Dissident Elites: On the Need for Powerful Allies

Abstract

Dissident elites are those with access to wealth or power of various types, are highly educated, and possess essential technical or managerial skills that they use to challenge existing policies. For the Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA's) educational efforts to survive their inception, the sensitivity of dissident elites to the cause was a vital ingredient. Dissident elites found ways that their power, wealth, and managerial skills could fulfill the vision of art education as a radical act—supporting moves and inclinations that we associate with insurgents against considerable power, and, at the same time, fitting neatly within MoMA's ambitious modernist agenda. This chapter describes how projects and approaches flourished by meeting and collaborating around common goals with the support of distinctively different layers of society, including communities, schools, artists, and designers.