Week 13 : Labor: Discrimination

 

Guerrilla Girls, Top Ten Signs That You're An Art World Token, 1995 

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It is to no surprise that museums all across the globe are rooted in systemic racism left behind by colonization. This has allowed trustees, boards, and any higher executives to abuse their staff that works below them, especially with people of color, since most of the higher held positions are occupied by white males. There have always been activists, community leaders, and visitors calling for a change in the establishment when it comes to the treatment of Asian Americans, Blacks, Indigenous, and LatinX artists and museum’s staff. Those calls are ignored or silenced by museums when they virtue signal on social media or makes statements that activism does not have a place in their field of work. So, the problem of mistreatment is still well rooted and continues to be perpetrated on minority groups.

During the summer of 2020 there has been more of a call for denouncement of racism in the museum system. With the global pandemic of COVID-19 and the police brutality against unarmed Blacks have once more exposed the wounds of discrimination in the field of art. It is one thing to denounce racism with an easy Instagram post or and twitter hashtag for the world to see, but denouncing racism comes with the action. Those solidarity black boxes mean nothing when an open letters are written to museums calling out the removal of Black workers. New York’s Jewish Museum received an open letter, “the letter, reportedly signed by dozen of employees at the institution, decried the museum’s recent round of layoffs, which ‘disproportionately affected Black, Indigenous, people of Color on the staff. This is one of the ways systemic racism is articulated through structures in place at this museum,’” art new reported. 1 These large lay off also unveil most Blacks are not hired in curator or conservation position but lower level position making them even more expendable.  And it is not just New York’s Jewish Museums to receive these letters, Museums of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art all got signed letters. Most of the letters were signed anonymous by the staff for the fear of retaliation.

Dr. Porchia Moore writes about navigating the system of the white supremacy existing in museums in, “Cartography: A Black Woman’s Response to Museums in the Time of Racial Uprising” Dr. Moore calls her navigations, map making. She mentioned how pointing out the negligence that museums have towards Black workers has costed her, her job, and affected her physical/mental health. Dr. Moore states, “I have seen phenomenal people leave the field because their dedication to this work left them isolated, labeled and jobless.” That the price people pay when they try to make it easier for museums to let go of their systemic racism. This does not leave many options for people of color to speak out against their treatment or allow an ally to make complaint either. The need to control all aspects of museum work on behalf of those in power go unreprimanded. In the case of, Chaedria LaBouvier the first Black curator in eighty years at the Guggenheim Museum in New York had faced professionalism racism at its boldest. LaBouvier knows she deserves credit for her art exhibit that she made for the Guggenheim, but instead of giving her credit and the acknowledgment she earned Artistic Director Nancy Spector held LaBouvier’s position as a guest curator over her head and threatened to withhold her pay. For the Guggenheim to shake the image of being anti-Black they hire Ashley James the first Black full-time curator as a token to prove they are not racist. Which is hard to remove when, “of the museum’s 276 full time staff member 26 are black, 24 are Latino and 20 are Asian, Of the museum’s 25 trustees, 23 are white” 2. This leaves people of color little hope for a change being that the system is undoubtable in the favor of those in power.

Endnotes 

1.Durón, Maximilíano, and Alex Greenberger. “In Open Letters, Art Workers Demand That Institutions Do More to Fight Racism.” ARTnews.com. ARTnews.com, June 19, 2020. https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/art-workers-systemic-racism-open-letters-1202691764/.

2. Pogrebin, Robin. “Curators Urge Guggenheim to Fix Culture That 'Enables Racism',” June 22, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/arts/design/guggenheim-curators-racism-sexism.html?auth=login-google.

Holmes, Helen. “The Guggenheim's First Black Curator Is Denouncing the Museum's Treatment of Her.” Observer. Observer, June 5, 2020. https://observer.com/2020/06/guggenheim-museum-chaedria-labouvier/.

Moore, Porchia. “Cartography: A Black Woman's Response to Museums in the Time of Racial Uprising.” the incluseum, June 10, 2020. https://incluseum.com/2020/06/10/cartography-a-black-womans-response-to-museums-in-the-time-of-racial-uprising/.