Director’s Biennial Report 2019-2021

This publication records the activities of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon over the 2020 and 2021 academic years, a period shadowed by the profoundly unsettling impact of the novel coronavirus on human life and societies around the world. At the same time, the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd triggered protests across the United States and a powerful resurgence and expansion of Black Lives Matter activism and institutional change. Along with other museums, universities, corporations, government entities, and virtually every social institution, the JSMA responded to the newly shifting conditions, demands, and questions. The museum’s galleries remained shuttered from March 14, 2020, until October 9, 2020, then closed again November 14, 2020, as infection case counts rose in Oregon. We reopened May 22, 2021, and have been open since then. Our Biennial Report is an attempt to distill and recount the most important aspects of the JSMA story over this span of time, expressed in reports and feature articles, lists of exhibitions and events, and of course, images. This report also announces the start of a new biennial cycle of annual reports; you can expect our next report in 2024, covering the 2022 and 2023 academic years.