Day 4 — Museum of Art and Design + the Newark Museum
Today we went on a docent-led tour of Derrick Adams’s Sanctuary at the Museum of Art and Design (MAD). The subject of the exhibition, Green Books, was new to me. The exhibition struck a balance between playfulness of space and material and the persistent reality of racism. Although this exhibition was not something I could appreciate aesthetically, the message and information did resonate with me — it is always good to learn about some aspect of history that deserves mention.
MAD’s Artist at Work Daily is an excellent program for artists to use space and interact with the public. I found this to be a very engaging way to pique the interests of guests and perhaps stimulate some conversations about art and/or community.
Our second museum trip took us to the Newark Museum, where we were met with Dr. Tricia Bloom, Curator of American Art. Per its founder, the Newark Museum does not collect European art. Since the museum does collect objects from nearly every other part of the world, and it has a relatively small curatorial staff, Dr. Bloom intimated that they frequently work with contracted curators and researchers for specific exhibitions that are beyond the ‘in-house’ scope of expertise. Beyond that, they specifically choose experts in the field who know their own limitations when it comes to indigenous cultures, for example, and bring in the indigenous community for consultation on certain objects.
