The Brooklyn Museum announced its appointment of two new curators in a press release published this month. Since news of the new hires spread this week, many on social media have reacted to the museum's appointment of a white curator for African art. 

Brooklyn local news site BK Reader reported on the appointment of Kristen Windmuller-Luna and Drew Sawyer, both white, on Monday. According to a press release published by the museum, Windmuller-Luna has been appointed the Sills Family consulting curator of the museum's African art department, and Sawyer will be the Phillip Leonian and Edith Rosenbaum Leonian curator of photography for the museum – not specifically for the African art department, as many initially perceived on social media.

"We are thrilled to welcome Drew and Kristen to our fantastic curatorial team during this period of great momentum as we expand exhibitions, public programs, and educational reach,” said the director of the museum's Shelby White and Leon Levy program, Anne Pasternak, according to the release. 

As a curator for African art, Windmuller-Luna will "assess and rethink the Brooklyn Museum’s extensive holdings of African art, which is comprised of more than 6,000 objects, and organize an innovative, freshly conceived temporary installation," the release stated.

She will also be responsible for helping to develop educational programming. 

According to the release, Windmuller-Luna is a historian of African arts with a specialization in the early modern period and Christian Ethiopia. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in art and archaeology from Princeton University and her B.A. in the history of art from Yale University. She also previously served as a research specialist in African arts, among other positions. 

But many on social media pointed out the history of hiring discrimination and the importance of seeking qualified black people of the diaspora, particularly for positions directly related to the history and experience of the African diaspora.

"People from the African Diaspora are frustrated [with] white people being gatekeepers of our narrative…" a Twitter user wrote in part.

Many on Twitter also connected Brooklyn Museum's new appointment to a scene in Black Panther where Killmonger meets a white female curator at a museum with a collection of African artifacts. 


Brooklyn museum