When walking into a modern American museum, many of the artworks are from the white American perspective, only leaving a small space for artworks done from the perspective of people of colour. For African-American art, mainstream museums seem to either do one of these two things: 1) passively ignore them or 2) actively excluded them from exhibitions. However, over the past few decades, museums have sporadically added African-American artwork to their collection and made exhibitions that echoed the black perspective. Yet, only one major North American mainstream museum has a curatorial department dedicated to African-American art, The General Motors Center of African-American Art. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the lack of understanding …show more content…
The problem of African-American collections being housed without any departments or curators is that it jeopardizes the community, especially potential donations to the museums, therefore reducing the cultural value of the collection. Although acquiring African-American art from other museums are helpful, creating a space that allows outside donations to the museum is useful because this brings the community closer to the collection and the museum. For example, curator Valerie Mercer acknowledges the issue of mainstream North American museums not giving African-American art enough support, as this creates a barrier between the museums and the community. She finds that many potential donors fear that their contributions are not going to be viewed because these museums do not have departments or specialized curators dedicated to this study, thus the contributors shy away from these museums since they are less concerned with showing African-American art. A specialized curator or a department in this field could increase more donations, ultimately serving the public and allow viewers to learn about the various artists who are excluded from the American art
Although Barnes’ marriage was not a successful one, he adored his newborn baby girl, and was heartbroken when his wife left him, taking his daughter with her. At North Carolina College, Barnes majored in art, and developed his own style (Artist Vitae, 1999). When Barnes was a freshman in college he went on a field trip to the newly desegregated North Carolina Museum of Art. At the museum Barnes noticed that there weren’t any works by black artist displayed, and when he asked the guide where the black artists were exhibited, the guide responded, “your people don’t express themselves this way” (Artist Vitae, 1999). That negative response encouraged Barnes to work hard at becoming an artist.
Elizabeth Catlett`s art documents history, but particularly the experiences of the black and brown working class women.. She combined what she has learned of African art, African American art, and
The play “Permanent Collection” focuses on an African-American man who has just taken over an art museum named Sterling North. While digging through storage, he finds eight African sculpture pieces and wants to add them to the collection at the Morris Foundation on the campus of a college. The Director of Education Paul Barrow is hanging on to the words of Mr. Morris and his vision because he doesn’t want anything to change at the museum according to Mr. Morris’ will, which contributes to the title of the play “Permanent Collection.”
Dunham’s Dynamic Museum also located in East Saint Louis was built most importantly to continue fighting racism by showing the importance and dignity of dark skinned people, as her entire life she saw the difference in treatment between her, a light skin, and a dark skinned person. (Dunham 559) “In comprehending Miss Dunham, then, one has to think not just of dance, not just of drums, not just of primitive rhythms, but of a totem-woman of African spirituality and cultural wealth” (Dunham 559).
How does one embrace the message and soul of artwork when you can’t get passed the color of skin in the portraits? Two barrier breaking retrospective artists born with more than 2,899 miles between them have beat down the walls in the art world opening up endless opportunities for female artist today. Carrie Mae Weems and Lorna Simpson specialize in catching the viewer’s eye and penetrating their feelings towards issues of culture, politics, equality, and feminism. It is well established that these woman specialize in identifying problems in their artwork, both artists seem to struggle with not being able to avoid the ignorant eye of stereotyping because they use African American Models in their artwork. Carrie Mae Weems doesn’t see her artwork
I recently visited the American History museum and came upon the most interesting artifact in the Lighting a Revolution section within the Transportation and Technology wing of the museum. This artifact is an advertisement from Charleston, South Carolina in 1769 about the selling of “a choice cargo” of two hundred and fifty slaves.
Thought to contain a hundred years of one of the races of people that helped build and shape America as we know it. Being overlooked for centuries. IN 2003 Bush signed a law creating the African American history museum. It was one of the most educational and invigorating experiences of my life. Not many The museum is not only enlighten but enriching by capturing African American history in its entirety.
