Great symposium. (But notable that the black/white split in the audience was c50/50, and the male/female split was 4/41. Apparently many museum curators are well educated women!).
Natasha Howe and Sonia Boyce. Symposium arose from 3 years of research by Museum Detox, and conversations with Museum curators.
Museum Detox is a professional advocacy group identifying biases in museum collections. www.museumdetox.com.
Consider subtle tweaks -v- major tweaks. I sat next to Eliza Gluckman, ex-New Hall Feminist collection curator, now Government Art Collection Adviser. She was hacked off at suggestions that subtle tweaks were needed - Black people and women need massive action to be adequately represented.
Anjalie Dalal Clayton
Audit of Museum collections. Black, British, Artists. Objects made by or about them.
Where to find the work of black artists? Created online database of 30 UK collections. Their definition of who to include became 'the individual identifying as black, and being in the UK either permanently, now, or when the artwork was made'. Black includes black and asian.
Museums approached were generally keen and enthusiastic but .... "don't think we have anything". Yet all collections investigated always had one. Where researchers found resistance or skepticism they found non-cooperation and hostility. Not sure whether it was due to fear/denial/ignorance/not about me? However researchers thought the reasons were unimportant - what was important was to get the data. Researchers gave their aims, methods, findings.
Overview of findings - 2085 artworks, 363 artworks across 30 collections. Therefore only certain artists were collected eg Anish Kapoor (Black, male) 122 artworks; Kim Lim (Black female) 92 artworks. This was .001-4% of collections. This does not represent the population they serve!
Aim to create scholarly discussion.
Results split into national collections and regional collections.
Regional Collections are broader. Focus on local? (Bradford is excellent at representing local communities) Focus on cheaper? (Unknown artists accept lower prices?)
When specific employees directed the policy, eg Bradford, representation was better.
Key questions
What does it take for a Museum or Gallery to develop a diverse and representative collection of art?
What influence do cultural diversity policies have upon the commercial art market, local and national demographics and the interests and passions of individuals in decision making roles have on the acquisition of works by black artists?
Are there particular styles, practices and modes of operating amongst black artists that are favoured by public art institutions, and if so, why?
What are the key differences between regional and national museums and galleries in terms of how they engage with black artist practices and collecting works by black artists?
(I could rewrite these questions for my own research, substituting woman, for black!)
Ella Mills
V&A blindspot for curating African collections.
Method: Review Policy documents; visits to museum; interviews
Events at V&A. Up to 2000 self reflexivity about museum practice. Misconception that V&A did not do Africa. There was the African 2005-8 Research Project.
Mills was critical of V&A Policy - "to inspire all"; "global history of creativity and ingenuity".
Spent a lot of time on their website - the website represents the Organisation. Their rhetoric does match reality or experience. Is the V&A a safe place for belonging and black audiences? Black people are absent from the core narrative. Requirement for trust/faith within the museum space. Can we have faith in histories they are presenting?
1. There is a disconnect between the audience and the collections. There is a pattern of expected negotiations - but there is a gap in rhetoric and experience. To deal with this, researchers needed to find allies, and use the informal approach. Black British audiences are not embedded within the collections, and staff were relieved to find colleagues who identified with this theme. Critically, this process is not in the V&A procedures.
2. Why Collect? What is the purpose, what drives collections and who collects? The purpose is clear - "for everyone". Collecting appears to be dependent upon the interests of the budget holder within the department.
Resistance and Refusal
1. Bradford collects to represent the community because of:
Individual leadership - consistent drive for this purpose.
Public funding made available.
Context awareness
Fluidity
Internal aims mirror external circumstances
Regional drive to push audience engagement.
2. Strategic and tactical implications
- Disconnect between academia/practice. ie fudging
- How museum classify: British and Foreign. Effects of confining people into labels of authority. Presence of artist is required.
- Effect of strategic collecting on diverse young people; not labelled but creative in own right.
- Triggers for resistance and refusal:
Representing interests of people who work there
Power and funding interests leads to what/who gets collected.
Legacy
Collections of Art & Craft have different policies.
Categorisation - there are 6 main areas of collecting and anything outside this gets ignored
Who conducts the categorisation.
What is required is a representative team of collectors - paralysis of not acting. Work with communities and groups.
Regional and National collections - who are you representing?
Why is Anish Kapoor collected more than other artists?
Collections team typically have long tenure, with the benefit of continuity. Or should they be changed every 2 years for benefits of change and prevention of becoming stale? Should the national body leadership pass down policy to regions, or regions inform upwards?
