Posts
Ethics
Remarks from Benin Bronzes Repatriation Ceremony
On October 11, 2022, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art hosted a repatriation ceremony in which officials of the museum transferred ownership of twenty-nine Benin bronzes and …
Museums Discover Impact Investing
CFM first flagged impact investing as a trend of significance to museums in 2013, inspired by a talk Seth Miller gave at SXSW in which he declared that “every time you spend a dollar, you …
Germany first to hand back Benin bronzes looted by British
Germany is to become the first country to hand back the Benin bronzes looted by British soldiers in the late nineteenth century. A decision on the restitution was facilitated by the fact …
Baltimore Museum to Sell 3 Blue-Chip Paintings to Advance Equity
The Baltimore Museum of Art is deaccessioning three paintings, by Brice Marden, Clyfford Still and Andy Warhol, and expects to receive approximately $65 million from a combination of an …
Essential Evaluators: The Silver Lining
Essential Evaluators seeks to gather evaluators in a common space to dialogue, reflect, and support each other in a world upended by COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protest movement. …
Fear Factor: In a contentious cultural climate, museums are wise to recognize the pressures to self-censor
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2020 issue of Museum magazine, a benefit of AAM membership. In January 2020, it came to light that the National Archives had altered a …
Diving Deeper into Truth, Trust, and Fake News
In this series of posts, EdCom’s Trends Committee is taking a deeper look at emerging phenomena identified in the 2019 edition of TrendsWatch from the Center for the Future of Museums. …
As Nazi objects and fakes enter collectors’ market, should museums show them?
A recent rash of sales of Nazi memorabilia raise questions about dealing in such objects at a time when fascist philosophy is being embraced by populist radicals and demand is fuelling the …
Museopunks Episode 41: Digitization is not neutral
Over the past decade, museums have increasingly shared high-resolution open access images of their collections. Yet there are significant legal and ethical complexities related to digital …
The Top Ten Alliance Blog Posts of 2019
It was a whirlwind year of museums making themselves over for our changing world. Evolving ethics, social and technological transformation, and the looming presence of the bottom line are …
Toxic Philanthropy
We live in a time in which the public is hyper sensitive to the ethics of where money comes from, and where it goes. As I observed in TrendsWatch 2015, nonprofits don’t get a free pass in …
A Modern-Day Fundraising Dilemma
I recently renewed my certification as a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), which recognizes an individual’s comprehensive understanding of the fundraising profession and their …
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Latest Stories from AAM
Museum Colleague Shoutouts for 2023
Category:
Alliance Blog
Last month we asked readers of our Field Notes newsletter to share their shoutouts for outstanding museum colleagues in honor of the new year. Here were some of the responses they shared: …
Chatting About Museums with ChatGPT
Category:
Center for the Future Of Museums Blog
Two months ago, the research and development lab OpenAI released ChatGPT, an interactive “chatbot” powered by artificial intelligence. Chatbots aren’t new (I’ve been writing about …
Different by Design: A New, Inclusive Framework for Accessible Museum Exhibitions
Category:
Alliance Blog
In January 2020, I authored a post for the Alliance Blog about speechless: different by design, an exhibition that I curated for the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) and the High Museum of Art in …