Chris Gilbert - statement on resigning 5/21/06

I made the decision to resign as Matrix Curator on April 28, but my
struggles with the BAM/PFA over the content and approach of the
projects in the exhibition cycle "Now-Time Venezuela: Media Along the
Path of the Bolivarian Process" go back quite a few months. In
particular the museum administrators -- meaning the deputy directors
and senior curator collaborating, of course, with the public
relations and audience development staff -- have for some time been
insisting that I take the idea of solidarity, revolutionary
solidarity, out of the cycle. For some months, they have said they
wanted "neutrality" and "balance" whereas I have always said that
instead my approach is about commitment, support, and alignment -- in
brief, taking sides with and promoting revolution.

I have always successfully resisted the museum's attempts to
interfere with the projects (and you will see that the ideas of
alignment, support, and revolutionary solidarity are written all over
the "Now-Time" projects part 1 & part 2 -- they are present in all
the texts I have generated and as a consequence in almost all of the
reviews). In the museum's most recent attempt to alter things, the
one that precipitated my resignation, they proposed to remove the
offending concept from the Now-Time Part 2 introductory text panel (a
panel which had already gone to the printer). Their plan was to
replace the phrase "in solidarity" with revolutionary Venezuela with
a phrase like "concerning" revolutionary Venezuela -- or another
phrase describing a relation that would not be explicitly one of
solidarity.