Make Museums Free: What we can learn from Britain and Washington

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/11/29/make-museums-free-what-we-can-learn-f...

Robert Fulford  

Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

London's National Gallery

After two or three centuries in business, public museums have developed into one of the splendours of democracy, the only places where private taste meets elite scholarship and we all pursue our own passions at our own pace. It’s an arena of opinion that permits individualism and innovation to come magnificently alive.

Just one thing is wrong: Going to a museum in Canada costs money. Unlike parks, libraries and cathedrals, museums have box offices. If two adults take three teenagers to the National Gallery in Ottawa, they pay $18. That’s to enter a building that their taxes built, to see art that they, being citizens, own. The Vancouver Art Gallery, which charges $17.50 for an individual ticket, offers a family rate (maximum two adults and four children) for $50, plus tax. Paddy Johnson, a Canadian curator who runs an art blog from Brooklyn, recently wrote: “I’ve never thought the public should be charged to see their own belongings.”

That’s also the British view. In Britain most of the national museums are entirely free, most of the time. In Washington the array of museums run by the Smithsonian Institution on the Mall proudly advertises “admission always free.”

Unfortunately, while charging money at the door supports the running of a museum, it also strengthens the wretched idea that the arts and sciences are the business of a few specialists and the well-to-do. Although many museums have free days or free hours, the existence of a regular ticket price sets the tone. It especially discourages those who find museums a shade intimidating.

Professionals in the field know all this and often contemplate how they might arrange for their institutions to follow the London and Washington examples.  Accomplishing that change would almost certainly involve expanded government grants, a subject that’s close to unspeakable in this bleak fiscal era.

Even so, two recent changes in the admission fees of Toronto museums suggests that we may be edging slowly toward the ideal of free museums. With enough backers it could become reality when, once again, the good times roll.

On Oct. 27 the Royal Ontario Museum lowered its price for a single adult visit from $24 to $15, a reduction of more than a third, the largest such cut in the price of any major museum in my memory. The rate for children (14 and under) has come down from $16 to $12. That’s a timely change as we approach the holidays, when grandchildren traditionally require that their grandparents show them a few dinosaurs, which fortunately the ROM has in spades.

Meanwhile the Power Plant, the modern art museum on the Toronto waterfront, has announced it will celebrate its 25th year with an “all year, all free” policy, to begin March 23. The Hal Jackman Foundation has provided a grant that will cover the lost revenue.

Making museum admissions free is one way to help everyone feel more comfortable with art. People who work or live near Trafalgar Square in London know that they don’t need to visit the National Gallery only on special, planned-for occasions. They can, if they wish, drop in for 20 minutes between appointments and see what their favourite Velazquez or Holbein says to them that day.

That encourages serendipity, a term Horace Walpole coined in 1754 to describe happy discoveries made by accident. The word remained rare for a couple of centuries until improved education and relatively cheap travel made serendipity a more frequent event in many lives.

It happens in museums when you abandon all sense of purpose and stroll, in the style of what the French call a flâneur, until something you didn’t expect asserts itself, preferably an artist or an idea you’ve never read or heard about. Then you forget about “art appreciation” and just appreciate art.

It’s a style that allows for whims and sudden changes of plan. It requires openness, a kind of alert browsing. One of the occasions it occurred in my life was in Italy, in the days when Canadian currency made European travel cheap. Exhibitions in Italy were more or less free for those bearing dollars.

One day in Venice I read, on the gorgeous pink marble facade of the Palace of the Doges, a sign, “Mostra Lorenzo Lotto.” I didn’t know who this guy Lotto was and didn’t even know that “mostra” was Italian for exhibition.

But I went in, at a cost of about 60 cents, and found myself absorbing the first one-man show in Lotto’s long posthumous career. In the Renaissance there were no retrospectives of artists and no museums either. Lotto was mostly forgotten after his death until Bernard Berenson, prince of art scholars, rediscovered him late in the 19th century. Berenson’s work stimulated half a century of scholarship and the Venice show made the rebirth of his reputation official just before I arrived.

His favourite religious subject (St. Jerome in the wilderness), his unique design element (Oriental rugs) and his powerful, searching portraits all made fresh sense to me. An hour or so later I walked out with a new artist permanently installed in my head, never to be displaced.

In Washington, cruising the museums on the Mall, I sense something like this happening all around me. People can combine a long visit to the National Gallery of Art with a shorter excursion to the Museum of African Art, or vice verse. They may want to see both the National Museum of the American Indian and the Air and Space Museum. This is a place where there’s an epiphany waiting around every corner for the receptive visitor.

