N.Y.A.S.A.R.S.R.W.

The American Association of Museums is about as staid an organization as Spiro Agnew could wish, and for 64 years it has been meeting annually without notable incident. But this year's get-together was different.

It started conventionally enough with an address by Nancy Hanks, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Then the protesters arrived. Longhaired, mustachioed and some 30 strong, they stormed the speaker's rostrum at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, bearing banners and shouting insults at the U.S. museum establishment. They called themselves the New York Artists Strike Against Racism, Sexism, Repression and War. Two of their members, who were scheduled to address the delegates later that morning, demanded to be heard right then and there. After 20 minutes of shouting, the meeting was adjourned and nobody was heard. That evening the protesters were installed in a place of honor on the stage of the Brooklyn Museum. They were not appeased. They listened to a stirring mea culpa by John Hightower, director of Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art, on the failure of all museums to combat war, racism and repression. No shouts. Instead, they walked out in a body on the grounds that Hightower had not kept his promise to establish a black-studies center.

No Proof. The protesters had a list of other demands ranging from immediate U.S. withdrawal from Southeast Asia to the calling of a special conference at the Metropolitan Museum to deal with racism, sexism, repression and war. Discussing these demands took even more time--and patience--than the speeches by such notables as New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller. "What's sexism?* asked the Governor when confronted, "and what does it have to do with art?" "Ask Mrs. Rockefeller," cried a voice.

In the end, the museum officials actually acceded to a watered-down version of the protesters' prime resolution: they agreed to "cooperate" in the formation of a national workshop conference on racism, sexism, repression and war. No one was exactly satisfied, least of all the protesting members of the N.Y.A.S.A.R.S.R.W. who had. however, produced no proof that they represented anyone but themselves.

Top of the week, though, was the entertainment in West 53rd Street, where the Museum of Contemporary Crafts deployed a gigantic air mattress that filled the street from curb to curb. The younger and more active delegates jumped up and down on it, squealing like children. Even some of the protesters joined in. The hushed world of museums was clearly shook up.

* The word is unknown to Webster, but to protesters it means discrimination against women in employment, politics, art and so forth.

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