This petition is for anyone who wishes to add their signature to the open letter in support of Laura Raicovich.

The full text of the letter, including the original list of signatories, appears below:

January 30, 2018

Open Letter on the Resignation of Laura Raicovich from the Queens Museum

Laura Raicovich, as president and executive director of the Queens Museum, has galvanized the museum field: she has demonstrated how cultural institutions can responsibly and creatively embrace artistic as well as social and political matters crucial to their local constituencies while contributing to the field at large. We have been inspired by her work with art, artists, and communities relating to important cultural issues such as immigration, cultural diversity, education, and equity. The example she set will continue to inform our own work.

We are writing to affirm the leadership role of cultural institutions in advancing cultural and social as well as political public discourse. As stewards and advocates of contemporary and historical cultural expressions, we directors, curators, and staff members of cultural institutions, as well as the board members to whom we are accountable, have a particular obligation to facilitate the free and safe exchange of ideas about our contemporary world with art as the catalyst.

In times of political polarization, arts institutions must fully commit to our responsibility to act as empathetic forums in which we come to understand human history, creativity and society. Art institutions must respond to pressing issues facing our communities – this is not simply a right but an obligation, especially for those supported by public funds.

We call on the boards of our cultural institutions to embrace the civic role of our institutions by supporting and empowering courageous and caring leaders such as Laura Raicovich, regardless of their gender. This is more necessary now than at any other point since the civil rights era in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Regine Basha

Chloë Bass, Social Practice Queens

Omar Berrada, Curator and Director, Dar al-Ma'mûn, Marrakech, Morocco

Rashida Bumbray, Open Society Foundations

Harry Burke, Artists Space

Johanna Burton

Gonzalo Casals, Executive Director, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art

Mary Ceruti, Executive Director and Chief Curator, SculptureCenter

Ken Chen, Executive Director, Asian American Writers’ Workshop

Galit Eilat

Anne Ellegood

Charles Esche, Director, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Deborah Fisher, Executive Director, A Blade of Grass

Lynn Gumpert, Director, Grey Art Gallery, New York University

Kemi Ilesanmi

Jamillah James, Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Carin Kuoni, Director/Chief Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School

Lucy Lippard

Lydia Matthews, Director, Parsons Curatorial Design Research Lab, The New School

Helen Molesworth, Chief Curator, MOCA, Los Angeles

Alyssa Nitchun

Amanda Parmer, Curator, Vera List Center for Art and Politics

Christiane Paul, curator

Sheetal Prajapati, Director of Public Engagement, Pioneer Works

Laurel Ptak, Executive Director & Curator, Art in General

Silvia Rocciolo, Curator, The New School Art Collection

Jay Sanders, Artists Space

Lucía Sanromán, Director of Visual Arts, Yerba Buena Center of the Arts

Ingrid Schaffner

Paul Schmelzer, Managing Editor, Walker Art Center

Gregory Sholette, Social Practice Queens

Joshua Simon, former Director and Chief Curator, MoBY Museums of Bat Yam, Israel

Manon Slome

Marvin J. Taylor, Fales Library, New York University

Diya Vij

Joanna Warsza, Artistic Director, Public Art Munich 2018, Germany

Martha Wilson, Founding Director, Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc.

Yukiko Yamagata

[Photo: MICHAEL ANGELO]