September 14, 2016 - 17:43
This is just a taste of more to come!
This week we looked at two foundational texts of museum representations of Africa written by, Susan Vogel and Arthur Danto. While their arguments and perspective are important to positioning ourselves in questioning the museum’s intentions in displaying Blackness; particularly Africa. Whereas in the Wilson and Geismar readings we look ahead to the future. For all texts we believe it is important to analyze the ideas as much as the word choice each author chose to articulate those discussions. It is found in the way these articles are formatted, but also a way for us to begin thinking about the way we plan on describing the objects and curate our story through the labels found in the exhibition.
Geismar begins her essay by discussing the difference between contemporary and modern art. Contemporary art contexts are reflective of the present context in which artists situate themselves. Contemporary art challenges the mold modern art has created. Modern art is a term that critics often refer back to, to describe the aesthetics that arose during the 19th century western world. Geismar introduces the relationship between the contemporary and ethnographies as parallel relationships via: modernism and primitivism, the attempted relationships artists make to the complexities of the institution and their work (seen in Wilson’s work), the choice in specific art practices to highlight the artist’s relationship the institutionalized value (ex: for female artists in the 60s-70s a lot of their work was rooted in the labor behind creating a sculpture via knitting for hours or painfully glueing individual sticks together in order for their work to be acknowledged. This pressure to perform in such a laborious fashion stems from these artists recognizing their value as women was under the restrictive parameters of sex or labored creations.) and finally the use of museum studies as a guide to assigning new cultural understanding/value to what is presented in the museum. Geismar provides three examples of museum attempts in merging art and ethnographic collections, both used in the very complicated traditions of study to emphasize the need to shift into a new discourse that allows for room to critique both formulas of display.
For Wilson, respecting the intersections of his identity as a Black man, artists and placement in various viewing institutions is present in his work. He is invited into museums to investigate the role it has played in modern art, ethnographic narratives set by the institution, as well as his own story. We, in some ways, are doing the same work as Wilson. We are going into the BMC archives to dig up what tools they have to discuss Africa and recontextualizing it to fit into a critical analysis of how we read Africa, but how our peers do. Wilson’s work is so important because it holds people accountable for what they hold to be true. Wilson reflects on what he felt was the biggest obstacle in working with the curator’s in creating his exhibition in the Missouri Historical Society,
“I think they were just worried about these ideas coming into the museum, the place that they go to for solace and sameness, the place where they expect their own values to be re affirmed” Wilson 159
In a lot of ways Bryn Mawr is a safe haven. People are accustomed to a particular set of values that don’t reflect a non-Western reality that speaks to the breathe of trauma that is a direct product of displacement through colonization. It is important to dig into these histories and question them through our contemporary lenses to affirm the connection between the events that have transpired and their effect.