that They didn't know where they were to be put and had sculpture in the show minus arms and legs That we never found and Art handlers who are committed to their job and conservators who are really committed to their job don't like arms and legs just sort of around and about And they come to the museum director and talk about that. What are we going to do? There was also As we installed the exhibition which took most of september of 1999 Charles sachi Who I'd like to applaud As an extraordinary collector extraordinary collector Who literally gave Great britain back a contemporary art scene But he was here every day all these were his objects and Everything we did Was often or many things we did with not to his liking Um, what didn't he like? well, um, we prefer labels On objects especially objects that you would find it difficult To necessarily understand by just looking at them Charles wanted either no labels or labels On the floor like tinted labels on the floor Which I never forget Debra Schwartz who was our then director of education thought would create um constant Waterfalls of people falling over onto the floor Looking at these labels or falling into the works of art And so we had this ongoing Battle of that or where the objects would be When we were concerned about the Madonna um, and the threats About the Madonna We moved it to an alcove Because we thought that alcove Would be more secure And I really wasn't given a choice our director of security Who is here? I don't know if he's in the room tonight, but um said there's no way that we should have that just Immediately available to the public and they wanted it more guarded um, and we in fact installed A 20-foot high 16-foot wide piece of plexiglass I didn't even know they made plexiglass that big in front of it um and um My friend Charles Sachi was absolutely appalled that we were keeping it from the public I mean he was very much into the public experiencing the work but His is a private museum was a private museum And this is a public museum and london was a different town with a different mayor Exactly all of the above So every I I did a chapter on Sort of what could go wrong. Yes like oh, you just saw it on the screen the The mark when a blood head with his own blood Um had two Freezers in the base. Of course, we received it and they were Uh appropriate for a british electrical system So we had quickly to revise the elect the electricity issues um and we were I don't think that Many people in the conservation department certainly not I Slept at night worrying about this um and indeed Later in the exhibition A um an engineer working on the roof Um saw an electric switch, which he thought was to the warmers on the roof And instead it was the key electric switch to the freezers In the mark when sculpture um are at that point head of Um conservation um Rushed to it and I'm not quite sure what he did But he saved the work and um It would be awful to return a work of art to the artist in a In a pot rather than a Yes, that would not Be a good idea. Not not not very good. Um and The the we also had this which a lot of people would be Thrilled and proud to have Um endless crowds crowds over three and four or five hours. You talk about this in the book. I mean you you I mean unprecedented well the problem Was not the problem was we couldn't get people To leave the exhibition um because the museum really The wasn't prepared and didn't really have a history of doing the kinds of exhibitions Like this so you didn't have the systems in place Well the way museums do today to move people through absolutely true But also which in this instance at least Was more significant to me certainly Was that people Had such engagement with so many of the works of art that they Couldn't bring themselves Richard Billingham was a great British photographer had a very um um a difficult family history and he portrayed his family and others in a very large installation and people Who had similar situations? Stood in front of this wall and cried That's what art is supposed to do well But you can't ask someone in the midst of tears to leave That's not very polite And we had people in front of the in front of the dead dad all over the floor Measuring themselves Against this half-size nude figure which was one expression of interest that I didn't understand but That whole area was completely filled with bodies all over the floor and people couldn't get in and couldn't get out So It was one thing after another and how in the midst of this did you manage your board? I mean, you know sometimes managing boards Uh, I you know, we have a number of board members who were there then and I have to say This board was extraordinary They well first. Let me take one step back. We had a chair board chair bob rubin Who was unflinchable In the face of just about anything And this board stood solidly behind the exhibition. I'm sure there are many board members who were not enthusiastic as enthusiastic about this as they might have been another exhibition But they stood behind the museum they stood behind me um and bob and I remember when we voted To sue juliani. There was only one negative vote And that was the representative of the mayor The the the acting mayor who was the the mayor was a Ex officio board member with voting rights Um, he was the only person who voted not to sue the mayor obviously Did the mayor or later When he was no longer mayor Apologize to you It's not a it's it. I mean given the fact that uh, you were clearly wronged And clearly mistreated I would think an honorable person might consider Apologizing to you hono Well, darren you might forget This on the part of the city was called a landlord tenant dispute um No, but but I'd like to take that one step back because On july 14th, which I write about as Bastille day um Although I retained my head um After weeks and weeks of trying to meet with the mayor before He said anything about the exhibition We were trying to meet with him To get his support for