Culture Warrior: The quest for representation, affirmation, and reparations from museums around the world
Andrea Jenkins
A 2019 study by Williams College confirms what a walk through just about any museum in the world reveals: that is, most of the work displayed are from white male artists. The study verifies that "By scraping the public online catalogs of 18 major U.S. museums, deploying a sample of 10,000 artist records comprising over 9,000 unique artists to crowdsourcing, and analyzing 45,000 responses…we find that 85% of artists are white and 87% are men,"
But this is not news, right? This is the reality in most areas of American life; it just happens to be clearly visible in museums and art galleries. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation partnered with The Association of Art Museum Directors, the American Alliance of Museums, and Ithaka to look at museums’ curatorial staff. They uncovered those African American curators increased from 2% to 4%. This has led to a few more exhibitions for people of color, but not in museums adding BIPOC artists holding in the collections. This is important because adding work to the collection indicates that this work matters and is worth being preserved in perpetuity.
However, Essence magazine reports that there are five Black women that are attempting to shift that narrative: Nichola Vassell, a gallerist in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan. Designer and influential collector, Alyse Archer-Coite, also advocates for an expansion of the definition of woman, saying, “She also wants to move beyond the binary and recognize the needs of those who don’t identify with either gender, both in the workforce and as visitors to A/D/O. As a relatively new topic for many cisgender people (individuals whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth), a key component to representing the voices of the gender nonconforming has been an internal discussion about how employees talk to and refer to one another. “Just reestablishing parameters and norms for the space,” Alyse explains.
As a Black Transgender identified multi-hyphenate artist, I am deeply interested in the above proclamation. How do non-binary and Trans artists fit in this narrative? This past summer I was part of a playwrighting cohort at Long Wharf Theatre company in New Haven, CT., called “Black Trans Women at the Center”. In its third season it has afforded Black Trans and gender non-conforming folks the opportunity to create new work, act in the 10-minute productions, direct said production, and overall be involved in every aspect of creating new work. This is a model for increasing diverse voices in spaces that formerly excluded them.
Then there’s Brooklyn-based, visual artist, Theresa Chromati, who will be presenting her work at Art Basel, Miami this year. And here is the kicker: she’s represented by a woman-owned gallery, Jessica Silverman. Her presence in this space potentially opens doors for more representation in these exclusionary fairs and festivals.
Next the article talks about Qualeasha Wood, a textile artist who attended the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design and the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Qualeasha is concerned about the content of her work and how it speaks to her community and to the movements of the moment. It was an idea brought forward first during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s and subsequently throughout the Black Arts Movement of the 60’s and 70’s, that poet and historian John H. Bracey describes as “…a vital part of the crucible that transformed Negroes into Black People.” Led by the likes of Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, and visual artists like Glanton Dowdell who painted the mural “The Black Madonna and Child,” the Black Arts Movement made culture and politics inseparable. This sentiment has prevailed and many Black, women, and POC artists see their work not only as beautiful creations but as tools for addressing issues of sexism, racism, transphobia, ableism, etc.
Lastly, The Essence magazine article introduces us to Ashley James, Ph.D., she is now the Guggenheim’s first full Black curator in its contemporary art department. As James contemplates, her role as cultural representative, she states, “At the core of curatorial work is selection, which by definition means exclusion. Who are you putting on? And at what time? I think about that in terms of firstness, because I try to be honest and deliberate at the same time.”
I also think about the term, “the first.” I am frequently introduced as “the first out, Black, Transgender Woman elected to public office in the United States”. Do I cringe just a little when I hear this out loud? The answer is, of course, yes. And at the same time, it is an honor. It just happens that I am the City Councilmember that represents the district that George Floyd was murdered in, the district that the entire world has been focused on during the past two and half years. The same district that each of the aforementioned women indicates has shifted their perspectives about their creative process, aspirations, and career trajectories.
It has certainly shifted my own artistic output. Many artists like myself responded artistically with an explosion of expression that permeated the shuttered and boarded businesses impacted by the uprisings in protest to the murder here in Minneapolis, where I live and work. I also responded artistically, as well as politically. During the 1st press conference after the murder of George Floyd, I sang “Amazing Grace”; it was not a part of my prepared remarks, but my spirit told me people needed to hear something soulful. In the days, weeks, and months that followed, my artistic production has been quite prolific.
Just twelve days later, on June 7th, 2020, eight of my colleagues and I stood onstage and made national headlines with the slogan “Defund the Police.” To be clear, my intention then and now was to reallocate funds from the police department proper to lift other alternative public safety strategies, while augmenting the work that armed police do in our communities. Alternatives that we’ve implemented, such as the mental health crisis response team called Canopy Crisis Response Team. But on that day I read a then newly crafted poem called “Quarantine Soul”:
Quarantine Soul
“I only think of you on two occasions, and that’s day and night”
-Babyface
One Sunday morning I listened to the entire discography of Luther Vandross, it made me smile.
