Just Leave That Botticelli Near the Bike Rack

"Inside | Out" Makes Art Inescapable by Placing Major Works on the Street. Literally.

The phone rang in the office of Salvador Salort-Pons, then Curator of European Paintings at the Detroit Institute of Arts. “I found a Van Gogh painting outside the public library, and I don’t want someone to steal it!” said the woman on the other end of the line. “Don’t worry, though, I’ve deployed my husband to protect it.”

Six years later, Salort-Pons is now the Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the museum that left that Van Gogh outside the library—on purpose. The painting was part of its Inside|Out program, …

Can Museums Serve Distinct Groups While Also Building a Cohesive Community?

Social Bridging Is Challenging for Arts Organizations and Patrons, But It's Good for Both

Like many organizations, my museum, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, struggles with two conflicting goals.

The museum should be for everyone in our community.

But it’s impossible to …

Audience Engagement Is Not Community Engagement. We Need More of the Latter.

Arts Organizations Should Build Relationships That Aim for Mutual Benefit

Engagement is an important word in the nonprofit arts industry, often paired (at a minimum) with arts, audience, and community. Over the last decade, “engagement” has very nearly become worn …

American Culture’s Unlikely Debt to a British Scientist

A Fortuitous Influx of Cash Launched the Smithsonian’s Earliest Art Collection

In 1835, through an unlikely turn of events, the young United States became the beneficiary of the estate of one James Smithson, a British scientist of considerable means who had …