a new entrance the new entrance that you all came through today um and bob rubin and I and um Another staff member or two from the museum Met with the mayor. We were told that we'd have 15 minutes We actually spent almost an hour there I showed slides of sensation I did not show The holy virgin mary because it was never it never came In all the publicity in the uk and in berlin. It was barely ever mentioned um 600 pages Of press I got from The royal academy. It was Mentioned three or four times um At the end of this discussion, there was a lot of laughter over a number of the works Which I completely understand that was not a cabinet made up of art historians um We got up to leave the mayor shook hands with bob Patented me on the back Um and said to his lieutenants Give them what they want. They're all good guys um And that's what Has been ringing in my ears For 22 years every july 14 I remember that give them what they want. They're good guys Um, so they answer your questions. No, I never received an apology So what would you say today? um, you spoke about your concern That some are Restraining themselves our self censoring um How do we square the need for heightened sensitivity Which is needed I mean, I think it I appreciate that We want to be more more sensitive to each other And that sometimes manifests in inquiry in reflection in Sometimes Asking questions before making Choices or decisions. How do we square that? I mean, we've certainly in the last year Seen examples of the challenge of squaring that What happens in a museum When an exhibition that is planned By an all-white curatorial staff Featuring art that may have black men hanging from trees No one on the team ever asked any of the black staff or the guards Who would be To spend more time than anyone with that art What their view was How do we as museums and as a society Engage in the kind of Muscular free expression that A thriving democracy must promote and protect With the need to be sensitive To what has historically been insensitivity on the part of museums How do we reconcile that? Well, I I can only respond For me And the response to that is more voices More and more voices other voices Who help to determine What a museum What a theater What a university Should stand for and I think that that's An imperative it doesn't mean that it's A collective vote it doesn't mean that university presidents just sort of You know, I have no have no authority any longer or museum directors or chief curators or But it does mean That they're not doing their jobs Unless they ask these questions And the responses come from The world that's around us Not the world that necessarily sits in your office Or it isn't that the way museums have historically I mean the the museums Have historically been organized and in fact The teaching of the canon the the process for credentialing is very hierarchical As you know from which is an understanding I mean it's very hierarchical and it has historically privileged Whiteness it has historically privileged Perspectives and and and has often Treated with the erasure or Invisibilizing those I mean we give I always give the example of The Metropolitan Museum which has In its curatorial wisdom With this great American wing that was built With all of the wonderful Georgian furniture and the Stuart and all of the great art Made the decision that the Native American collection Belonged in the primitive gallery That was a curatorial decision And it was only four years ago That the curators decided that actually The Native American collection Belonged in the American wing of the Metropolitan Museum That was a curatorial that was the training of curators And so I applaud the Met for Gaining a level of both sensitivity as well as Aesthetic appreciation Because it's not political correctness. It was in fact Great art That Native Americans produced That was not appreciated But it is I think today And I think this that the more voices that they listen to Allow them to see as you say That in fact They needed to make that move But it's a long It's a long road because I mean I spent I was part of the association of art museum directors for 40 years and People I think got tired of me first Talking about Why are there so few women In this organization And I said you know why I mean like the fellow who said I don't need to come to the royal academy but I can get that at home There were no there were almost no women A few standout But Even they Were reluctant To advocate For their own gender And so I did that very regularly Um They soon stopped asking me to run programs at a a md I did a similar project That I felt was critical Just at the height of the AIDS epidemic And um The the organization simply refused to believe That There were any Gay or lesbian members whether there were very few lesbian members because there were a few women Um In the organization And once we got past that uh, I began A kind of endless discussion about That this profession needs to Relate To the world around us By having Some way Of bringing more Um museum directors of color Into this not just this group. They don't have to be a member of this group But just there directing institutions Similarly for curators And I had the great good fortune when I was a ford fellow Um to start working on a project Towards that end which Um, I was very glad to see that you and Alice Walton has really moved forward. Um But we all know it's very slow In doing this and it has to speed up Well, I think it is speeding up. I mean when you look at the most recent appointments There's some really encouraging views. I've gotten to be fairly old And I'd like to see More change More quickly And with that it's time for questions of Arnold layman So please I think we um have some time for a few questions And I believe the protocol Is that you can just Stand up and uh, or there's a microphone here. Should you wish to speak into a microphone? Um, but we're keen to hear Arnold is keen to hear from you if you have a