Marble floors glisten with the warm light emitting from the fixtures above them, as thousands of footsteps parade in a hush, portraits of civil rights leaders and everyday people lining the walls of the Getty Center’s latest exhibition, Photography and the Black Arts Movement.
As a lifelong artist, I’ve been taught to venerate the museum, though I never have. One of the essays that got me into art school centered on how these spaces never felt like home to me. They were white walls and spotless floors, the individuals centered in the paintings which lived within them just as pale as the surfaces on which they hung. I must have overlooked the splendor everyone else drew from them. Maybe I wasn’t tapped in enough, maybe I wasn’t a “real” artist, since museums have “real” art, and thus are the only valuable places to consume it from.
But in museums, I rarely see myself, I rarely see us. That’s because those who fund them have no connection to the fervor that produces the poignant works I’m moved by. Paintings that I whisper to my brother about, questioning how an artist perfectly articulated a cultural reference. The people whom I, as an artist, if I wish to somehow gain any footing or advancement, must please. I entered the walls of the Getty with that same mindset and chilling understanding. In some part, this belief was broken by the presence of a Black exhibit that was both broad and visually stunning, but my issue with the institutions remains.
As a Black person, particularly a Black artist, I’m well aware of the environment that museums cultivate. They provide a transaction to a visitor, and are precise about who they feel is worthy of participating in that trade. In exchange for a facade of sophistication and refinement, the visitor gives their three hours to the marble halls and cascading gardens of the environment. Most of the visitors, though the crowd had some racial diversity, were clearly those who could afford to take time out of their day to venture out and look at art for hours. They entered the space with the hopes of gaining cool points amongst their friends and colleagues for being able to expatriate about the Gauguin they saw during their time there, based solely on the placard placed beside it, which they briefly skimmed.
People of color and those of a lower socioeconomic standing are rarely welcomed to take part in this transaction. Museums, akin to golf, are oftentimes reserved for those who have the time, finances, and triumph in the geographic lottery to be able to enjoy them. Furthermore, those who decide what work is shown, and which stories those works tell, don’t often uplift the voices and experiences of Black artists. Which is why this exhibit caught my eye.
The lower level of the west wing was filled with the work of numerous Black artists, like L.A.’s own David Hammons. One particularly striking work was a portrait of a man in the early 70’s, adorned in an all-white suit, whose eyes didn’t meet anyone who looked like him until I walked into the room, and most likely didn’t again until quite some time after I’d left. And while the exhibit was extensive and spanned multiple mediums, from painting and photography to mixed media installations, the gap between the work and the audience was increasingly evident. This was most clear in a moment where two teenage girls chose an enclosed room whose walls were pasted with newspaper clippings of wars and uprisings to be the site of their TikTok. It calls into question what purpose is served by an exhibit that so beautifully displays the history of a people, when those very people are rarely given access to the space it inhabits.
This conflict with museums and the relationship Black artists must have with them has been circling my mind since I began my formal art education in the Fall. I’d been thinking of myself as an artist, my values, the ethos that shines through in my work, and the audience I wish to speak to. Many of my peers echoed similar concerns about the balance between artistic integrity and making a living. So I, considering that my staunch stance could be rooted in youthful defiance, sought the opinion of those more experienced than I’ve grown to be.
I asked a peer, quite my senior, who’d worked in the industry across mediums and came back to school to pursue a graduate degree, what they thought. We discussed it, and my opinion stayed firm. We each echoed the same things, not quite sure of the solution but certain of the issue. At one particular moment, we dared to proclaim that museums had lost their relevance. Most people don’t frequent them, and in terms of cultural cache, they’re akin to a 1996 MC Hammer. We noted that many artists are moving away from the museums and that we, as Black artists, must create our own spaces and alternative forms of showcasing.
There’s a cruel tug of war in which Black artists are coaxed to engage. Either strip your work of its seasoning to ease the palette of the culturally disconnected individuals who you need to fund your work, or safeguard your flavor and potentially forfeit financial success and the security of an established career in the arts. I dare to say, we must put down the rope. And maybe, if we’re lucky, our final tug before letting it fall will reverberate and mollywop the institutions on the other end. Maybe it won’t.
I acknowledge that it may be wishful and naïve thinking to believe it is possible to authentically create and still make a living, but that’s the same reasoning that allows the culturally severed, but financially tied, to maintain the upper hand. My suggestion is that we, as Black artists, must create our own spaces, where the work not only reflects us but is accessible to us. Curators like Gabrielle Narcisse and Robert Provilus, with the BLACK STARS exhibition in New York this past Black History Month, have already begun creating a blueprint for how that can come to pass.
While the struggle between unfettered expression and financial stability will likely persist, continuing to center institutions that are incapable of connecting with the cultural collective consciousness is neither beneficial for the progression nor the ownership of Black artists and our audience.
