Description

The Montclair Art Museum [MAM] seeks funding to develop new strategies for the presentation of its collection of the Native North American art in the dedicated Rand Gallery and throughout the Museum. For the past 25 years, MAM has actively implemented multicultural installations that have challenged the notion of a dominant cultural group. MAM’s Rand Gallery of Native Art of North America, reinstalled in 2014-16, has nevertheless become outmoded, owing to a gallery narrative that privileges founding collectors over Native American artists and cultures. MAM is eager to begin a careful and considered process of engaging current, innovative practices that include indigenizing the curatorial process through collaborative planning and dialogue with Native American art specialists and communities.
             
MAM’s Native North American collection numbers 4,000 objects spanning 800 years and seven major Native American cultures, with rapidly growing holdings of contemporary Native art. Collection strengths include the cache of 500 baskets given to MAM in 1914 by Florence Rand Lang. The Rand Gallery is currently installed with approximately 200 Native North American collection objects, and Native works are additionally featured throughout MAM’s permanent collection galleries. MAM staff have recently completed two major collection support projects: a comprehensive inventory; and an NEH-funded conservation survey that will underpin collection management standards and specifications for renovation and reconfiguration of the Rand Gallery.
MAM now seeks to embed protocols for culturally sensitive material into their practice of collection stewardship, interpretation and presentation, and prepare for a reinstallation that will celebrate the creative continuity and cultural endurance of Indigenous American art. They propose a three-year project to achieve these goals through the formation of an Advisory Board for Native American Art, the hiring of a project curator of Native American art, and a set of convenings and collection visits. The Advisory Board will guide the development of reinstallation plans, providing Native perspectives and connecting project staff with field resources and Native communities.
Two convenings will move the work forward: the first (2020) will focus on current and best practices, and new visions for the Rand Gallery, with visits to recent reinstallations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Newark Museum of Art; the second (2022) will be held at the new First Americans Museum (to open in Oklahoma City, OK, in 2021) with an additional visit to the Denver Art Museum. Throughout the project development, the team will seek to confront the colonial legacy inherent in museum collections, and shape a plan that will reconnect Native objects with their communities and share them respectfully with MAM’s diverse audiences. Additional project elements will include outreach to local Lenape artist.
Grant funds would support project personnel, advisory board honoraria, and travel expenses. While the planning project proceeds, MAM will seek funding for the implementation of the reinstallation plans, with the reopening of the Rand Gallery of Native Art of North America scheduled for 2023. Funding will also be sought for a permanent position for a curator of Native American art.
Recommendation:                                That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a three-year grant of $320,000 to the Montclair Art Museum to develop new strategies for the installation of the Native American art collection.