NATIONWIDE — Today, 103 artists, collectors, curators, journalists, educators, and other members of the art community sent a letter urging the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Board of Trustees to remove Tom Gores from the board, echoing the advocacy demands posed by Worth Rises and Color Of Change in a letter delivered to the museum last week (September 9, 2020).
Citing his role in the exploitation of Black, Brown, and economically-distressed communities, these letters come after months of fruitless dialogue and disappointment with Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores, whose private equity firm owns Securus, the largest and most predatory prison telecom corporation in the U.S. Securus rakes in more than $700 million annually charging families — disproportionately from Black, Brown, and economically distressed communities — for phone calls from prisons, jails, and immigrant detention centers.
“It’s been 18 months since we first issued Tom Gores demands to reform and sell Securus, and we’re still waiting. It’s time we take a different approach,” said Bianca Tylek, Executive Director of Worth Rises. “No prison profiteer deserves to be honored with a seat on the board of an esteemed museum like LACMA. Through his investment in Securus, Gores exploits millions of incarcerated people and their loved ones by routinely charging as much as $25 for a 15-minute phone call. This is unconscionable, and he deserves no awards.”
The ongoing open letter, which has continued to gain traction since delivery, is signed by world-renowned artists, some of whom are part of LACMA’s own permanent collection, as well as major art collectors, recognized art critics, esteemed art journalists, and more members of the art community. It comes as advocates launch a public petition with the same demand.
“Our institutions face an overdue moment of critical reckoning and must be held accountable for the financial ties that bind them to the toxic ills plaguing our society, namely structural racism and mass incarceration,” said Jessica Simmons, Los Angeles artist and art journalist and author of the letter. “However painful it may be, LACMA’s acceptance of Tom Gores equates to its complicity in the prison industrial complex’s gross exploitation of incarcerated and marginalized people. Renouncing Tom Gores represents the first step in a long march toward meaningful institutional change.”
Together, artists and advocates are putting prison profiteers on notice: investments in the prison industrial complex will no longer be tolerated.