The Americans of African and European Ancestry did not have a very good relationship during the Civil war. They were a major cause of the Civil War. But, did they fix or rebuild that relationship after the war from the years 1865 to 1900? My opinion would be no. I do not believe that the Americans of African and European ancestry successfully rebuilt their relationship right after the Civil war. Even though slavery was finally slowly getting abolished, there was still much discrimination against the African Americans. The Jim Crow laws and the black codes discriminated against black people. The Ku Klux Klan in particular discriminated against black people. Even though the United States government tried to put laws into the Constitution to protect black people, the African Americans were discriminated in every aspect of life from housing, working, educating, and even going to public restrooms!
As artists began to gain recognition in the artistic world, they continually represented what it meant to be black in America. Personalities and individualism were displayed through their work while simultaneously portraying the political, social, and economic conditions of being black. This idea runs parallel with Mary Louise Pratt’s (1990) definition of a contact zone. She defines it as a "term to refer...
...ey acknowledges its permanent collection as being its most valuable asset. As I have stated earlier in this essay, with a collection consisting of over 12,000 paintings and representing more than 2,000 artists, the Whitney can fully present the most complete overview of twentieth century American art. With this wide range of modern American art, the visitor is offered a chance to experience fully the direction art has taken in America for the past one hundred years while also representing contemporary artists. The museums collection is also recognized as for its in-depth commitment to a number of key artists. From the first half of the century, such seminal figures as Edward Hopper (Figure 3), which the Whitney has acquired his entire estate. This demonstrates the Whitney’s dedication to key figures in American art and also which artists they perceive as being worthy or such attention, ones that in the Whitney’s vision have contributed most to the American art scene during their time and influential past their lives works. By dedicating two entire floors to the display of the permanent collection, the Museum reaffirms the collection's central role in the Whitney Museum experience.
The Tampa Museum of Art was not always the same museum that we see today. It went through multiple stages throughout the years. The works vary, creating a large spectrum from the old to the new. The social angles change with the exhibits in the museum, combining to create the diversity we see today. Visiting this museum in person helped me to appreciate it even more than I would have thought possible. Observing and analyzing the other visitors helped me to understand the museum’s impact on the community more than I would have been able to just by reading about it. This museum is much different from others than I have visited.
In From Slavery to Freedom (2007), it was said that “the transition from slavery to freedom represents one of the major themes in the history of African Diaspora in the Americas” (para. 1). African American history plays an important role in American history not only because the Civil Rights Movement, but because of the strength and courage of Afro-Americans struggling to live a good life in America. Afro-Americans have been present in this country since the early 1600’s, and have been making history since. We as Americans have studied American history all throughout school, and took one Month out of the year to studied African American history. Of course we learn some things about the important people and events in African American history, but some of the most important things remain untold which will take more than a month to learn about.
One pleasant afternoon, my classmates and I decided to visit the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to begin on our museum assignment in world literature class. According to Houston Museum of Fine Art’s staff, MFAH considers as one of the largest museums in the nation and it contains many variety forms of art with more than several thousand years of unique history. Also, I have never been in a museum in a very long time especially as big as MFAH, and my experience about the museum was unique and pleasant. Although I have observed many great types and forms of art in the museum, there were few that interested me the most.
Black history month is mainly a month that promotes racism among society. In nineteen seventy-six, America names February as black history month, as a commemoration of significant events and individuals of the African-American ancestry. Even though, black history month started as an innocent idea and if the American government would have rejected it, there would have been a colossal backlash across the black community. However, if one would take a step back and look at the big picture, one would notice that black history is American history, shows that not all ethnic groups is treated equally and brings a past time up that pours salt in old wounds. Under those circumstances, there should not be a black history month in the United States
The United States rests upon a foundation of freedom, where its citizens can enjoy many civil liberties as the result of decades of colonial struggles. However, African Americans did not achieve freedom concurrently with whites, revealing a contradiction within the “nation of liberty”. It has been stated that "For whites, freedom, no matter how defined, was a given, a birthright to be defended. For African Americans, it was an open-ended process, a transformation of every aspect of their lives and of the society and culture that had sustained slavery in the first place." African Americans gained freedom through the changing economic nature of slavery and historical events like the Haitian Revolution policies, whereas whites received freedom