Mission
The mission of the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums (BTA) is to transform art museums into more equitable and excellent spaces of cultural engagement by harnessing the power of Black trustees.
Photo: Juliette Contin, 2020.
Strategy
A museum’s board of trustees has a material role in shaping that institution’s direction, which is why BTA is helping Black trustees direct their institutions toward a more equitable and inclusive future.
BTA is focused on barriers to entry and advancement for Black staff and leadership; underrepresentation of Black narratives in exhibitions, collections, and programming; and limited patronage of minority-owned vendors, contractors, and service providers.
Our approach to helping trustees address these issues is threefold:
- Develop programming and digital platforms to build a community of Black museum trustees that actively supports one another, artists, Black museum leadership, and staff
- Conduct original research and support affiliates' research to develop data-driven tools that enable our trustees to be more effective in navigating change and transforming their institutions
- Establish strategic communications to elevate a collective voice that advocates for Black representation and amplifies the work of other organizations in the field
Our Story
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in the late summer of 2020, a group of Black trustees from New York-area art museums was convened by Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation; Elizabeth Alexander, President of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and Thelma Golden, Director of The Studio Museum in Harlem, for the purpose of opening a dialogue about the state of diversity and conflict at participants’ respective institutions. The following month, a subset of the group—led by Gabrielle Sulzberger, Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Victoria Rogers, Trustee of the Brooklyn Museum, and seed-funded by the Ford Foundation—formed a Steering Committee to create a strategic plan for an organization that would help Black trustees more effectively diversify and govern their institutions. The Steering Committee represented a diverse range of museums that varied by city, scope, and collection type, and from their work the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums was born.
Illustration: Anna Wanda Gogusey / Le Quotidien de l’Art, 2021.
Founding Committee (2020-2021)
Victoria Rogers
Founder & Co-Chair
Brooklyn Museum
Gabrielle Sulzberger
Founder Emeritus & Co-Chair
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Troy Carter
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
N. Anthony Coles
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Edith Cooper
Museum of Modern Art
Denise B. Gardner
The Art Institute of Chicago
Edward Greene
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
AC Hudgins
Museum of Modern Art
Pamela J. Joyner
The Art Institute of Chicago | Museum of Modern Art | J. Paul Getty Trust | San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Alison Leland
The Menil Collection
Raymond J. McGuire
The Studio Museum in Harlem | Whitney Museum of American Art
Celeste Watkins-Hayes
Detroit Institute of Arts