How to measure diversity. British or non-British. How to define? Is the burden on works collected to convey social history, or is it about collecting an artistic canon/aesthetic? What does this mean for audiences; what does this mean for art historians? Who is the peer group. National -v- regional. Are you serving your local artists?
Gavin Jantjes and David Dibosa, Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry.
Being vigilant about obstacles to the representation of black people. How to redisplay work. Utilise the location of knowledge - within the people. Networks between people enable change.
Looked at artwork descriptions and analysed what was said on them by the curator. Found that images of British life and landscape when created by a white person, the descriptor focussed on technique, but when created by a black person the descriptor focussed on the story.
Methods: interviews of curators; close reading; archival work.
Conducted a socio-political framing of 6 artists, to focus on the work, making and production itself.
Identified need to display histories for deeper research histories. West Midlands was a key area of production. Academia is not picking holes but creating a dialogue. Supplements knowledge in art historical framing. Not didactic but "points toward".
This was where I started to disagree with their presentation quite profoundly. They showed images of artwork descriptors from a national gallery, which spoke of slavery and colonialism in an understandable way in 2 sentences. Clearly explained why these concepts were outdated. Then they showed how they would have rewritten the descriptors - 2 paragraphs of verbose, vague art speak. Not clear or concise, did not make a clear point.
The relationship to the audience - appears to be an alibi for not going other types of work. Let's return to the centrality of the production of work.
(I found this all a bit confusing)
Pamela Crawford Bradford Cartwright Collection - fine and decorative arts
Archive for needs of local communities.
Placement of South Asian and Oriental art together. Indicative of thinking and how it shifts. Asian culture - today and for current people - is represented by orientalist in the 1900s! Inappropriate juxtaposition. Westernising reductive view of the East.
Exhibition "101 Saris" requested by local community.
1. Several funding sources.
2. Workforce selected purchases
3. Easing social discord
4. Active collecting of asian artists
5. Public consultation.
Spoon-feeding a political reading of a work. Interpretative captions to be provided? Y or N? How best to write them? Average reading age? (UK average 9, Sun reader 8, Guardian reader 14). The audience is not empowered by the curator not making the effort themselves. Should the label be about the artist and their training, or about the wider subject? Or about the artist and their ethnicity then the work subject? Or do they make different leaflets written in the voice of the feminist, marxist etc? ( I thought this was an interesting concept).
Hamad Nassar
The voice of the institution and the voice of the artist. An exhibition is not sufficient. Entering collection is not sufficient. What is the relationship between the institution and collections - identified by research projects. Cultural spheres allow stories to circulate. Which sphere do people fit in? Eg Freud - British/English/German?
Kate Jesson. (Brilliant young curator, who said it how it is. I'll watch her career with interest).
She found the Manchester Art Gallery, where she is curator, to be institutionally racist. The building, the shop, the collections and how they are described. Questioned the role, function and relevance of the collection. Unsure whether curators actually 'curate' the collections. How are the highlights of the collection defined? Paintings tend to stay on the walls because they are difficult to move, so other paintings stay in store. Use it or lose it. The only things that get conserved are the pieces that are shown. If in need of conservation, it remains in store.
Numerous barriers to invisibility. For example, revisiting insurance values, other than purchase price. Christies were unable to value the Keith Piper piece, but suggested doubling the acquisition price (it was bought in the 1950s). But they were ok with Byrne Jones because they could refer to the market price or a dealer. They were unable to explore exhibition history to curate value.
Systems complicated making visible and invisible. Eg Copyright. Can't use some artefacts because of copyright. What's in the shop is restricted by copyright. This is why often the best exhibition images are not on postcards in the shop, which is what I want for my exhibition book.
Institutional voice and language. Repeating and renewing. Knowledge comes from individuals and thus goes into institutions. "Not letting rigour become rigour mortis' Hammad.
Kate did a tour with us and spoke articulately about the portrait "The Moor" by James Northcote. It is noted within the collection for being the first purchase of the gallery when it was set up in late 1800s. And is notable for being of a black man. Actually it is a portrait of Ira Aldridge, black actor who made a good living portraying Shakespeare's Moor, but who made his fortune acting in Canada and Russia, because he was unrecognised in Britain. In this image he is portrayed when the seed of doubt is being planted in his mind, and which leads to him becoming a wife killer.
I was exhausted by the end of the symposium. All great speakers.
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