The Dallas Museum and the Frisco kid(s)

By now we all now the story: In Frisco, Texas, a teacher was attacked for taking students to the Dallas Museum of Art. Apparently the students saw works of art that weren't wearing clothes. A parent complained; the teacher was fired. The school district claimed that the two were unrelated. Newspaper stories at the time made it pretty clear that the firing was about what Radar O'Reilly called 'nakedidity.' A settlement that the teacher recently reached with the school district made it even clearer that the school district knew it was on shaky ground.

Throughout the entire month-long process, the director of the Dallas Museum of Art, Jack Lane, said very little. I can only find one quote from him on the matter, in the NYT, and a museum spokesman told me he did no television or radio interviews. The DMA told me that Lane didn't speak up about the art/morality issue because it wasn't clear why the teacher in question was fired.

Lane's silence was a mistake and the museum's reason for why he stayed quiet are poor. For the last month the DMA and its role in its community have been widely discussed in the media. Lane had an unprecedented opportunity to talk with Texans (and because the case has received national attention, with America) about what is in art museums, why it is collected there, and what school children can gain from encounters with art. But instead Lane, who was in New York City for at least some of the controversy, was invisible.

I'm not suggesting that Lane should have commented on the firing issue or that he should have campaigned for the teacher to keep her job. But when Lane had a rare opportunity to speak to regional and national audiences about the role of art museums in America, he disappeared. The museum should have offered Lane up to local radio stations, to television stations, to Texas arts reporters. Lane could have written an op-ed or two or initiated a series of events at the museum where the issue was discussed. Lane and the DMA did none of this. It was an opportunity missed.

(Several weeks ago a DMA spokesperson suggested I talk to Lane about this, and in two separate emails I accepted the museum's offer. However, Lane was never made available to me.)

There's a broader issue here, and one that we'll discuss soon: What role should art museum directors have in their communities?

Related: Greg Allen shows us what the offending art object may have been.