Museum Watch Actions

• The destiny of the Gelman Collection: on the responsibilities towards heritage

  

  CIMAM’s Museum Watch group has followed with concern the controversy around the destiny of the Gelman collection, an important group of works by key Mexican modernist artists that will shortly leave the country to be exhibited in Spain.

• Joint Statement by ICOM Spain and CIMAM on the Situation of the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (CGAC)

  

  ICOM Spain and CIMAM express their deep concern regarding the selection process for the director of the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (CGAC).

• CIMAM Calls for Civilian and Cultural Protection Amid Ongoing War in Iran, Lebanon, Gaza and the Gulf Region

  

  April 8, 2026. On behalf of the CIMAM Board, the Museum Watch Committee expresses its grave concern and condemnation of the attacks and military actions by the United States and Israel on Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza without engaging multilateral forums and ignoring international law, and of the devastating repercussions this conflict is having on the Gulf region.

• CIMAM releases a new Best Practices Initiative

  

  Thursday, 20 November 2025. CIMAM launches a landmark position paper that aims to redefine how museums and living artists collaborate, introducing the ‘Memorandum of Care and Understanding (MoCU).

• About the future of the Whitney Independent Study Program

  

  30 October 2025. CIMAM joins the many voices already protesting the cancellation of the performance, the dismissal of associate director Sara Nadal-Melsió, and the suspension of the ISP curatorial program.

• The M HKA Case: Statements, Articles, and Petitions

  

  9 October 2025. CIMAM Museum Watch is deeply concerned by the recent developments affecting M HKA. Read the statements, articles, and petitions in support of M HKA.

• What we notice insufficiently: How challenges may install institutional precarity

  

  June 23, 2025. Is art lost in the new standardization of museums? The idealistic origin of these institutions still persists, but it often seems marginalized nowadays. It can still affect decisions within museums, and directors tend to evoke it in arguments to their funders as well as junior staff. In real terms, however, operational targets get more focus than strategic ones and hold the vision hostage. As a consequence, the improvisational agility of the early days is no longer possible.

• The Consequence of a New Standard

  

  16 June 2025. Publicness starts with the building. While long-existing contemporary art museums gradually upgraded their infrastructure to meet changing expectations, many more recent museums grew rapidly. Sometimes the expansion of contemporary art museums is the outcome of a collective effort by both the art community and actors from civil society, as has been the case with the recently opened M+ (2021) in Hong Kong and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2024).

• The success of contemporary art museums and its consequences. Changes Happened

  

  June 10 2025. Contemporary art museums frequently seem to fall into crises. At the same time, the global proliferation of new contemporary art museums continues apace. Is the perception of crisis a reflection of reality, or are we overly focused on the large-scale perspective while overlooking local social and political contexts and conditions? Can we reframe these moments of crisis as situations that call for attention and communication?

• Covering Dissensus: Institutional Mediation is not about Institutional Comfort

  

  5 May 2025. About Australia's contemporary art field, and the censorship cases of Palestinian artists and of artists advocating for the Palestinian cause that have been particularly poignant markers of this development.

• A Message of Care and Concern

  

  29 April 2025. CIMAM is deeply concerned and wants to express support for our colleagues and other cultural actors in the United States, not only those who are directly affected or in danger of being so, but also to those who are merely facing the volatility of this disruptive approach to the core of society.

• Postponing Censorship? Contentious Positions that Undermine the Museum as a Space for Artistic Freedom

  

  1 April 2025. On 19 December 2024, the Galerie Nasional Indonesia (Galnus) cancelled the opening of the solo exhibition of Yos Suprapto titled, Revival: Land for Food Sovereignty, initially curated by Suwarno Wisetrotomo, on the same day the exhibition was publicly announced to be opened.

• Two alarming cases of bad practices by the administration in regional museums in Spain: CAAC, Seville and IVAM, Valencia

  

  4 March 2024. CIMAM's Museum Watch is very concerned with recent developments in Spain regarding two important regional contemporary art museums and their professionals. Both cases involve a regression in terms of codes of good practice for the cultural sector.

• Cancellation and censorship in times of war

  

  15 January 2024. The Museum Watch committee is following with concern the dreadful situation in Gaza and its repercussions in the worlds of art and culture—more specifically, its consequences for artists and curators who express their support for the Palestinian people. In this time of conflict and crisis, CIMAM would like to stress the importance of preserving the museum as a space for the free artistic expression.

• To the public opinion

  

  26 October 2023. The Museum Watch Committee has been paying close attention to the current situation regarding the exhibition of the artist Tania Bruguera at the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (MSSA) in Santiago, Chile. Freedom of expression and speech for artistic projects are basic principles and a necessary working frame for cultural institutions. It guarantees artistic freedom, even when the institution does not necessarily support or agree with the position taken by an artist or an artistic project.

• Revisiting the trajectories of Gary Garrels and Nancy Spector

  

  13 October 2023. The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly has shed light on the systemic manifestations of all kinds of racism and discrimination around the world. In 2020 the brutal murder of George Floyd ignited a worldwide outcry for social justice and anti-racism that is long overdue. In the climate of those days, the Museum Watch Committee was informed of a series of cases in the United States in which senior professionals were accused of racism and promptly compelled to resign.

• Questions as a Base to Learn and Teach

  

  22 September 2023. During the past few years Museum Watch has been attentive to exceptional changes that are transforming museums and galleries into more open, diverse, accessible and inclusive institutions. At the same time we want to reflect on and speak about some difficult questions and situations that have arisen in this moment.

• Signs of Troubling Times: Recent Developments at the State Tretyakov Gallery

  

  13 March 2023. While spirituality is one of the key lines of modern and contemporary art, art will always resonate with the society in which it acts and with its values. Art can never be an instrument for politicians and regimes to steer societies.

• On the recent situation and debate around the National Gallery of Canada

  

  18 January 2023. CIMAM is looking forward to the concrete strategic plans of the board and the new director that balances the diverse axes of the NGC, addresses tensions between national and international focusses, critically engages the blurring of boundaries between fine art and contemporary art, and finds a decolonial narrative in between the patriotic citizens of 1880 and the indigenous people.

• Kurt Schwitters Merzbau

  

  14 November 2022. The Board of CIMAM (2020-22) is responding to the current sensitive situation regarding the future of the Merz Barn and in the context of its potential sale by auction.

• A set of Governance Clauses for Museum Ethics to protect and support museums and their staff

  

  3 November 2022. These clauses are intended to address the growing vulnerabilities museums face in relation to interference, increasingly political, from their ‘Founders’ or ‘Governing Bodies’ which can undermine the Museum’s mission and values and their ability to operate with the curatorial independence required to create an open space in civil society.

• INTERCOM and CIMAM introduce the Museum Watch Governance Management Project

  

  3 May 2022. CIMAM is pleased to share the report Museum Watch Governance Management Project convened and led by INTERCOM and CIMAM and produced thanks to an ICOM Special Project Grant to help the museum community address governance management challenges more efficiently.

• CIMAM expresses its concern over the dismissal of Jaroslaw Suchan as director of Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz

  

  29 April 2022. CIMAM expresses its concern over the dismissal of Jaroslaw Suchan as director of Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, making public the letters sent on February 23 to the Polish Ministry of Culture and issuing a new statement.

• A Courageous Action by the staff of Moderna galerija, Ljubljana

  

  10 March 2022. We share the letter by the staff of Moderna galerija call for the dismissal of the current Director as a gesture of solidarity and support with the staff and to share with our members the details of this critical situation as it unfolds.