A Letter from Executive and Artistic Director Sara Reisman
June 19, 2020
In less than a month since George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, we have witnessed what appears to be a reckoning across the political and cultural landscape of the United States, in which many Americans have begun to more deeply reflect on and understand the role that racism has played in this country’s history. Having grown up in Minneapolis, I was compelled to watch the video of George Floyd’s last breaths that circulated through the news and social media. The mediated witnessing of this tragedy was devastating to process, amplified and multiplied by the frequency with which these killings continue to happen. I keep thinking how the health crisis revealed by the pandemic has forced a different, more collective response than in recent years. As of today, protests are still happening. Laws in some cities have already changed. The full transformation of our shared ethics is far from realized, but the beginning has arrived and it is impossible not to be moved to new forms of engagement and activation, however each of us is able to participate. The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation stands in solidarity with those trying to effectuate change because Black Lives Matter.
The Rubin Foundation has long supported social justice causes through grantmaking, with early initiatives focused on access to health care, freedom of expression, and gun control, among others. In 2015, we doubled down on our grantmaking practice to focus on art and social justice activities in New York City. We repositioned The 8th Floor, a philanthropic space established by Shelley and Donald Rubin in 2010, to function as a platform for artistic expression and discourse. In the last six years, we have organized exhibitions and programs presenting projects by artists – many of them working in other fields, like activism and education – whose work is deeply engaged with questions of social justice. We are committed to making our space – The 8th Floor – a forum for free expression, through art and discourse, a space for listening, for difficult conversations with the aim of changing both minds and policy towards greater justice.
We at the Foundation do not shy away from difficult conversations, but talk alone is not enough. There is a great deal of work to be done, in the cultural sector, at the community level, and internally, both within the Foundation as an organization, and as individuals.
A question that has guided my own work is about the efficacy of art in making change. What power does an artwork, whether it be an object or a gesture, in a private space or in the public realm, have on the course of politics and history? An aesthetic object can only be attributed so much power, but we know that art, especially in recent years, has moved policy – both officially and unofficially – towards greater awareness and inclusion. In a recent interview, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker spoke about the power of art, saying that artists “stir the moral imagination of the nation.” In my experience, it has often been artists who have had the emotional and intellectual strength to express what is just beneath the surface.
It is only when we hear and repeat their names – Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and too many before them – that we can contend with the magnitude of injustice that has underpinned this country’s so called success, and take up the desperately needed work to fight racism.
In solidarity,
Sara Reisman