Yesterday was D-Day at the Walker. The layoffs happened. The good news is that I still have my job. But that's really about the only good news there was.

We had a meeting yesterday morning at 9:15. Steve (my boss) brought us Krispy Kreme donuts. We of course thought this was weird. It's just not a normal thing. He came in the office and said, "I'd like to introduce you to your new boss", which is Robin who works in our dept. Yup, one of the layoffs was my boss Steve.

We were all in shock. As the day progressed we found out more news. Diane who works in our dept of six, also got laid off. There were 7 people laid off total, and of the other 5, half of them had direct ties to New Media, my dept. It was like a fucking shot in the back.

But it didn't end there, no. Since Steve was curator of New Media, they made the bold decision that there was going to be no more new media art at the Walker. We had a large gallery planned for the new building we're building called the Mediatheque Lounge. That too has been scrapped. In essense, the heads of the Walker are now saying that New Media is not a valid form of art!

Steve started the whole New Media dept at the Walker. He started the group 5 years ago WAY before any museum had even heard the term "Net.Art". Our process for New Media is one that many other museums mimicked. There are even many museums that *still* don't have New Media. The Walker has been on the forefront since the begining, from DAY ONE. And yet you want to cut it out entirely?

Now, let me explain something about the Walker. It's a contemporary art museum. Thus, the goal is to get as much new artwork, artwork that pushes the boundaries of art, and too look for the things that in due time will be looked back upon as major forces in art. Thus when you go to a contemporary art museum, there are a lot of things that seem good, but also a lot that seem like crap. Fact is, contemporary art museums need to pull in all types of art, because we simply don't know what in the future will be considered the "next Picasso".

And the Walker is one of the largest and best known contemporary art museums in the country, if not the world. They want to be known as the premiere contemporary art center. Yet, they don't want anything to do with New Media art? That's as rediculous as it is ingorant.

Let's put it another way. If you look at history all major art movements were at first shunned. Everyone thought Picasso was crap, "That's not art". The Renissance had the same things happen. It seems to me that New Media is getting the same kinds of backlash. And it isn't only the Walker, many art schools are treating new media the same way.

But for a museum to be on the forefront of quite possibly the largest movement to come to art in over 50 years and then basically say they're not interested in it anymore is such utter bullshit it's not even funny. I can see now how they view the museum. They view it in dollars and cents. Cut off New Media at the knees and we can save a million dollars a year.

But at what expense? In 50 years time what will people say? Other museums are already ramping up New Media depts that even out do what we had at the Walker, surely they'll only grow larger and bigger. The Walker just fucked themselves out of an entire culture of art. Way to go dickheads!

It is quite depressing. Things were going so well. We were going to have our own gallery in the new building, we had the largest New Media department of any museum in the world, and we thought the Walker was behind us. We thought we were going to be the cornerstone of how the museum was going to view contemporary art in the future. Obviously all that is now a distant memory. Sure I still have my job, I'm thankful of that, but for someone like Steve who worked his ass off for 5 years to build up not only our department, but also the Walker, his thanks is getting his ass shown the door.

Well fuck them, fuck the directors and the Mercedes they rode in on. You just made sure that a whole new generation of people DON'T visit your museum, as well as piss off an entire segment of artists that now view your museum as second rate garbage. Great job assholes!