question, please We have two Please would it have mattered who did the art? So they so the let's restate in the example of the art That had black men Hanging Had the artist not been white. I mean for example are different. Would it have mattered? Would it have mattered? Well, I think there's a very specific Example not with lynching scenes per se um, but in The long postpone gustin exhibition Um at the national gallery and it was traveling to two or three other places Yeah, exactly. Thank you The the representation by gustin and a number of his paintings of klu Klux Klan members Took Many people who were working in and around that exhibition Um, it was very startling to them. I don't know everyone knew they were there. We've seen them for years um And there was a lot of jumping to conclusions of what gustin meant by all of this um And As darin said at that point the curatorial team that was working on this was entirely white um At least the leadership was entirely white and To their I wish they it's again. I feel like I'm running out of time, but I wish they had solved this Without simply postponing this. I wish they had thought about it before The exhibition was put forward and so that Uh, uh a staff a curatorial staff made up of diverse members Uh could have helped to talk through What gustin was about what this meant to the best that they could interpret it um And the challenge was the national gallery our national gallery of art Financed with our taxpayer dollars Has had 71 curators 71 white curators There was not an asian curator There was not a latinx curator the entire curatorial staff was white They were at a disadvantage Because they lacked the diversity That could have in that context did what you Described in an institution that has that had historically Not presented. Um, I mean in this entire history. There were two American-Americans who had retrospectives So It's an it's an example of how institutions who have history Are often caught flat-footed and lack the resilience That's needed in the face of crisis And we saw a lot of that Because this the gustin postponement happened in the middle Well, not the middle weeks after the george floyd murdered when so many institutions in this country were caught flat-footed And looking around on their boards on the executive teams and saying Who can help us? navigate this moment And for so many institutions including the national gallery of art and many other museums As we saw from what happened at museums In the wake of those murders I Do indulge me for a moment. Um, I I'm To tell another story about the national gallery For those of you who are long time members of the brooklyn museum, you might remember Back at the beginning of this century Um, we did a quite extraordinary Exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat Um, I knew that it was going to be an important Exhibition And I offered it to the national gallery The response I got I'll shorten the response But the issue Was that they didn't do exhibitions of drug addicts I mean, it's just another way they didn't do exhibitions of drug addicts That was the response that I got um And certainly there were no artists in the Collection of the national gallery who had any drug or addiction issues None whatsoever None whatsoever Um, wow Well, that's really interesting data point there Um, we have two questions here and a third. Yes, sir. And then this nice lady here, please So, Arnold, you mentioned That's loud. You mentioned that you had to learn self-defense Did you ever hatch you have to use it? More into the mic. I couldn't hear it. You said you had to learn self-defense Did you ever have to use it? What I said was that I learned defensive driving And I would really have liked to use that Um, but if you ever tried To make a u-turn on a one-way brooklyn street In the slope or in brooklyn heights and go the other way because someone is running at you With a gun coming The way you were driving none of that ever happened But that was what was described to me and I was told that you have to forget I said, but I could get a ticket You could lose your life, Arnold. Well, and that is what and that is what My really wonderful A bodyguard told me he said when when life and limb Are of concern tickets are No matter so But I didn't I I actually Had to run When I could run I had to run away from a number of people Um, a woman who attacked me on the street near my house I had other people come up to me in the subway Screaming this happened many many times I was never I was never Physically accosted but when someone is standing like that and yelling at you. It's the same It's the same thing. So no, I I I wish he had taught me some defensive, you know moves, but No I'm Hello, Arnold. Darren. Great talk. Um, I have a Let's see if I could put this together I'm going back to the Philip Gustin piece, which was very offensive. Would you argue that That if there was a more diverse Round table around the curatorial, you know, the curation of that shell That they might have been and with people of color included that they might have been a way of Showcasing such rework with something That can have a like basically creating art an art conversation with art instead of You know just being that one solid piece that sort of Defines that moment and takes over the room and takes the oxygen out of the room But something else that counters it and maybe makes a more rounded argument so that people can Experience both sides of the table Am I making sense? Yes, and I think part of what you're also getting at is how Shows get organized right so There is a template that has existed for decades The way in which shows get organized. They're conceptualized. They and this is all led by curatorial staff generally Who are often the generators of the idea? Conceptualize it Execute work with the director on And the development office on raising the money for it because hopefully you've got some trustees who will help All of that. I mean that is part of the process