Black Feminism and the Museum Over Time
From the protests of a white artist’s representation of Emmett Till in his casket at the Whitney Museum to the firings of three female curators known for showing a racial and gender diverse array of artists, it appears to many that the art world is moving backwards. This crucial tension between museums and artists with marginalized identities has existed since the inception of the contemporary art museum. These events beg the question of whether the strides made in inclusion and equity in museums, although objectively small, can and will be maintained, and by whom?
Major strides occurred largely from the 1960s to the 1980s, as evidenced by the “We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965–85” exhibit put on at the Brooklyn Museum in 2017, along with a sourcebook that inspired this writing. Through protest movements by groups like the Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC), a Black feminist ethos encouraging community engagement and equality for black artists and art workers began to permeate the art world in the 1960s. Black woman artist Faith Ringgold, an AWC member and Black coalition co-leader, and her co-conspirators publicly demanded that New York contemporary art museums include Black and other people of color in both artist and administration positions, with the goal of ameliorating the racism and sexism of the past with hopes for a more diverse future.
According to the findings of a 2015 study of art museum staff demographics, “non-Hispanic White staff continue to dominate the job categories most closely associated with the intellectual and educational mission of museums, including those of curators, conservators, educators, and leadership,” worse, “the percentages of staff from underrepresented communities in such positions are basically level at 27.5% across the different age cohorts born from the 1960s the 1990s.” In other words, there has been virtually no progress in increasing the racial diversity of museum staff.
A Black feminist analysis of this report will find it lacking in intersectionality, for its splitting of women from other historically underrepresented minorities, providing no statistics for Black women or other women of color. Moreover, it ignores class background. Today, there are influential voices pushing for increased diversity in all areas of museum institutions, and there are interesting historical continuities between the Black feminist practices of museum activists in the 1960s and 70s, and the work being done today.
A protest critiquing the 1970 Whitney biennial included the dissemination of a flyer; written and distributed by members of Women Artists in Revolution, Women’s Ad Hoc Committee, and Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation, it is unrelenting in its critique of the issues of prejudice embedded in the Whitney’s practice. A public protest at the Whitney in 2017 resonates in this context. A collective group of artists and artist-supporters pushed for the removal of white artist Dana Schutz’s Emmett Till painting. Black British artist Hannah Black published a letter to the Whitney demanding its removal and destruction. Moreover, there was a protest led by Black artist-activist Parker Bright in which he stood in front of the painting, blocking it from view. Bright critiqued the Whitney for its “black death spectacle,” and its glaring miss of the mark of racial diversity in the museum.
While white heteropatriarchy continues to exist within museums, so too do protests by and on behalf of artists and art workers to increase diversity and inclusion in meaningful, not tokenizing, ways. The question of the canon, thought critically about by Black feminist Toni Morrison and Black artist Adrian Piper, is very relevant here, as curators have a hand in crafting the contemporary art canon, and those who are championing diversity are being ousted. Kimberly Drew, a queer Black woman and a self-defined art world activist who heads social media at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is working to increase diversity within the canon. Drew herself draws from and feels empowered by the work of Black artist groups from the 70s, citing her “grand inheritance [as] the fruits of their labour and care.” With art world activists like Drew, curators like Thelma Golden, and artist groups that exercise protests and demands today, there is hope for racial, gender, and class inclusivity in museums. Following the Black feminist practices of collective movements, centering the most marginalized, and articulating an equal imagined future is a sound way forward.
