Skip to content

Art Museum

Liberatory Unionism In The US Art Museum Labor Movement

August 22, 2025 Amanda Tobin Ripley, Power At Work. , , , ,
Art museum workers in the U.S. are in the midst of the most exciting period of labor organizing in decades. Since the launch of the New Museum Union in January 2019, there has been a 223% increase in new organizing at private, not-for-profit art museums alone. Though precarious working conditions long predate the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a boom in organizing in its wake after institutional responses exposed and exacerbated worker exploitation, unsafe working conditions, and layoffs and furloughs, predominantly affecting front-of-house workers.  Museum workers are also enacting liberatory unionism, a term I borrow from labor journalist Eve Livingston. In liberatory unionism, workers are not simply organizing for higher pay and better working conditions, but are also connecting labor struggles with resistance to racism and gender oppression.

BP Dropped By National Portrait Gallery

February 24, 2022 Alex Green, The Ecologist. , , ,
The National Portrait Gallery has announced the end of its partnership with BP, becoming the latest institution from the world of art and culture to distance itself from the oil giant. The Royal Shakespeare Company and Tate have already ended sponsorship deals with BP following environmental campaigns launched by artists and employees. BP has been the main sponsor of the National Portrait Gallery’s annual portrait award since 1989 when it took over from tobacco company John Player & Sons. Portraiture The prize did not take place this year or last year while the gallery’s central London building is closed for redevelopment. In a joint statement, the gallery and BP confirmed they would not be renewing their current partnership when its contract ends in December.

Museum Workers Say Fair Pay And Job Security Shouldn’t Be A Privilege

November 10, 2021 Rebekah Kirkman, BmoreArt. , , ,
In 1930, Adelyn Dohme Breeskin became the Baltimore Museum of Art’s first appointed curator of prints—and the first paid staff curator in the fine arts. A recent BMA exhibition, Adelyn Breeskin: Curating a Legacy, commended her work at the museum, which included helping to secure the Cone Collection and establish the print department. According to curator Laura Albans, Breeskin was born into a wealthy Baltimore family, moved away for school, and later returned as a divorcee with three kids who needed a job. In 1942, when all the men had gone to war, Breeskin became interim director, and then in 1945 became director of the museum until 1962. From the museum’s founding in 1914 until Breeskin’s 1930 hire, curators were typically wealthy volunteers stewarding a collection for the public without pay.
assetto corsa mods

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.