Whitney museum trustee resigns after protests over sale of teargas
Warren Kanders, vice-chairman of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s board of directors, has resigned after months of mounting protest over his company’s manufacture and distribution of military products.
Kanders, who is regarded as an important collector of contemporary art, said in a statement that he was stepping down with “great sadness” after 13 years on the board because the criticism of him “threatened to undermine the important work of the Whitney”.
Kanders is chairman and CEO of Safariland, a company that sells military gear, including gun holsters, bulletproof vests and teargas canisters, which have been used to disperse migrants at the US-Mexico border and in the Middle East.
Artists and museum staff began protesting against Kanders’ involvement in the Whitney over the months leading up to its prestigious Whitney Biennial exhibition of emerging art.
Last week, four exhibiting artists sent a letter to the biennial’s curators saying they refused “further complicity with Kanders and his technologies of violence”. Four others joined the protest and requested that their work be taken down.
In his resignation letter, Kanders said that “the power of art lies in its ability to express, to push boundaries and to ask questions”.
Kanders continued: “Art, as I know it, is not intended to force one-sided answers, or to suppress independent thinking. And yet, these recent events have illustrated how a single narrative, created and sustained by groups with a much larger and more insidious agenda, can overwhelm that spirit.”
Museum officials did not immediately comment, though Kanders’ resignation comes at a complex moment for art institutions that have increasingly found themselves drawn into controversies over their philanthropists’ sources of wealth.
In May, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced it would stop accepting financial support from members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma, the drug company accused of helping to trigger the US opioid addiction crisis.
In June, Yana Peel, the chief executive of the Serpentine Galleries in London, stepped down after she was linked in a Guardian report to the Israeli cybersecurity firm NSO, which has been criticised by human rights organisations.
In their letter to the Whitney curators, exhibiting artists including Nicole Eisenman said the museum board’s failure to meaningfully respond to their demand for Kanders to step down has made their participation in the biennial exhibition, which goes into September, “untenable”.
After the requests to withdraw the works were made public, the museum’s director, Adam Weinberg, said in a statement: “The Whitney respects the opinions of all the artists it exhibits and stands by their right to express themselves freely.”
The museum was “saddened” he said, adding: “We will of course comply with the artists’ request.”