Some of the people who crowd the free museums in Washington are tourists who may have heard about the Mall but can hardly believe that this museum heaven exists on earth and that they’re visiting it. Others are scholars or artists with highly specialized interests, or some of the vast army of bureaucrats from the buildings nearby, people who have realized that this place is one of the major perks in their lives.

They look unusually happy. They chatter with animation and they seem entirely at home in the presence of some of the greatest art on the planet. They’re so relaxed that they seem to be acting as if they own the place, which in fact they do.

Wednesday: Melissa Leong on what museums across the country are doing to engage and entice visitors

Ted Means Laid to Rest as AIM Brothers Look On

http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/ted-means-laid-to-rest-as-aim-brothers-look-...

A Simple Grave

GREENWOOD, SOUTH DAKOTA - With brothers, Russell and Bill, looking on Ted Means was laid to rest in a simple grave yesterday.

Means, 65, of Porcupine, died of complications from a stroke last Wednesday at a hospital in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Ted and Bill Means were twin brothers.

Joining his natural brothers at the ceremonies yesterday were his American Indian Movement brothers and sisters, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, Antonio Gonzales and hundreds of others.

Known as affectionately as the "Gov," Means was born on August 9, 1946 in Wagner, South Dakota. He was veteran of Wounded Knee 1973, a member of the Run for Freedom Runners, American Indian Grassroots, Survival School Family, a Porcupine Singer, Wakinyan Singers and a long-time sundancer. Prior to his retirement, he served as director of the Porcupine Health Clinic, which he helped found.

Two wakes were held for Means over the weekend, with members of the American Indian Movement leadership arriving at different times throughout the weekend to show their support.

Various speakers expressed their gratitude to his selfless dedication to the American Indian Movement.

In honor of Means long and dedicated service to the American Indian Movement, the AIM anthem was drummed and sung at all ceremonies.

A ceremony was held at Sinte Gleska University Multi-Purpose Building in Mission earlier Monday.

Besides, Russell and Bill Means, he is survived by his wife, Lynn Means, Mission; 12 children, Theodore Means Jr., Fort Hall, Idaho; Red Boy Means, Porcupine; Oyate Means, Sisseton; Shelley Means, Rosebud; LeToy Lunderman, Parmelee; Tipi Means and Faith Means, both of Winnebago, Nebraska; Casey Means, Pine Ridge; Shyla LaRoche, C.J. LaRoche, and Sammie Larson, all of Mission; and Season Means, Minneapolis, Minneapolis; two sisters, Mabel Ann Phillips and Madonna Phillips, both of Wagner; and 25 grandchildren.

Fat passenger forced another to stand for a seven hour flight

http://www.dailynewsalert.com/story.php?id=1679

Fat passenger forced another to stand for a seven hour flight

A passenger on a flight from Anchorage to Philadelphia was forced to stand for the seven hour flight because the 400 pound man next to him spilled over into half of his seat.

Arthur Berkowitz was no only unable to sit in his seat, but he couldn't use his seatbelt during takeoff or landing.

The plane should never have taken off if a passenger was unable to get his belt securely fastened because of his husky neighbor. I don't know how it was even legal for the plane to take off, but it did.

Flight attendants apologized for the inconvenience. The 400 pound obese man was a last minute addition to the flight. Attendants at the gate failed to make him purchase two tickets.

Before the obese man got on, Berkowitz thought he was going to have an empty seat next to him. He turned out not having a seat at all. He was forced to stand on one of the longest non-stop U.S. domestic flights.

U.S. Airways has apologized to Berkowitz and offered him a $200 voucher in compensation. His ticket for that flight was $800. They didn't even offer a refund for the full amount of his ticket. That's ridiculous.

For take off and landing he must have had to kind of crouch in his seat to make it at least appear somewhat safe, but not being able to use his seatbelt is definitely a hazard.

As soon as the obese man sat down they should have realized he was taking up too much room. I don't understand why they didn't have him get off the plane? It's a hazard if another passenger has to stand up.

Any flight I've been on the flight attendants are emphatic about people sitting in their seats. I see people get up to stretch for a minute and it's usually not longer before a flight attendant is telling them to sit down.

Navajo Code: Powerful As Any Weapon In WWII?

NYTimes: French Museums Atone for a Colonial History

But in recent decades the ground has shifted. The Enlightenment vision of artifacts unveiling universal truths has fallen prey to skepticism. And the 20th-century disintegration of the European empires, accompanied by attention to their sins, has jostled the museums’ foundations. The Enlightenment museum, after all, was often an “imperial” museum, its ambitions aided by the empire’s global reach. Natural history museums have felt the tremors as well. They began by gazing out confidently from the peaks of 19th-century Western civilization and claiming everything that was closer to nature than to culture as their domain, including fossils, wildlife and non-Western peoples. Now those ideas are undone.

