When the question was, as in mathematics, not what we arrived at, but how. The way we feathered our ideas and experiences and expectations into what the status quo called institutions (if you must), how we governed not with expediency but with care, as encouraged by our teachers who knew better. And then, as we grew, we were told that growth has its own calculus, and that growth, like the means we took such care in, must be maintained, the conflation that arose as we fell into growth for growth's sake, as progress.
As public institutions (artist-run centres, university art galleries) we were rewarded by public funders for working with private industry to maintain, if not accelerate, that growth. Just as private industry grew more corporate, eschewing industry for business (and ultimately finance), we welcomed its participants on our boards. Soon enough the corporate rationale set the tone for how we do our business, which feels more and more like ends over means, no longer how but what.
Most of us don't know why Vince Tao was suddenly walked out of 221A last year, though we have heard that curator Allison Collins was terminated by the Western Front earlier this year because its board and Executive Director had decided to eliminate the Media Arts program Allison was charged with -- without any consultation with its society's membership or its publics. Last Wednesday Emily Carr University of Art + Design's Libby Leshgold Gallery Director/Curator Cate Rimmer was fired without cause.
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