{"id":183,"date":"2021-04-22T09:04:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-22T09:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/?p=183"},"modified":"2023-11-29T19:05:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T19:05:43","slug":"museums-on-a-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/2021\/04\/22\/museums-on-a-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMuseums on a Mission?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-heading\"><strong>Curator Dr. Straussman-Pflanzer speaks candidly on the responsibilities of Museums<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>By Caroline Harvey<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a part of a quarterly series, the Graduate Students of Art History reading group, <em>Dismantling the Canon<\/em>, recently hosted a wonderfully candid talk with Dr. Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, Curator and Head of Italian and Spanish Painting at the National Gallery of Art in D.C., entitled \u201cMuseums on a Mission?\u201d. Dr. Straussman-Pflanzer spoke about equity within museum collections, exhibitions, and amongst museum professionals.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"790\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/52.253-d1-2019-06-21_o2_new_resized_50-790x1024.png\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"228\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/52.253-d1-2019-06-21_o2_new_resized_50.png\" data-link=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/2021\/04\/22\/museums-on-a-mission\/52-253-d1-2019-06-21_o2_new_resized_50\/\" class=\"wp-image-228\" srcset=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/52.253-d1-2019-06-21_o2_new_resized_50-790x1024.png 790w, https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/52.253-d1-2019-06-21_o2_new_resized_50-232x300.png 232w, https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/52.253-d1-2019-06-21_o2_new_resized_50-768x995.png 768w, https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/52.253-d1-2019-06-21_o2_new_resized_50.png 900w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 790px) 100vw, 790px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-caption\">Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of<br>Holofernes, ca.1623\u20131625, oil on canvas, Gift of Mr. Leslie H. Green, Detroit Institute<br>of Art, 52.253<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Straussman-Pflanzer is known for her work on Artemisia Gentileschi, who will be featured in her upcoming exhibition <em>By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500\u20131800<\/em> at the Detroit Institute of Art and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. During her talk and following discussion, Dr. Straussman-Pflanzer discussed some of the ways in which Gentileschi\u2019s biography and her experience with sexual assault have become a narrow lens through which her work is viewed. This has also resulted in the careers of many other women artists being similarly viewed through fixed gendered readings. This is a common occurrence in art history, in which artists of color, women, LGBTQ artists, etc., are seen as metonymies of their communities and forced to be cultural representatives rather than individual artists, which loses the intricacies and complexities of artistic production. What can scholars and curators do to avoid such limitations? One solution Dr. Straussman-Pflanzer gave was to use those restrictions to our advantage as advocates of marginalized artists. By featuring Gentileschi in <em>By Her Hand<\/em>, she will be able to harness Gentileschi\u2019s popularity to reframe her narrative and shine a light on other women artists, which will thereby unpack the identity of the \u201cwoman artist\u201d and subvert narrow definitions. Similarly, our own Professor Estelle Lingo has led graduate and undergraduate seminars on Gentileschi\u2019s agency in her own biography and how scholarship\u2019s treatment of her is reflected in the study of women artists. Professor Lingo also participated in this year\u2019s panel: \u201cArtemisia Gentileschi and the Ethics of Scholarship\u201d at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, which posed questions on how early modern scholarship can use the treatment of Gentileschi to reexamine their own historical methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"507\" src=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Capture-e1620166367353-1024x507.png\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"240\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Capture-e1620166367353.png\" data-link=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/2021\/04\/22\/museums-on-a-mission\/capture\/\" class=\"wp-image-240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Capture-e1620166367353-1024x507.png 1024w, https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Capture-e1620166367353-300x148.png 300w, https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Capture-e1620166367353-768x380.png 768w, https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Capture-e1620166367353-1536x760.png 1536w, https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Capture-e1620166367353-2048x1013.png 2048w, https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Capture-e1620166367353-1568x776.png 1568w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-caption\">An image from the lecture \u201cMuseums on a Mission?\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Art historians are on a constant mission to create thought-provoking research and exhibitions, though we do not usually discuss the hurdles one must clear to complete such goals. The BLM movement opened the door for many museum employees to call out prejudice and toxic work environments, and the financial constraints of the pandemic also further exposed art museums\u2019 dependence on wealthy donors and board members. Common questions in the art world and amongst the members of <em>Dismantling the Canon<\/em> are: how do museum\u2019s invoke real change when they are beholden to capitalism and the 1%? Will we ever progress beyond having to cater to the needs and wants of rich, white, cisgendered male donors? Dr. Straussman-Pflanzer was extremely forthcoming about these issues and how her career has taught her that her role as a curator is as much about building productive relationships as it is about producing fruitful research and exhibitions. At multiple points in our discussion, she emphasized the importance of cultivating relationships with like-minded, progressive donors, even if they are not the richest patrons. By rethinking the curator\u2019s job description, Dr. Straussman-Pflanzer presented progressive and optimistic approaches to our graduates as we enter an art world that is currently struggling to meet the demand for the ethical treatment of employees and confront their own complicity in the creation of the structure that continues to perpetuate inequitable professional standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"987\" height=\"485\" src=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/firstpost-zoom-regular-e1620166274871.png\" alt=\"zoom meeting screenshot\" data-id=\"186\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/firstpost-zoom-regular-e1620166274871.png\" data-link=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/2021\/04\/22\/museums-on-a-mission\/firstpost-zoom-regular\/\" class=\"wp-image-186\" srcset=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/firstpost-zoom-regular-e1620166274871.png 987w, https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/firstpost-zoom-regular-e1620166274871-300x147.png 300w, https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/firstpost-zoom-regular-e1620166274871-768x377.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 987px) 100vw, 987px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-caption\">An image from the lecture \u201cMuseums on a Mission?\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Curator Dr. Straussman-Pflanzer speaks candidly on the responsibilities of Museums By Caroline Harvey As a part of a quarterly series, the Graduate Students of Art History reading group, Dismantling the Canon, recently hosted a wonderfully candid talk with Dr. Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, Curator and Head of Italian and Spanish Painting at the National Gallery of Art&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/2021\/04\/22\/museums-on-a-mission\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">\u201cMuseums on a Mission?\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":577,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions\/577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/gsah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}