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A major museum in New York City cancelled its fall exhibit on art about the Black Lives Matter protests and the coronavirus outbreak after getting pushback online because it allegedly took financial advantage of its artists.
The Whitney Museum of American Art is getting pushback online because its fall exhibit on art about the Black Lives Matter protests and the coronavirus outbreak took financial advantage of its artists. (iStock)
Tuesday afternoon, the Whitney Museum of American Art emailed Fox News to say the show would not go on.
“We at the museum have been listening and hearing from artists about their concerns," the show’s curator, Farris Wahbeh, said in a statement: "The conversations and discussions that have come out of the exhibition are deeply felt. We apologize for the anger and frustration the exhibition has caused and have made the decision not to proceed with the show.”
The works in the exhibition were collected as part of the Whitney’s Special Collections.
The exhibit would have included documentary photographs, abstractions and text-based images, on topics like the coronavirus pandemic, structural racism and demands for social and racial justice, according to the museum.
“My sincere hope in collecting them was to build on a historical record of how artists directly engage the important issues of their time, Wahbeh said. "Going forward, we will study and consider further how we can better collect and exhibit artworks and related material that are made and distributed through these channels. I understand how projects in the past several months have a special resonance and I sincerely want to extend my apologies for any pain that the exhibition has caused.”
The projects were selected because they drew on the tradition of activist artmaking and demonstrate the vibrant, spontaneous and tactical work that artists are doing, according to the Whitney Museum of American Art.
The show “Collective Actions: Artist Interventions in a Time of Change” was supposed to run from Sept. 17, 2020 to Jan. 3, 2021.
This September, the Whitney Museum of American Art was set to exhibit an artwork by School of Art Senior Steven Montinar in the exhibition “Collective Action: Artist Interventions in a Time of Change.” The Museum also acquired the artwork, titled “Koupe Tet, Boule Kay,” for its permanent collection. (Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of American Art)
Earlier in the day on social media, artists accused the museum of exploiting the work for the purpose of trauma porn and with neocolonial, predatory behavior.
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New York artist Antwaun Sargent lambasted the museum on Twitter: “this is why you shouldn’t be out here selling your images for $100 because a major museum will ‘acquire’ your art through and stage an exhibition”
He called the museum’s tactics “insane.”
He tweeted part of the show’s mission statement: “‘the works were initiated by artist collectives to raise funds for anti-racist initiatives, including criminal justice reform, bail funds, Black trans advocacy groups, and other mutual aid work...The Whitney acquired the works...as the projects were launched and distributed’”
He said the artists in the show should strike back
“If you are an artist in this show what you should do is organize against it, Sargent said. "Ask the museum to not show your work or pay the market price for it. they didn’t publish an artist list, which is weird, but y’all should find each other and mobilize.”
Photographer Gioncarlo Valentine tweeted he was paid for his art with a “Lifetime Pass” to the museum.
He said on Twitter: “Y'all. YALL. This is unreal. I'm... First of all I'll never do another print sale again so please no [sic] that ahead of time. @whitneymuseum y'all preyed on Black artists in this moment in such a disgusting way. No scruples. An embarrassment.”
Women Photograph, a group that works with female visual journalists worldwide, tweeted: “Horrified to hear that the @whitneymuseum has reached out to a slew of Black photographers informing them that prints acquired via the first See in Black print sale — meant to be a fundraiser for Black social justice orgs — will be exhibited as part of a show opening in 3 weeks.”
Another artists’ collective, See In Black, put out a statement noting it was unaware of the original intent of the museum.
The collective said: “The Whitney’s use of the works acquired through the See In Black print sale at significantly discounted prices ― the proceeds of which were donated 100% to charity ― constitutes unauthorized use of the works to which the artists do not consent and for which the artists were not compensated.
“We stand behind the photographers who participated in our charitable initiative and will continue to prioritize their interests in this matter,” it concluded.
New York artist KJ Freeman, who runs HOUSING gallery in Manhattan, is a big success on her own. She owns an art space in her mid-20s, telling Fox News about the show: “Neoliberal cosplay is the performance of advocacy and activism without the loss or threat of loss. It is a marketing hellscape which profit off of the concerns and fears of the public without relinquishing power. It is a farce. A Teen Vogue listicle funded by big Pharma.”
New York artist Aruna D'Souza, accusing the museum of being grifters, tweeted: “The Whitney has made clear that museums are the ambulance chasers of the art world.”
The Whitney moved from the Upper East Side to its current downtown Manhattan home in a Renzo Piano-designed building at the southern end of the High Line park in 2015.
The museum was founded by art collector and sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1931.
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