Art is often referenced as a medium of the human condition, one that can be used as a unifying factor among all, regardless of differences. However, the current landscape of the visual and performing arts have disproportionally displayed art portraying the world through the eyes of white men, with a lesser focus on art created by minority groups. This observation meets statistical data in a study done by the Public Library of Science (PLOS), which utilized web scraping* to pull data from the online catalogs of 18 notable U.S. museums (ranging across various geographic regions), with over 10,000 individual artists being referenced. According to the study, “Restricting our attention to individual, identifiable artists, we found that the artists whose works are held in mainstream U.S. museums are predominantly white men, who comprise 75.7% of all artists in our pool. We also found that museums with similar foci on time periods and geographic regions can have quite different levels of artist diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity” (Public Library of Science). These different levels can be seen in the figure below, which highlights museums that have a significantly higher or lower percentage of representation in comparison to the average. Of the minorities measured, African American artists see the least amount of representation at 1.2%, falling lower than works falling into the “Other” category (1.5%).

Historical and Current Disparities Between Minority and Non-Minority Groups

In the light of protests surrounding racial inequality and systematic racism stretching across varying U.S. industries, this lack of representation has been noted among the staff of art institutions as well. Current and previous museum employees have brought these concerns to high ranking staff in New York, New Orleans, California, and notably, Washington, D.C., where the National Museum of African Art (NMAfA) was described through a letter as, “The museum’s staff is predominantly white, with no curators of color, and complaints by black employees about their treatment have been systematically disregarded” (The Washington Post). Interim NMAfA director Deborah L. Mack reasons that the disparity of representation throughout the staff is due to under-staffing, rather than discrimination. She notes, “the museum had 60 employees in 2000, compared with its current 29 … Several employees are doing the work of two and three positions” (Washington Post). The museum is going through the process of offering 14 new positions as of July 2020, in an effort to attract new, diverse employees.

Despite this effort, the hiring of diverse staff in the arts industry historically does not represent the breakdown of the average American audience, particularly in high-ranking roles. With reference to a report done by the Mellon Foundation, “Among all museum hires between 2014 and 2018, 88% of people hired for executive and conservation roles were white, even though just 60.7% of the U.S. population identifies as white, non-Hispanic or Latino” (Artsy). Furthermore, “the staff of local arts agencies are 14% more white than the general U.S. population—a number that goes up to 21% for executive directors and CEOs—while members of their boards and commissions are 12% whiter” (Artsy). These numbers reflect that while diversity has been a longstanding concern for arts managers, current strategies and initiatives have not enacted a level of change that bridges the gap between over and under-represented populations.

The call for diversity extends beyond the borders of the U.S., with European arts institutions also seeing critiques over their lack of representation in talent and staffing. In the UK, “Just 11% of workers in England’s national portfolio organizations, which include galleries, theatres, orchestras, dance companies and museums, are from black and other minority ethnic backgrounds. That compares with 16% of the working-age population. In London the figure is 15%, near the national average but well short of the capital’s overall workforce figure of more than 40%” (The Guardian). These statistics have encouraged Arts Council England (ACE) to take a stronger stance toward achieving a proportionate amount of diversity, warning arts institutions that they will lose public funding if they do not achieve long-term “stretch” targets, stepping above the current criteria of only needing to integrate diversity into their business model to receive funding. This change may see differing challenges across art forms, as “Dance has the highest proportion of BME [Black and Minority Ethnic] employees, at 18% … museums have the lowest BME workforce at 6%” (The Guardian). This proposal was reported during a time that museums were operating as normal, without reference as to how arts institutions should address the matter of diversity in times of crisis.

Balancing Diversity and Crisis Management

COVID-19 has made significant negative impacts on the arts industry, with a concerning estimate of “as many as 30% of museums, mostly in small and rural communities, will not re-open without significant and immediate emergency financial assistance” (American Alliance of Museums). This unfortunate reality has forced arts institutions to make difficult decisions in order to survive through this economic downturn. In a survey done by Americans for the Arts (in which arts organizations self-reported their action plans for COVID-19), 32% of institutions have laid off or furloughed artists/creative employees. This number drops to 28% for general staffing (Americans for the Arts). However, this manner of crisis management can have an unequal impact on staff and talent that are members of minority groups.

