Museum With a Mission
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The Art Institute undertakes this audience-broadening mission with the help of a substantial chunk of change–$1.28 million to be exact–from the New York-based Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund, a philanthropic organization known for awarding unusually large grants for specific goals. Reader’s Digest Fund program director Holly Sidford says, “We did some research in the museum field, and it became clear fine arts museums needed help in broadening and developing their audiences.” For the third straight year, the fund invited 20 institutions to apply for grants in this area. The Art Institute grant, which will be spread out over five and a half years, was one of five awarded this year to museums of varying sizes nationwide. Sidford says the museums were selected primarily on the basis of their perceived commitment to broadening their audiences. The fund has awarded audience accessibility grants totaling $22 million to date.
Will all of this effort and all these dollars bring more African Americans to the Art Institute? Amina Dickerson is vice president of education and public programs at the Chicago Historical Society, where she worked with Perkins on an African American outreach project. She appreciates the Art Institute’s Refocus/Resources Initiative, but notes that in order for it to be successful, it’ll have to be sustained. Carl Perrin, acting president of the DuSable Museum of African American History, applauds the effort, but stops short of suggesting it will yield significant results. Perrin says his own informal research suggests the city’s black community has a “neutral-to-favorable” opinion of the Art Institute. Adds Perrin: “I think they [African Americans] view the Art Institute as something that creates a favorable perception of the city.” Sidford at the Reader’s Digest Fund already has seen some favorable results from at least one accessibility grant recipient: at the Indianapolis Museum of Art efforts to draw in more of that city’s middle-class black community are paying off. And she says the fund will closely monitor progress at the Art Institute and the other institutions awarded grants. “We intend to do audience surveys to see what strategies are working and in what kind of context.”
Metcalf Bound for Broadway
