In 1970, the artist Hans Haacke created a “poll box” titled “Information” in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The poll question read: “Would the fact that Governor Rockefeller has not denounced President Nixon’s Indochina policy be a reason for you not to vote for him in November?” Museum visitors placed their answers in clear glass boxes, creating public art through the visible casting of opinions.
This seemingly arbitrary political inquiry actually served as a direct exploration of the political biases and money behind the MoMA — the Rockefellers were huge donors to the museum, and then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller was on the Board of Trustees.
The Koch brothers, who have reportedly spent more than $88 million dollars funding organizations that deny climate change and reject environmental regulation, are also major donors to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History; an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1980 called “Treasures of Ancient Nigeria” was funded by Mobil, while the company was still supplying the apartheid regime in South Africa with oil, despite activists’ calls for them to stop.
The question, then, arises: If Rockefeller supported a questionable political dogma — in this case, the Nixon administration’s engagement in Vietnam — was MoMA, by extension, complicit in his political thought if it potentially influenced the art in its galleries? If museum donors and boards are dominated by corporations and upper-class individuals whose political views have a direct bearing on the art, can those museums claim to fairly represent public artistic expression?
Museums are weird places.
They’re supposed to exist outside of the “real” world. Their blank white walls and general silence are meant to remove visitors from everyday life. It’s challenging to sort through the self-referential, oftentimes hypocritical, world of institutional art. The policies and bureaucracies of large museums feel obscure and overwhelming — it’s simpler, in most cases, to engage with the art in the context-less vacuum the museums themselves promote.
It’s easy to become disillusioned with the high-society, removed versions of art institutions. I know I have. Recently, I was reminded of the potential of small-scale museums to enact positive change when my family and I visited the “Mattress Factory” in Pittsburgh. It was amazing — we love mattresses so much.
Actually, the Mattress Factory is a contemporary art museum founded in 1977 by artists who wanted to support other artists-in-residence, encouraging them to create thought-provoking and unconventional site-specific works. The museum rehabilitated nine abandoned buildings around the North Side, encouraging cultural growth in an area previously considered downtrodden and unsafe.
Art institutions are often insular, serving their own interests instead of those of the public — it’s refreshing to be reminded that institutional art can work for a public good.