As discussed before, minority groups (particularly those in BIPOC groups) often have a lower percentage of representation in leadership roles, placing a majority of staff in lower-paid roles. As a result, “Many museums and performing-arts groups have laid off staff in roles that interact with the public, like events, ticketing, and security, as well as entry-level or part-time staff in positions that could no longer be done. Nationally, these front-line workers are often the first to be let go, and they’re much more likely to be people of color, compared with people in other positions in the museum world” (The Chronicle of Philanthropy). This divide in how representation is distributed among the positions in an arts organization has created a landscape where these organizations are losing their diverse members through the actions taken to survive COVID-19. Even among leadership roles, this trend has the potential to continue, “The old adage ‘last hired, first fired’ could have a big effect on nonprofit diversity among white-led organizations where most staff of color have less seniority” (Nonprofit Quarterly).

To combat these implications, 186 employees at the Art Institute of Chicago have demanded transparency from leadership during decision-making regarding lay-offs and other cost-saving measures. However, “Several of those who signed the letter, which also offers alternatives to layoffs, have since been laid off … The Art Institute reduced its full-time staff by 51 people, citing severe financial challenges resulting from the coronavirus pandemic … The cuts amount to approximately eight percent of staff and represent departments across the museum.” (ARTnews). Beyond issues arising from the economic impacts of COVID-19 on underrepresented workers, the letter also dives into other practices the museum could take in order to become a more welcoming environment for minority groups. “The Art Institute staff’s letter outlines dozens of steps for the museum to “ensure accountable, equity-based decision-making now and into the future”; to engage with BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] staff across departments as the museum prepares to reopen; and to “build lasting, equitable processes that holistically support staff well-being, even through cuts.” These span from the development of pay equity structure to greater inclusion of marginalized voices in museum narratives” (ARTnews).

Even in times of crisis, there are paths that arts organizations can take that don’t value economic sustainability above protecting an institution’s diversity. Museums that have not participated in layoffs have employed in creative strategies to keep their staff throughout this time of hardship. The Smithsonian Institution chose to participate in pay cuts for high-ranking employees, “The salaries of 89 senior-level executives — all non-federal employees — will be cut by 10 percent for 12 months, starting May 24 … The majority of the institution’s 6,300 employees are federal workers and will not be affected” (The Washington Post). Beyond financial measures, 11 museums in Los Angeles have chosen to keep their full-time and part-time staff on payroll throughout the summer of 2020. The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County takes it a step further by providing new forms of work for its lower-level employees, “[they are] trying to be creative about how some part-time staff might help out on projects in other departments of the [museum] and the La Brea Tar Pits, including in research and collections” (Los Angeles Times).

Smaller museums have also engaged in this strategy, such as the Japanese American National Museum, which is “redeploying some employees who normally interact with the public to take on tasks such as data entry, social media, and membership renewal mailings normally handled by volunteers on-site” (Los Angeles Times). These strategies have been aided by ventures into technological innovations, which have been used as a medium to grant employees projects that can be done remotely or without contact with the public.

Such projects tied to technology include transcribing physical works into online databases. One museum that has chosen to dedicate its closure toward this task is the National WWI Museum and Memorial which “intends to keep its paid staff, which averages about forty-two part- and full-time employees at a given time, at the same wage and employment levels as before. To accommodate this, the museum has refocused staff into five cross-functional teams, each supporting an initiative to serve audiences or protect the institution and its collections. One of these teams, which includes employees from the museum’s visitor services department, is tackling the important but often-neglected work of digitizing and transcribing written materials from the collection” (American Alliance of Museums). This plan was put together prior to the museum’s closure, with the leadership and staff generating alternative plans to layoffs in anticipation of COVID-19’s impact on the American economy. Leadership chose to have its guest operations create a list of work that could be done remotely in the event that they would be unable to work in-person.

According to the museum’s president and CEO, Matthew Naylor, “It was an absolutely terrific and creative suggestion that immediately paid dividends. After only a few weeks, we had transcribed well over one thousand pages of content” (American Alliance of Museums). The museum created training material and conducted remote sessions in order to prepare employees for this change in responsibility, despite the economic losses garnered by having their doors closed. As stated by Naylor, “We’re projecting a loss of no less than $1 million in revenue that would have been generated by attendance, facility bookings, and things of that nature. However, we quite firmly believe that our staff is invaluable and we’re willing to show our appreciation to our staff by compensating for that loss in a variety of ways” (American Alliance of Museums). With 69% of arts institutions looking to using their online presence during this time of crisis (Figure 1), this strategy can be customized for other arts organizations to use in order to protect staff diversity while creating and implementing crisis management plans. Nonprofit Quarterly also offers other avenues to consider before “letting star performers go”, including covering expenses through differing revenue streams, prioritizing technology, and tapping into cash reserves/endowments (Nonprofit Quarterly).

*For more information on web scraping and data collection, read our latest article covering the subject: https://amt-lab.org/blog/2020/2/web/scraping/data/scraping

RESOURCES

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