 

Woman alleges discrimination in police rape case

The woman who accused a Farmington police officer of sexually assaulting her filed a formal discrimination complaint against the department with the city's Community Relations Commission. Rape charges still are pending against Sgt. Kent O'Donnell, who was accused of forcibly raping the local woman during an Aug. 27 incident. The alleged victim, who requested she remain nameless, believes she is not the first American Indian victim of O'Donnell and filed the complaint based on the belief that police administration has not properly handled officers who have abused authority. This is not the first time an American Indian woman has made allegations against the sergeant. A public records request for the citizen complaints against O'Donnell revealed 24 complaints from 2004 through 2011.

 

NPR: Navajo Code: Powerful As Any Weapon In WWII?

 

During World War II, the U.S. military enlisted Navajo Indians who used their native language to devise a clandestine, unbreakable code. Host Michel Martin speaks to Chester Nez, the last of the original Navajo 'code talkers,' and Judith Schiess Avila, co-author of Nez' autobiography.

 

Significant growth reported in Iowa’s Native American population

 

Data from the 2010 Census indicates Iowa’s Native American population grew 27 percent in the last decade. Census-takers found just over 11,000 Native Americans in Iowa. Just over a thousand were living in the Meskwaki Settlement near Tama, and the Census found 7.5 percent of the population in Tama County is Native American. However, nearly one-in-five of the Native Americans in Iowa are part of the Sioux Nation and 20 percent of the Native Americans in Iowa live in the Sioux City area. The Census found members of the Cherokee, Chippewa, Winnebago and Omaha in Iowa as well. A much larger percentage of Native Americans choose the military than the population at large. Almost 750 of the Native Americans in Iowa are serving in the military or are veterans. That’s almost seven percent of the entire Native American population in Iowa.

Fort Sill Apaches get new reservation NM, plan return 125 years after Geronimo scattered tribe

Fort Sill Apaches get new reservation NM, plan return 125 years after Geronimo scattered tribe

 

More than 125 years after the surrender of renowned Apache leader Geronimo scattered tribal members across the Southwest, the Fort Sill Apache have won the right to establish a reservation on homelands in southern New Mexico.

 

Big Brothers Big Sisters Draft Basketball Star Tahnee Robinson as Spokesperson

 

Many recognize Tahnee Robinson for playing guard for the University of Nevada and for being the first American Indian to be drafted by the WNBA. However, these accomplishments may not have happened if it wasn’t for her coaches and parents serving as her mentors. Now, Robinson has a chance to serve as a mentor by being the official spokesperson for Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS).  Wright-Bryan said that mentoring is not new to Native communities, with extended family serving in this traditional role. For her, the importance of BBBS Native American Mentoring is that it relies upon an area’s tribal members to serve as the first point of contact between the program and local Native communities.

 

NPR: 'Unconquered' Explores An Isolated Amazon Tribe

 

The 7 billion people on this planet have never been so connected. People in Shanghai can communicate instantaneously with people in Sioux City — which makes it all the more remarkable that there still exists a few thousand people in the Amazon rain forest who have never had contact with modern civilization. In 2002, National Geographic asked journalist Scott Wallace to chronicle the trip of a 34-man team to search for the perimeters of a people known as the flecheiros — or the Arrow People. The Unconquered is the story of the team's paradoxical quest: to study the Arrow People without coming into contact with them, for the safety of the explorers and the tribe.

Native American tribes demand equal footing, sovereignty if Internet gambling allowed in US

 

Native American tribes said Thursday they want their share of the jobs and revenue if online gambling is allowed in the U.S, but they don’t want to lose their sovereignty to get it. Internet gambling has been prohibited in the U.S. since 2006, which has sent fans and their money to sites based offshore. With Congress searching for money to cut the deficit and create new jobs, supporters see an opening for legalizing at least some online gambling.

 

Leaders of NY's Seneca Indians settle dispute

 

Leaders of the Seneca Indian Nation in New York say they've settled an internal power struggle. The western New York tribe announced the development in a statement late Thursday that capped a tumultuous week. Last Saturday, the Tribal Council voted 10-6 to remove Seneca President Robert Odawi (oh-DAH'-wee) Porter as chief executive officer. The no-confidence vote was a first for the tribe, which runs three western New York casinos as well as reservation cigarette businesses.

