Make No Mistake

Night photo of Noguchi museum staff in black with white keffiyehs and white face masks, holding protest signs outside the annual Noguchi museum gala: "Stop the ban on culture","Stop the keffiyeh ban"

“Make no mistake, white supremacy exists at The Noguchi Museum!” declared Noguchi Museum Board Co-Chair Spencer Bailey in Spring of 2023 to a room full of staff. In the weeks leading up to this grand statement, the CFO resigned in protest, citing the racist environment of the museum as the main factor in their decision (the CFO’s replacement would also resign in protest a year and a half later). Director Brett Littman was subsequently let go due to the racist environment he created. Deputy Director Jennifer Lorch was installed as the Interim Director despite complaints pointing to her culpability in the racist system. Not only was Lorch given more power by the board, but 990 tax forms show that Lorch received an increase of over $100,000 that year, despite her terrible performance. The hostile, racist environment she created was a significant factor in multiple hospitalizations of staff that year.

Cognitive dissonance, performative allyship, abstract liberalism, ignorance, fear, liberal guilt mischaracterized as a form of anosognosia (according to Wikipedia, a neuropsychiatric disorder that causes a deficit of self-awareness), being fake-as-fuck or simply being liars… What’s the right way to understand the board of The Noguchi Museum?

Senior leadership and the board have tried to avoid controversy largely by ignoring public scrutiny. They never had any interest in addressing systemic racism. In fact, Spencer Bailey was excited to tell the staff that he was aware of the fact that the community was left with leadership hellbent on protecting white supremacy in profound, surprising, and in some cases, unlawful ways. The board’s actions and values were and are not vague.

We have already written exhaustively about the conditions at The Noguchi Museum and why the community is boycotting the institution, which you can learn more about from links in our @noguchirights IG account. Rather than rehashing those details, we want to discuss the motivations of the board and why they are steamrolling past unresolved issues.

The museum is financially secure because as a non-profit, it benefits from a loophole that allows it to have a luxury goods wing that grants it the exclusive rights to sell Noguchi’s Akari lamps to the North American market. The museum and foundation make millions of dollars a year from these sales, and sales have grown 8-fold since pre-lockdown. It’s a revenue source many non-profits could only dream of, not to mention that the museum also owns its property, and the permanent collection is technically all it needs to showcase in its exhibitions. Without any financial repercussions, the museum and the foundation simply have no incentive to care. It is worth taking a moment to reflect on how disgusting and sad this is.

As an exercise, you can address outstanding issues by emailing ahau@noguchi.org, jlorch@nogcuhi.org, and info@nogcuhi.org. For example, you could ask any of these still unanswered questions regarding the keffiyeh ban for staff, implemented last year:

Why has the ban, which was meant to apply to all political attire, only ever been enforced against the keffiyeh?

Why has the museum failed to train staff on how to implement this ban, or clarify what constitutes political attire outside of keffiyehs alone?

In light of this policy, how does the museum justify its director’s statements when she openly discusses her political views to staff regarding President Trump?

Given that the keffiyeh is a cultural garment, meaning it is protected under city and state laws, and is the only thing ever explicitly targeted by this policy, how does the selective enforcement of this policy not discriminate against individuals who would wear a keffiyeh as a cultural item? What is the distinction between cultural and political in this context, and how is that dealt with by museum leadership?

Why were board Co-Chairs Spencer Bailey and Susan Kessler so involved in enforcing the keffiyeh ban, and in what ways does enforcing the ban relate to their responsibilities?

The leadership is not for the community, despite running a community museum founded by an activist artist who would be appalled by the current conditions. While people and organizations have stopped partnering with the museum, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints have been filed, the staff has unionized, and the museum has received terrible press, those in leadership positions have simply crossed their fingers in the hope that the public will forget about it all. The Noguchi Museum is a community non-profit, and as a member of the community, you deserve answers.

For more than a decade, the board has been chasing its own white whale: a capital project that remains unrealized. Disgraced Mayor Eric Adams and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, both of whom are also anti-Palestinian, dedicated $4.5 million to this project back in 2022. This project will destroy the three houses behind Noguchi’s studio to construct a new building in a residential area of Queens that needs a grocery store more than an expanded museum building. In a city that already has serious issues with housing and affordability, this tone-deaf real estate project is taking priority over everything else. Shortly before one of the to-be-demolished properties was purchased in 2024, Director Amy Hau requested that staff keep the potential acquisition a secret to avoid having to deal with neighbors who might try to prevent the sale from happening. Members of leadership driving this decision are hyper-aware of the upset they are about to cause the community.

Collage of news article headlines such as "Noguchi museum staff call for boycott and resignation of top officials", "Noguchi Museum Workers Vote unanimously to Unionize", Jhumpa Lahiri Declines a Noguchi Museum Award Over a Ban on Kaffiyehs","Noguchi Museum in New York City fires workers for opposing Gaza genocide" Photo of former New York city mayor holding up a piece of paper, with text "Disgraced Mayor Eric Adam signs an executive order recognizing the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism which dangerously conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Seminism"

Since the staff unanimously unionized in January 2025, senior leadership has only turned the heat up. They continue to attempt to cripple any dissent against an unjust system while they gaslight the staff. Controversy, a boycott, losing programmatic partners, Amy Hau being dropped from boards directly related to her failures at The Noguchi Museum, and complaints from the public haven’t swayed the leaders at all.

The truth needs to be disseminated far and wide through our networks and by word-of-mouth. We ask you to spread the message about our boycott, if not for the staff, if not for Noguchi’s legacy, if not for the neighborhood, then for the principled message that we do not stand for white supremacy as it morphs to absorb anything we could (have) call(ed) our own.