Occupy Museums

Bloomberg is running an article on how the Occupy Wall Street protesters are expanding their objections to now include, what protesters are calling the “temples of cultural elitism.”  This includes select NY cultural institutions as the New Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the Frick.  Earlier the group had picketed with union members against Sotheby's lock out of art handlers.

The article states the groups are upset with high museum entrance fees and are looking for, what I believe is a wider selection of exhibitions and artists.  Although, speakers of the group claim have they have no demands, they are only trying to bring people together in order to learn what a society is like that is not based on money.

The Bloomberg article reports

They took turns reading from a statement, with the crowd repeating each line in a call-and-response system used at their Wall Street base in Zuccotti Park and in many protests.

“The Occupy Wall Street Movement will bring forth an era of new art, true experimentation outside the narrow parameters set by the market,” was the chant at one point, voiced by a crowd comprising a few dozen artists, students and passers-by outside MoMA.

Artist Dave Kearns complained about MoMA’s regular admission fee, calling $25 “an obscene amount of money,” and adding, “There should be more nights when it’s free.”

A person in a gorilla mask said he or she -- the gender wasn’t clear from the voice -- worked in a New York museum and didn’t care for its exclusionist curatorial choices.

A 34-year-old artist named Blithe Riley proposed that the group skip the Frick Collection, which was to be temple No. 2, and go directly to No. 3, the New Museum.

“Three museums might be a lot for one day,” she said.
Show of Hands

With a show of hands, the group indicated a consensus for her proposal.

“We’re going to occupy the New Museum now,” Riley said.

A couple exiting MoMA looked perplexed.

“I don’t know what they mean, ‘Occupy the New Museum?’” said Ruth Geisenheimer, 82, from Chicago.

“What do they intend to do with this museum?” asked her husband, Ed, 87.

Noah Fischer, a 34-year-old Brooklyn-based artist who devised Occupy Museums, said the group makes no demands.

“We want to use the democratic process to bring people together and learn what a society that is not about money is like,” he said in an interview.

Outside the New Museum, Fischer called it a “pyramid scheme of the 1 percent.”

“These artists are conflated with capital,” he said.

To read the complete Bloomberg article, click HERE.