Newfields announces new board chair, expanded operating hours at annual meeting

8 thoughts on “Newfields announces new board chair, expanded operating hours at annual meeting”

1. Just give us an artistic kids play scape like every other art museum their size.

   Also good riddance to a terrible board chair – looking forward to positive progress there again

   Log in to Reply

2. Back to the beginning of all this: Why it was considered such an outrageous affront to seek to add patrons of all races while also maintaining “the museum’s traditional, core, white art audience”? It seems to have been solely because a white man dared to include a scrap of language that indicated the tiniest bit of positive energy toward white people

   We note that IBJ still puts “white” in lower-case while putting “Black” in upper case. Anti-white racism remains alive and well in Indy’s fashionable institutions.

   At least we can feel good about IMA getting rid of “Indianapolis,” “Museum” and “Art” in its name. Recent boards there seem to be embarrassed at being in Indianapolis, and I guess they got bored with the art museum thing, too. “Newfields” sounds like a combination of a nougaty candy bar and a lawn-care service. Genius!

   Log in to Reply

   1. This is a silly and uninformed take – like most of your contributions to society I would guess 🙂

      But we can both agree the board chair was terrible – chased off 3 solid CEOs and was only there because their SO donated enough money to the museum

   2. “Silly and uninformed” to expect that combating racism with racism won’t turn out well? Call me proudly silly and uninformed then.

      IBJ abides by the same stylebook bestowed on us like Moses from the mountaintop, courtesy of another compromised institution, the Associated Press. Or is it Chicago Manual? American Psychological Association? Does it matter?

      Venable did seem to represent a significant “dumbing-down” of an institution that doesn’t stand to benefit from populism. And many things do benefit from it. But I recognize that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of appeasing two factions.

      The operating hours WERE terrible, so that’s one improvement.

   3. Yes it’s a silly take to say the CEO that was sacked was terrible and led them down this path and then to say he shouldn’t have been fired.

      If I wanted to revoke someone’s severance and they did something dumb I’d use that to fire them for cause without a payout. That was actually seemingly smart management.

      Chasing off the next two CEOs via catty board management by the chair is embarrassing.

   4. Richard, “white” is not an ethnicity, it is a social construct (as is race in general, but that is another topic) used to define an “in-group” and define all others as outsiders.

      In the recent past in the US, individuals who were of Italian and Greek ancestry and those of other Southern and Eastern European descent were not considered white, and many were subject to discriminatory practices, like redlining in housing or employment boycotts. Eventually, as their numbers grew due to immigration, there was enough pressure to expand the definition of white to include them.

      The category of “white” has been expanded and refined many times over the years, as necessary for its preservation as a tool of class division. It exists to keep the working people from uniting to rise up against their corporate and billionaire masters who exploit their label to hoard wealth for themselves.

      In the US, the word Black when referring to a group of people is capitalized because it refers to a specific cultural ethnicity that developed around enslaved people of African-descent who were kept and bred (and often sexually assaulted to produce children) for generations to provide free labor to build and support the vast wealth of what was then the elite caste.

      As for Newfields, I laugh at all these comments, the organizations has had problems for years, and many of them were created or exacerbated under the leadership of the previous museum CEO’s.

      Max Anderson was a worldly and charming individual who excelled at putting on flashy special exhibits and schmoozing with wealthy donors, but he was also a spendthrift who drained the museum’s endowment. He also had great disdain for ordinary Hoosiers who he condescendingly described to my mother and her friend at an event as being “lizard-brained individuals who only care about basketball”—perhaps what some may deem a fair assessment, but not the sort of attitude that should be held by the leader of a civic institution in Indiana.

      Charles Venable was a fiscally shrewd executive, but he was woefully out of touch with the community he served. Despite his impressive art and management background, he was happy to turn the museum into a walled of Instagram experience instead of building it up as a local cultural civic institution. He was also incredibly tone-deaf when dealing with public relations crisis.

      Colette Pierce was an accomplished organizational leader and excelled at building community relationships, but under her leadership, there were allegations of persistent discrimination and mismanagement. Whether or not she inherited these issues, they seemed to have continued and worsened under her leadership.

      The present CEO, Mr. Booker, despite dealing with an employee controversy during his new tenure, still seems to be a solid choice to reform the organization and rebuild community trust in the institution.

   5. Wow Christopher it sounds like they should have appointed you CEO of the museum. And you take on white vs Black is hysterical. Stop projecting your white guilt.

   6. Wow, Rhea, thank you for the endorsement. Should the Newfields Board wish to make me an employment offer commensurate with my extensive management experience and demonstrated leadership ability, I would be willing to consider it, though I am very satisfied with my current job.

      As for my “take” on racial social politics in the US, it is a statement of the facts. And. I am very content with who I am, perhaps if you are feeling guilty, you might take stock of your life. You should also read a book on basic American history.