but When that process doesn't include As you say, sir, no diversity No engagement except In the case certainly of gustin a group of white curators working in conference rooms and in Finding some really amazing works of which of course, you know, the gallery has many And in the case of sensation The exhibition was organized by The what was called the exhibition secretary of the royal academy who was an amazing man who had done scores of important exhibitions And it was entirely drawn And that was the idea. It was entirely drawn from that one collection So although there was some diversity in that exhibition It wasn't I would say that was not the point of the exhibition or the result And the There were many levels of challenges One was The challenge that it all came from one private collector um another Was that the I don't quite know how to put this That It felt that the that private collector had too much power over What was in the exhibition and how it was presented? I think what was shocking To him And we had had a quite good relationship was How often When the show is being installed here We said no We're not doing it this way We're not Labels were among the least problem Because he was a controlling collector Yes, very much so and was able to do that at the royal academy in monday He knew more about These artists than anyone in great britain anyone in the world um And so the deference that he was shown, of course Was at that point Not terribly Unusual um I don't know if it was just before just after the royal academy did a great massaccio Exhibition And those collectors were also shown major deference But dealing with contemporary art And which affects very much is affecting what is happening at that moment in a city like london or new york um I think there needs to be If we're doing it over again There would be more thoughtful conversation We would include everything that was in the exhibition We might include more And we certainly Wanted to make sure that we provided enough information That people were able To understand what they were seeing So we have one last question from this nice lady Okay, thank you great question You hit on something which I should have mentioned and that is that for Many weeks we couldn't get telephone call in or out because all of our lines were blocked by our friends at the catholic league by Hundreds not thousands of people calling it specifically to prevent people from being able to buy tickets to the exhibition People couldn't use their phones We were very late in the adoption of the internet Because we were I was Before I came here. I think there wasn't a great Commitment to the idea of it But after I got here The other part of that commitment it was the amount of money it cost To really network an institution like this Where curators have scattered throughout a gigantic building With these incredible concrete walls separating everyone So there was very little that got changed afterwards, but there was very little communication as you said between curators people weren't really able to Help absorb the fear that someone else might have except in our staff meetings And those staff meetings were held in the galleries where the works were and We tried very hard to get people to feel free and open and it was It was To me at least as director very hard to listen to what so many people were going through and This kind of battery Which was going on every day It affects people differently People who loved and worked in this institution over 20 years 25 years and guards Who've been here forever Would hear from their friends in their neighborhoods. What is this stuff? that you're showing at the museum and They didn't quite know what to say and we worked very hard the education department I great credit Spent an enormous amount of time trying to bring our guards and other non curatorial people Into a better understanding of what was being shown It was a very fraught time And I did say in the book The only time I heard people laugh in the galleries Is when I said before when they opened up cases and there happened to be legs and arms in there when they were supposed to be a painting And they it was kind of a nervous laugh um They were just everyone was afraid every day looking for looking for Joy in some way exactly Arnold what happened to the collection mr. Sachi's collection Well that despite um the newspaper accounts and um All of the criticism two things happened um Most of that collection Charles Sachi so owns today. He was heavily criticized for buying and selling Scores of works of art and then selling them at a profit um But most of his works remained in his collection except remarkably The museum of modern art owns The holy virgin mary That's the vindication arnold. I was talking about well and for I'm not I can't tell you for certain But for a number of years The shark Had its own gallery at the metropolitan museum And the director there somehow totally Was Transformed and this became such an important work of art Against which to look at the other great works of art In the metz collection Yes, that's That is Another way in which you have influenced American art and american art institutions. Please join me in thanking arnold layman the author of sensation and I believe Arnold is going to stick around And sign books. We have books for sale and they just arrived yesterday Just in time for tonight. I believe arnold We're going to have people Join us on stage here if they want to line up come up. Yes, and you're going to go over there I'm going to stay here. Oh, you want to stay here? Thank you arnold's going to stay here You all will come up And there'll be a procession to give you love adoration and admiration and darin and I are going to sign them jointly And with that everybody, thank you so much for coming Darin, you took the words right out of my mouth Please line up and get your book. I read the book in its entirety and I absolutely recommend it. It is amazing Enjoy and thank you Thank you