I cleaned my entire house, one room at a time- I found a jar of Miracle Whip, dated “use by 6/20/2008”
Little Richard, the founding father of Rock and Roll, passed on, “Oh Lucille, why can’t you be true?”
Our babies falling asleep at the breakfast table that doubles as their desks—home-school Moms rule!
Mother’s Day came and went—socially distant days and nights, singularity, solo: dinner for one.
Epic moments move things
Epic moments…
Make movements…
Epic movements start with moments
61 seconds was a moment
Jamar Clark was a movement
Ohhhhhh lord…
We miss Prince right now. He’d probably say something like “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life…”
Prince went to Baltimore
Wrote a song when Freddie Gray was killed, was murdered,
Throat crushed,
Back broke,
Yeah, Freddie got the knee choke too.
There’s a deeper, darker side, nefarious forces
Operating just under the surface
It’s like watching the “Last Dance”
Make you wanna stand in line for 48 whole hours
To get dem new Air’s or Yezzy’s or
Popeyes fried chicken sandwich
Yeah, that’s my addiction
Love when mama frying up them wings in the kitchen
Yeah, but now “We Can’t Breathe”
Because Ahmad Aubrey was murdered in the streets
And Breonna Taylor was murdered in her sheets
It’s being
Treated without respect
It’s having to fight for everything
It’s not getting the same chances
It’s being left out
Like you don’t matter
IT’S DEATH
I grew up listening to Public Enemy in real-time
“I dialed 911 a long time ago
Don’t you see how late they reacting
They only come when they wanna
Then bring the morgue truck and involve the “coroner”
Quarantine Blues
Sitting at home
Thinking of a master plan
Elizabeth Alexander asked –
“What if love was the most powerful word in the Universe”
We sing songs
Dance dances
Paint pictures
Documenting our pain
For the world to witness-
But nothing changes-
Nothing ever changes.
Minneapolis Goddamn
We can’t Breathe
The EPA eased restrictions on polluting our communities
Coronavirus attacking our lungs
America’s got its knee on our necks
“Mama, it hurts
My back hearts
My stomach hurts everything hurts, they going to kill me…”
White Supremacy is a Public Health Crisis, and we got the cure
“So, what do you wanna talk about next beauties?
Revolution? You wouldn’t use that word if you knew what it meant,
It isn’t pretty, it’s bloody, it overturns things”
Somewhere in America tonight, somebody is saying “Make America Great Again”
We say, emphatically
NO
Somewhere in America tonight, somebody is saying, “Why don’t they just go home”
We say defiantly,
NO
Somewhere in America tonight, somebody is asking “what do they want?”
We say demandingly,
WE WANT CHANGE
- Change the way we educate
- Change the way we employ our communities
- Change the way we live and treat each other
- Change the way we keep our communities safe
There is a new breeze blowing in,
Young voices are taking over
When you put your knee on George Floyd neck, you woke up a sleeping giant, young voices said NO
They said, when we know justice
You will know peace
No Justice, No Peace!
#IyannaDior
STOP KILLING BLACK TRANS WOMEN!!!!
Andrea Jenkins © 2020
Since January 1st, 2022, I have been doing my own public art experiment. I have been signing all my email communication, “Love Andrea”. This very public expression accompanies all my communications. It doesn’t matter if it is to my staff, family members, or total strangers. It has been 10 months now and the experiment is still going strong. I have been mostly getting positive feedback from folks, some have even responded back with similar sentiments, but I know that it freaks some people out, right? It even freaks me out a bit. As the City Council President, I get a lot of, let's just say “less than pleasant” emails. It is not easy for me to write “Love, Andrea” on many of my responses. It forces me to go back and review my message to ensure that it aligns with the sentiment of Love.
I am doing this because the only way that we fight the rampant hatred in our communities, in our country, in the world is with Love. MLK says, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” So, I’m trying to do my part.
I created a live performance piece that I performed at the New Haven International Ideas Festival, in May, and subsequently at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, MN. Called “(Black) Love in a time of Social Justice”. I have created eight new visual collages, a dozen or more new poems and written and produced one 10-minute play, that I mentioned earlier in the essay. I have had two articles published in LGBTQ Nation, in 2022, all while working full-time as the Minneapolis City Council President.
I only share this because I am not the only person making, presenting, or responding to this ground shattering moment in American history. And it is important for the museums, galleries, curators take notice and find ways to elevate, collect and present these important works. For that to occur, it will require shifting the paradigm described at the beginning of this piece. There is a need for the art world to atone for the stolen treasures from African and Indigenous communities. In some cases, it is important to return these artifacts and objects, but sometimes that is just not practical. Therefore, institutions must hire more BIPOC curators, directors, presidents and board members. They most invest in young Black, Brown and gender non-conforming artists, through apprenticeships, cohorts and fellowships. As a committed Culture Warrior, I will instigate from the frontlines to ensure that this becomes the reality.
