The Brooklyn Museum, known officially as the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, is an art museum in the Brooklyn borough of New York City first established in 1823 and is known for its large collection of art from various regions and eras. It is the second-largest art museum in New York after the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it is among the largest and oldest in the United States with 560,000 square feet of space and over 500,000 objects in its collection. It is considered to have among the finest Egyptian art collections in the world.

Since 2022, the museum has been led by president and COO Kimberly Panicek “KP” Trueblood, who worked in the Obama White House, on the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign, and for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) prior to joining the museum. The museum receives significant funding from the New York City government as well as federal and state agencies. Other notable funders include Bank of America and Bloomberg Philanthropies. ^{1 2 3}

The Brooklyn Museum has been the site of several protests of far-left demonstrators. In 2024, pro-Palestinian protestors defaced the homes of the museum director and other trustees, several of whom were Jewish, in what police referred to as a “hate crime criminal mischief incident.” ⁴

History

The Brooklyn Museum was founded in 1823 as the Brooklyn Apprentices’ Library and merged with the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1843. The museum’s building was constructed in 1897, and has been expanded and renovated several times since. The museum is operated by a nonprofit organization, the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, which does business as the Brooklyn Museum. The museum reports over $327 million in assets and derives significant funding from the government for its annual operations. It is part of New York City’s Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), a group of institutions including art and natural history museums, historical societies, theaters, concert halls, performing arts centers, botanical gardens, and zoos that occupy land or buildings owned by the New York City government and derive part of their yearly funding from the city. ⁵

Leadership

Kimberly Panicek “KP” Trueblood became the president and COO of the museum in 2022. A long-time Democratic Party and left-of-center political operative, Trueblood was White House operations director in the Obama administration, was deputy CFO on the Clinton 2016 presidential campaign, and was the COO of the Clinton-Kaine Presidential Transition team. She joined the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 2017 as the organization’s first chief of staff. Her ACLU biography notes she was hired “in the wake of Trump’s election to help the organization not just defend civil rights and liberties in an uncertain era, but to help holistically move the law forward any way possible no matter who is in the White House.” ^{6 2}

Anti-Israel Protests and Vandalism

In May 2024 the Brooklyn Museum was the site of several protests related to the Israel-Hamas conflict and was occupied by anti-Israel protestors organized by the Cultural Front for Free Palestine (CFFP), which coincided with a rally planned by the radical Palestinian nationalist group Within Our Lifetime. Over 1,000 protestors crowded in and around the museum, unfurling banners and defacing a sculpture outside the museum. Thirty-four individuals were arrested. ⁷

In an explanation as to why the protestors chose the museum for its actions, one leader stated that “The museum relies heavily on subsidies from the City of New York, along with the granting of the land it sits on…accountability should also involve the disclosure of funds from donors and trustees who are heavily implicated in the occupation.” ⁷

In June 2024, six protestors vandalized the homes of several members of the museum leadership, many of whom were Jewish, splattering red paint on the homes and painting inverted red triangles on the doors. According to the New York Daily News, Jewish advocates say the inverted triangles are “symbols used by terrorists to mark targets they want to take out.” In targeting the museum’s Jewish director, the vandals affixed a banner outside her home reading “Anne Pasternak Brooklyn Museum White-Supremacist Zionist.” ⁸

1. “Home.” Brooklyn Museum. Accessed June 27, 2024. https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/
2. “KP Trueblood.” LinkedIn Profile. Accessed June 27, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kptrueblood/
3. Bahr, Sarah. “Brooklyn Museum to Receive $50 Million Gift From City of New York.” New York Times. November 22, 2021. Accessed June 27, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/arts/design/city-gives-brooklyn-museum-50-million.html
4. Frost, Mary. “NYPD releases new images of Brooklyn Heights hate crime suspects.” June 24, 2024. Accessed June 27, 2024. https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2024/06/24/nypd-releases-new-images-of-brooklyn-heights-hate-crime-suspects/
5. “Cultural Institutions Group.” New York City. Accessed June 27, 2024. https://www.nyc.gov/site/dcla/cultural-funding/city-owned-institutions.page
6. “KP Trueblood.” ACLU. Accessed June 27, 2024. https://www.aclu.org/bio/kp-trueblood
7. Irish, Anni. “Hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters rally at Brooklyn Museum.” The Art Newspaper. June 1, 2024. Accessed June 27, 2024. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/06/01/brooklyn-museum-pro-palestine-protest
8. Tracy, Thomas. “New images released of pro-Palestinian vandals who defaced homes of Brooklyn Museum execs: NYPD.” Daily News. Accessed June 27, 2024. https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/06/22/new-images-released-of-pro-palestinian-vandals-who-defaced-homes-of-brooklyn-museum-execs-nypd/