Worth reckoning with this @sebastiansmee on the stunning National Gallery decision to postpone an exhibition of anti-racist artist Philp Guston because his paintings features images of hooded figures that viewers just can't handle at this moment in time. washingtonpost.com/entertainment/…
"I have read unfathomable doublespeak coming out of museum PR depts but this is the most ludicrous. The idea that work w/ a powerful msg of social & racial justice should have to wait until some future when they think our current tumult has been magically cleaned up is Orwellian"
"Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, supports decision to postpone: 'Not taking a step back to address these issues...would've appeared tone deaf to what is happening in discourse about art.' From such a force for good in the art world, this is deeply disappointing."
*feature*. My goodness, two subject-verb snafus in two days.
And now come nearly 100 artists decrying the museums' decision to postpone the Guston show (until 2024!) and demanding that it be reinstated: nytimes.com/2020/09/30/art…
This from Ford Foundation's Walker, wow: "What those who criticize this decision do not understand is...the context in US has fundamentally, profoundly changed on issues of incendiary & toxic racist imagery in art, regardless of virtue or intention of the artist who created it.”
.@jsf: "It’s not too late to reverse this decision, which is shaping up to be an even worse misdeed than 1989 cancellation of Robert Mapplethorpe’s 'The Perfect Moment': worse because the censorship has come not from philistines outside the museum’s walls but from those within."
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