 

Tribal members look to put UND nickname on ballot in effort to keep Fighting Sioux moniker

 

A group of American Indians who want the University of North Dakota to keep its Fighting Sioux nickname hope to put the issue to voters, their lawyer said Thursday. Members of the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe who back the nickname say they plan to gather signatures to try to amend the state’s constitution to require that the school use the moniker. Their lawyer, Reed Soderstrom, said he hoped such a move would end arguments about the nickname “once and for all.” The school wants to shed its 81-year-old nickname after a drawn-out dispute with the NCAA, which says the name and the school’s American Indian logo are offensive to Native Americans. North Dakota lawmakers voted earlier this month to allow UND to get rid of the moniker, overturning a last-ditch attempt in March by the Legislature. That maneuvering had caused scheduling headaches for UND teams and threatened its bid to join the Big Sky Conference as it transitions from Division II to Division I sports.

 

BBC: Brazil indigenous Guarani leader Nisio Gomes killed

 

An indigenous leader in southern Brazil has been shot dead in front of his community, campaigners say. Nisio Gomes, 59, was part of a Guarani Kaiowa group that returned to their ancestral land at the start of this month after being evicted by ranchers. He was killed by a group of up to 40 masked gunmen who burst into the camp, witnesses said. Land disputes between indigenous groups and ranchers are common in Mato Grosso do Sul State.

 

SF Chronicle: Where American Indian legends and lore abound

 

With the fall harvest under way and Thanksgiving dinner looming just around the bend, there's no better time to bone up on Indian legends and lore. Along with a large helping of culture, here are some places where you can indulge in a feast for all your senses.

BBC: Colombia's indigenous peoples face uncertain future

 

A group of men, women and children walk up a muddy hill carrying heavy bags filled with sand. They all belong to the Awa tribe: indigenous people displaced by the Colombian conflict who are trying to build a new life. Violence forced them out of their homeland in the mountains. Now they are trying to settle on 127 hectares (313 acres) of land provided by the government on the outskirts of Ricaurte, a small town in the south-western province of Narino.

 

ICT: There’s an (Inuktitut) App for That

 

Canada’s first Inuktitut app has been launched. The Canada Council for the Arts is giving out information on how to apply for grants with an app for iPads, iPhones, the iPod touch and Androids in the language of the Inuit. The goal is to attract musicians, artists and writers of the far north to the programs. With 3,000 to 6,500 artists living in Nunavut, there is a lot of talent to plumb. The council received 23 grant applications from Nunavut and awarded $281,000 in arts funding in 2010–11, the Nunatsiaq News

 

Mother Of Baby Killed In Edmond Foster Home Speaks Out

 

Kala Whitecrow is breaking her silence two years after her daughter Naomi Whitecrow died in the care of her foster mother, Amy Holder. Holder was convicted of child abuse in the death, but will not serve any prison time. Holder was sentenced to pay a $5,000 fine, register as a violent offender for ten years, pay $10,000 to the victims' compensation fund and $150 to an OSBI fund.

 

Native leader seeks stronger ties between tribes, corps

 

The room on the fourth floor of Sealaska Plaza was packed with more than 30 people. They’d gathered as part of Native Alaskan Heritage Month to hear Edward Thomas, president, Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska and a director on Sealaska Corp.’s board speak about tribes and Native corporations. Thomas was in what looked like a hand-crafted blue vest with large brown buttons. He was soft spoken, but in the quiet room his voice was clear.

 

SF Chronicle: American Indians get permanent exhibit at Alcatraz

 

One of the demands during the American Indian occupation of Alcatraz was to create a cultural center. Forty years later, the former band practice room in the cellblock basement has been transformed into a multimedia exhibit of that 19-month occupation that many consider the birth of American Indian activism. The photos, videos and sound recordings were compiled by faculty and students at San Francisco State University and California State University East Bay and will become part of Alcatraz's permanent exhibit. One wall of photos, taken by former San Francisco State graduate student Salvador Sanchez Strawbridge, depicts sacred fires and Aztec dancers at this year's 40-year celebration of the Alcatraz takeover. Curators spent a year interviewing descendants of the late occupation leader Richard Oakes as well as those who followed him on a boat to occupy Alcatraz.

L.A. Times: Indian 'Shadow Wolves' stalk smugglers on Arizona reservation

 

Kevin Carlos hates how the drug runners tramp through the ancient cemeteries and holy places he holds dear. That peak up there, he says, speeding toward the reservation's border with Mexico. That's where the creator lives. His name is I'itoi, the elder brother. He created the tribe out of wet clay after a summer rain. Tribe members still bring him offerings — shell bracelets, beargrass baskets and family photos — and leave them in his cave scooped out of the peak. But the drug smugglers don't know that. On their way to supply America's drug markets, they use these sacred hilltops as lookouts, water holes as toilets and the desert as a trash can.

