History is often ugly, but it’s important that we don’t forget our past no matter how easy it would be to look away. Art gives the artist an opportunity to remind us of where we’ve been and inspire us to be better in the future. However, when artists choose to idolize and glorify individuals and groups responsible for committing crimes against humanity they fail their communities. Many German towns have memorials with the names of their fallen citizens from the World Wars to remember the price their community paid without trying to portray the Nazi party in a positive light. If these Confederate memorials are truly about heritage and remembering our history, the could similarly be replaced with Civil War and Abolition memorials without public outrage.
The piece in the Whitney Museum is definitely deserving of the controversial conversation it commands. On one hand it’s an important message and statement of the pain and suffering felt by the family and community, but that statement loses some impact coming from someone who doesn’t belong to that community. However, would a piece from a member of that community and about the same subject matter have been allowed past the Ivory Gates of historically exclusionary museum curatorship? Museums and galleries have a long history of excluding oppressed communities.
We as artists can absolutely use our voice to make art for and about an oppressed community. However, we must use our voice to speak about our experiences in relation to those groups and be careful not to speak for them or speak over them. If we are taking opportunities away from artists within oppressed communities then we have the responsibility to step back and call attention to those artists instead.