Words from the Director

Fall was a busy time for William U. Eiland, our director at the Georgia Museum of Art. Between conferences and exhibition installations in Kyoto, Japan, Washington D.C., and El Paso, Texas, he still managed to write a few words detailing his adventures.

September was something of a tsunami of activity for me. At the end of August and then for for ten days I was in Japan as a delegate for the U.S. branch of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). Kyoto was our host city—a lovely site for all of us and one that I predict will be a favorite among next year’s Olympians. The conference itself was unavailable to this director, if for no other reason than meeting and getting to know museum professionals literally from every part of the globe, from Uzbekistan and Iran to Australia and Uruguay. And, from them all, I learned something about practice, about non-English-language research, and about a shared commitment to preserving and sharing world heritage. The issues du jour at the conference were colonization and restitution, as they promise to be concerns for us all for years to come rather than topical only in 2019. Such is also true of sustainability, climate change and immigration, all subject of intense inquiry in Japan. Art museums cannot stand about or outside the fray, if you will, of urgency in these international discussions and neither can any of the museums, small or large, of the Western Hemisphere. The one “extraordinary general session” for all attendees was the last and by far the most contentious and debated, since it had as one subject the new universal definition of “museum.” The conversation has occurred over several years and was to culminate in a vote to accept or reject the new definition, one emphasizing museums’ essential participation in the socio-economic, even political issues of the day. So divided were the voting delegates (I was one), as were the several attendees, that the motion basically failed to pass and was sent back for further review and discussion. It will entail difficult conversations. The proposed definition includes the notion that museums are “democratizing” entities, and I wondered then, and now, how certain countries will find that word and concept palatable to their home governments. Stay tuned.

My return from Japan was something of an adventure. I used the word “tsunami” at the beginning of this report advisedly, but it seemed appropriate given the circumstances of my return to the United States. I partially slept through the recent typhoon in Tokyo and had to use my limited ingenuity, my Alabama accent, and loads of money to get through the city where almost all modes of transportation were “closed.” I finally found a taxi driver who braved the elements as well as the traffic jams to get me to Haneda Airport and Delta Airlines which brought me home.

Still jet lagged and living thirteen hours in the future, two days later I found myself in D.C. planning the program for the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums and ICOM-U.S.’s annual conference in May. I was not surprised that the sessions we were asked to consider (or a sponsoring group) focused on decolonization, sustainability, climate change etc.—these same issues that had been discussed and debated in Kyoto; especially relevant was our report to the American Museum community on the ongoing search for the definition of “museum,” one that truly does have serious consequences to us all, including our boards, governing institutions and audiences. To what degree are museums social agents of change? Should they be at all engaged in what are at base political considerations? What are our responsibilities given the fractiousness and partisanship of groups in the left and the right, who lately seem to be converging in their demise to suppress free speech? Do art museums which educate through the visual, through the character and context of the objects they present, have obligations to a sort of social engineering or entrepreneurship once seen as commercialization or outside our ken?Afterwards, my good friend Kathy Southern asked me to teach a class at George Washington University on governance, and I found the students in her museum studies course engaged, and thoughtfully so, on the impact of these very questions and the future of museums as how they will develop in the future.

Now, as I write, I am in El Paso, where last night (September 28th) I was privileged to represent the Georgia Museum of Art at the opening of our exhibition, Gifts and Prayers, at the El Paso Museum of History. The director Vladimir von Tsurikov and his talented, enthusiastic and capable staff “did us proud” with a lovely installation for a large and appreciative opening- night audience. I am spending the most of my weekend here studying the Kress Collection in the El Paso Museum of Art. More on that to come.