 

Depleted Texas lakes expose ghost towns, graves

 

Across the state of Texas, receding lakes have revealed a prehistoric skull, ancient tools, fossils and a small cemetery that appears to contain the graves of freed slaves. Some of the discoveries have attracted interest from local historians, and looters also have scavenged for pieces of history. More than two dozen looters have been arrested at one site. More than two dozen looters have been arrested at Lake Whitney, about 50 miles south of Fort Worth, for removing Native American tools and fossils that experts believe could be thousands of years old. At Lake Georgetown near Austin, fishermen discovered what experts determined was the skull of an American Indian buried for hundreds or thousands of years. It's not clear what will become of the skull, said Kate Spradley, a Texas State University assistant anthropology professor who is keeping it temporarily in a lab. Strict federal laws governing American Indian burial sites bar excavations to search for other remains.

 

White House Highlights Native American Youth as ‘Champions of Change’

 

On December 1, 11 American Indian youth leaders will be honored at the White House as Champions of Change for their efforts to help improve the lives of those around them while address issues affecting their communities. The ‘Champions of Change’ for Native American youth are here to share their stories and to attend the White House Tribal Nations Conference. The program, created as part of Obama’s Winning the Future initiative highlights a different issue each week and selects groups of Champions across different spectrums working to better their communities.

Painted and ornamented, bodies become canvases for artists at festival in Venezuela

 

Artists used paint, ornaments and glitter to transform the human body into artwork at a festival in Venezuela, showing off designs that ranged from pure fantasy to indigenous myths. The weekend’s annual World Meeting of Body Art included body painting, tattoo art, performances and workshops. Fifty-two artists from 18 countries shared their creations at the gathering in Caracas, joining about 2,000 Venezuelans, organizers said.

 

WSJ: Oneida tribe pays out $5M in bonuses to employees

 

The Oneida Nation that runs Turning Stone casino and other enterprises in Central New York is distributing $5 million worth of bonuses to its 4,500 employees. Oneida Nation Representative Ray Halbritter says Monday that despite the recession, the Oneida's business interest including the massive casino and resort east of Syracuse turned a profit similar to previous years. Halbritter didn't disclose the profit. The Oneida Nation also increased salaries for its government workers and avoided layoffs.

AP: Administration unveils new rules for tribal lands

Ahead of a meeting Friday between President Barack Obama and hundreds of Native American leaders, the administration unveiled new rules for tribal lands that officials say will expedite home building and energy development. The proposed changes _ the first of its kind in 50 years _ would open the door to badly-needed housing development on reservations, and for wind and solar energy projects that tribes have been eager to launch. The plan gives Obama another boasting point for this week's meeting with leaders of the 565 federally-recognized tribes at the White House.

 

ICT: Harper Appointed to President’s Commission on White House Fellowships

 

President Obama has appointed Keith M. Harper to serve on the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. A highly acclaimed attorney who has worked on litigation and Native American issues throughout his career representing tribes and individual Indians, Harper is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and partner and Chair of the Native American Practice Group at the law firm of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP. His appointment to the White House Fellowship Commission was announced in a White House press release November 23.

 

Nevada Record-Courier: First female tribe leader feels called to role

 

Wanda Batchelor made history when she was elected to lead the Washoe Tribe, the first woman ever to do so. Batchelor said a year into her position the transition has been a smooth one. “We're a matriarchal society,” she explained. Batchelor was named this year's American Indian Community Leader by the Nevada Indian Commission. Batchelor has a long history in law enforcement and social work in California before moving to Carson City, when she began working for the Washoe Tribe. She served an eight-year term as the chairwoman of the Stewart Indian Community and four years as the chairwoman of the Washoe Tribal Council, among other roles.

 

Bloomberg: U.S. Targets American Indian Lands for Renewable-Energy Projects

 

The U.S. Interior Department plans to require the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs to approve leases for renewable-energy projects on land held by American Indians unless the bureau can show why the proposals should be rejected within two months. Under the proposed rules, the bureau would have to approve proposed projects unless it finds a “compelling reason” not to do so, the department said today in a statement. The bureau would have 60 days to evaluate industrial development and renewable-energy plants, and 30 days to consider residential leases.  The rules are intended to accelerate the approval of leases for solar projects, wind farms, commercial development and residential use on 56 million acres of American Indian lands, about the size of the state of Utah, the Interior Department said. They don’t cover leases for oil, natural gas, mining or other sub-surface development projects.

World leaders share kiss on the mouth.

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