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BENTONVILLE, Ark., June 21, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Building on its commitment to expand access and upend conventional narratives, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art today launches Remuseum. This independent research-and-results-driven project aims to spur innovation across U.S. art museums.
Inspired and supported by entrepreneur and arts patron David Booth, powered by Crystal Bridges, and with additional support from the Ford Foundation, Remuseum is a three-year project designed to help U.S. museums fully embrace their missions by developing new approaches to relevance, governance, and financial sustainability.
“From our inception at Crystal Bridges, we started by breaking conventions – launching a major museum in America’s Heartland built on the foundational idea of radical access to amazing art experiences. And we’re not done. We’re constantly learning and adapting,” said Rod Bigelow, executive director and chief diversity & inclusion officer. “With David Booth’s support, Alice Walton’s vision, and Stephen Reily’s ingenuity, we look forward to the work that Remuseum will do to inspire a similar spirit of innovation among museums across the country, including our own.”
Remuseum will be led by Founding Director Stephen Reily, an attorney and entrepreneur who served as Director of the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky from 2017 to 2021. At the Speed, Reily invigorated a newly renovated museum with a mission of public service and dramatically increased both contributed revenue and accessibility. During his tenure, the Speed worked with Guest Curator Allison Glenn and Community Engagement Strategist Toya Northington to present the exhibition Promise, Witness, Remembrance, cited as a model of relevance as the museum responded in real time to the killing of Breonna Taylor and a year of protests in Louisville. In 2022, Reily, Glenn, and Northington co-wrote a book documenting the exhibition and that work. A longtime supporter of museums and the arts, Reily currently serves on the Boards of the Creative Capital Foundation and the American Federation of Arts.
“Three or four decades ago, most American art museums had mission statements focused on the preservation and presentation of objects to people,” said Reily. “Today, the mission statements of even very traditional museums prioritize serving and engaging people with art. Because the resources, incentives, and policies that govern the field remain heavily weighted in outdated models, the resulting tension puts museums at risk, both of failing to fulfill their public-facing new missions, or of failing altogether. Remuseum will use data to provoke new ways of aligning museums’ work with their missions – and most importantly, the communities they serve.”
Said David Booth, “The business I founded, Dimensional Fund Advisors, applies academic research to practical investing. I am excited to see how Remuseum will apply research to museums, and I hope it will inspire museum boards and leaders to approach their work in new ways.”
A graduate of Yale College and Stanford Law School, Stephen Reily clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens before beginning his career as an entrepreneur, co-founding IMC Licensing, a global leader in brand licensing that has generated over $6 billion in consumer product sales for the Fortune 500 brands it represents. He is also the co-founder of Curated Media, built on the premise that people are more powerful than algorithms; its flagship is the fashion and beauty app, Clickher. As a social entrepreneur, Reily was longtime Chair of the Greater Louisville Project, which for 20 years used data to catalyze civic progress in Louisville, and he partnered with the Louisville Urban League to create the Reily Reentry Program to support expungement programs for citizens of Kentucky.
Among the first steps in Remuseum’s three-year plan is the formation of an advisory committee that will be announced later this year. Read more and follow updates at crystalbridges.org.
About Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
The mission of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is to welcome all to celebrate the American spirit in a setting that unites the power of art with the beauty of nature. Since opening in 2011, the museum has welcomed more than 6.2 million visitors, with no cost for admission. Crystal Bridges was founded in 2005 as a non-profit charitable organization by arts patron and philanthropist, Alice Walton. The collection spans five centuries of American masterworks from early American to current day and is enhanced by temporary exhibitions. The museum is nestled on 120 acres of Ozark landscape and was designed by world-renowned architect Moshe Safdie. A rare Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house was preserved and relocated to the museum grounds in 2015. Crystal Bridges offers public programs including lectures, performances, classes, and teacher development opportunities. Some 300,000 school children have participated in the Willard and Pat Walker School Visit program, which provides educational experiences for school groups at no cost to the schools. Additional museum amenities include a restaurant, gift store, library, and five miles of art and walking trails. In February 2020, the museum opened a satellite contemporary art space in downtown Bentonville called the Momentary (507 SE E Street). For more information, visit CrystalBridges.org. The museum is located at 600 Museum Way, Bentonville, Arkansas 72712.
Media Contact:
Amanda Horn
Senior Public Relations Director
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Amanda.Horn@CrystalBridges.org
775.636.2567 (cell)
Photos accompanying this announcement are available at
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