I remember one of the last things as I graduated college
I was the only black student in in the art school,
at this state university
The chair of the department said to me,
Do you want to be part of the black art
world or the white art world?
Now, all four years, nobody had said any that there were
two
You know, and Im like, what does that mean?
I worked at the Museum of Natural History,
out of college,
and I also worked at the Metropolitan
And eventually, I began to have ideas
about these environments
Some of them house the same cultures
If you look at Africa, Asia and Native objects,
they both have these kind of collections
But how they display them, what they say about them,
the environment that theyre placed in is very different
And to me, this was fascinating, because it just showed
in high relief,
how the museum creates meaning, according to what they
want you to know
But then theres these other parts of that meaning
that they are not wholly in control of
What is being received, and whos receiving it,
and what does it do to the artists whove made
these particular objects
As a person of color, even more so this is laid onto you
by other people
And essentially, at that time, it it was just, you know,
white Americans creating the meaning
Therere a lot of things in the world, as well, not
just in the museum, that,
for the most part theyre not being examined
Very banal things, like a coffee cup or, any kind of
advertising or or object,
theyre not being examined because were going
about our daily lives and
and doing our thing and and and we dont have the time
to examine every little thing
When I slow down, I begin to muse on,
what are these things really about?
What are their particular histories?
And I think things have shifted in in the museum world
I dont think the museum people were trying not
to include us in in the conversation
It was they just didnt realize they werent including us
in the conversation
When I first got to do a project with a museum, it
it affected museum professionals really strongly
Because I was using their language in a way
that they never would use
Because I had worked in museums,
I understood the didactic
I understood display in a way
that they themselves could not
Like newspapers, if youre aware that there are
various perspectives,
even within the fact that they are giving you
their full scholarship
and their their you know,
their full knowledge, then you dont have to pick apart
the institution
Youre just aware that theyre going
to have a different point of view,
and you can understand your perspective in relation
to that
So I just say dont ignore that
But still enjoy the exhibition and the museum
