The director of an embattled college museum has resigned after artists accused the college administration of censoring an exhibition she curated. Andrea Gyorody stepped down as director of the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Artwork at Pepperdine College, confirming to Hyperallergic that at the moment could be her final day within the function.
Her resignation comes three weeks after the college administration determined to change two works it thought-about “political” that had been on view within the group present Maintain My Hand in Yours, curated by Gyorody. The varsity then shuttered the exhibition six months early after a number of artists requested that their work be withdrawn from the present in protest.
Michael Friel, Pepperdine’s senior director of Communications and Public Relations, advised Hyperallergic that Gyorody and the college had “mutually agreed” that she would step down.
“The College thanks Dr. Gyorody for her management and contributions throughout her tenure,” the museum mentioned.
The college had turned off Elana Mann’s video “Name to Arms 2015-2025” (2025), which paperwork 10 years of performances and protests that includes the artist’s arm-shaped megaphones. Directors additionally turned over a small embroidered patch studying “Abolish ICE,” a part of the large-scale collaborative sculpture “Con Nuestros Manos Construimos Deidades (With Our Arms We Construct Deities)” (2023) by the group Artwork Made Between Reverse Sides (AMBOS).
“As a result of Pepperdine’s established apply with the Weisman Museum has been to keep away from overtly political content material according to the College’s nonprofit standing, it eliminated these two items from show,” a college spokesperson advised Hyperallergic on the time.
After the museum was shuttered, college students, college, and alumni voiced their outrage. On Friday, October 17, college of the Nice Arts Division at Pepperdine’s Seaver Faculty posted a press release affirming their “full and unwavering assist for our college students and their proper to interact in inventive inquiry with out worry of censorship.”
“As educators and students, we imagine that the liberty to discover complicated and difficult concepts is central to the mission of a Christian liberal arts schooling akin to Pepperdine College,” the assertion continued. “Suppressing paintings as a result of it’s perceived as ‘political’ undermines this mission and erodes belief within the educational course of.”
On the night of October 9, about 100 college students gathered for an artwork evening, making posters and indicators which had been then posted to a “Freedom Wall” on the faculty’s scholar heart.
The protest artwork shall be used once more subsequent Wednesday, October 29, in an indication outdoors the Elkins auditorium, the place college shall be assembly to debate latest occasions on the museum, based on Pepperdine senior Grace Bidewell. Mann mentioned she plans to attend together with her horns to amplify the scholars’ message.
Bidewell, an artwork and sustainability double main, advised Hyperallergic that the alteration of the paintings was at odds with Pepperdine’s Christian mission.
“It doesn’t align with their beliefs as a faculty. Christ had the view that every one beings had been created equal. Having paintings that respects that view shouldn’t be an issue,” Bidwell mentioned.
Bryan C. Keene, a third-generation Pepperdine alum who additionally taught artwork historical past there and had his first artwork world job as a museum attendant on the Weisman, echoed these sentiments in an open letter to Pepperdine’s president and board on October 12.
“The latest censorship of artworks on the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Artwork represents a profound betrayal of Pepperdine’s educational mission, its Christian values, and its said dedication to variety and international management,” Keene wrote.
He additionally rejected the college’s argument that its nonprofit standing prohibited the show of paintings with political content material. “Displaying an artist’s work doesn’t represent institutional endorsement; suggesting in any other case displays a profound misunderstanding of each artwork and schooling,” Keene mentioned.
Gyorody turned director of the Weisman in 2021, the place she organized exhibitions on artists Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson, Jeni Spota C., Isabel Yellin, and Karl Haendel. She was beforehand assistant curator of Fashionable and Modern Artwork on the Allen Memorial Artwork Museum at Oberlin Faculty, the place she co-curated Afterlives of the Black Atlantic, which acquired a 2020 Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Affiliation of Artwork Museum Curators.
“It’s an enormous loss for the Pepperdine group and the bigger LA artwork group. She’s a superb curator, artwork historian, author, and thinker,” Mann advised Hyperallergic. “There’s a unhappiness amongst college students and school, however I hope it’ll spark significant change as to who finally decides what’s going to go into the museum.”
