She's My Muse | Samantha Summers
Last summer, in response to allegations of sexual assault made against photographer Raghubir Singh, whose art was being shown in the exhibition Modernism on the Ganges, the Royal Ontario Museum hosted an exhibition titled #MeToo and the Arts, curated by Dr. Deepali Dewan. This exhibition was held from July 21 to October 21 in the Thorsell Spirit House, a publicly-accessible and no-charge space adjacent to the main ROM entrance off of Bloor Street. The exhibition aimed to engage with its Modernism on the Ganges exhibition and the question of how institutions and individuals react to problematic creators.
This was not a perfect exhibition. Jaishri Abichandani, who accused Singh of raping her, said that it was not comfortable working with the ROM. Some visitors to the exhibition with whom I spoke with felt that it did not engage explicitly enough with the allegations made against Singh. Others felt that keeping it physically separate from Modernism on the Ganges made it too easy for visitors of that exhibition to ignore these allegations. And yet, despite all of these complaints, #MeToo and the Arts struck me as very brave.
To the best of my knowledge, #MeToo and the Arts is the first time that a Canadian museum has heard allegations about a featured artist and responded by starting a conversation, not sweeping those allegations under the rug. A perfect, and roughly concurrent, example of this is the Musée des Beaux-Arts Montréal. Indeed, the MBAM showed D’Afrique aux Amériques: Picasso en face-à-face d’hier à aujourd’hui [From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-face with Picasso from yesterday to today] from May 12 to September 16 of the same year. The exhibition received rave reviews, and did not engage with Picasso’s exploitative relationships with women. In general, this is how museums handle controversial artists: show their art, hide their history, and hope audiences don’t probe. #MeToo and the Arts may not have gone as far as some visitors may have wanted, but at least it asked questions.
When #MeToo and the Arts was first announced, I thought it would be a turning point for museums. I thought, finally a major museum is asking the right questions and encouraging audiences to do the same. I looked forward to the next #MeToo exhibition, and wondered which museum would take up the mantle. Perhaps the National Gallery of Canada, with its extensive collection of Indigenous art, would explore artistic violence against Indigenous women. The Art Gallery of Ontario could comb its collection for problematic artists and explore their stories, and showcase their art in light of those stories, with an honest and frank exhibition. Or maybe this would lead to the founding of Canada’s own National Women’s History Museum. I was excited. I was hopeful.
I was disappointed.
#MeToo and the Arts should have been the beginning of a long, complicated, and difficult conversation in major Canadian museums. Following the ROM’s example, this could have been the year when Canadian museums explored their collections and challenged misogyny in the art world. Instead, this was pretty much a normal year for major Canadian museums.
So, what happened? Why didn’t other institutions run with this conversation and bring it into their own spaces? I have theories, of course. It would be too much trouble. It might impact revenues to suggest that artists are to be challenged, not necessarily celebrated. And of course, nobody wants to appear to be promoting an artist who engaged in violence against women, in which case, best not to mention them. I do have to wonder at which point ignoring an artist’s controversy becomes lying about an artist’s controversy, and whether or not Canadians will ever themselves become invested enough in #MeToo to demand this kind of accountability from museums.
It does not seem likely the Canadian museums will embrace the #MeToo movement in any comprehensive way any time soon. In curating #MeToo and the Arts Dr. Dewan offered other institutions an opening to give Canadian museology its #MeToo moment. Perhaps it will fall to us, the museum students of today and professionals of tomorrow, to finally answer that call.
See past Musings editor Kathleen Lew's take on #MeToo and the Arts here.
Last summer, in response to allegations of sexual assault made against photographer Raghubir Singh, whose art was being shown in the exhibition Modernism on the Ganges, the Royal Ontario Museum hosted an exhibition titled #MeToo and the Arts, curated by Dr. Deepali Dewan. This exhibition was held from July 21 to October 21 in the Thorsell Spirit House, a publicly-accessible and no-charge space adjacent to the main ROM entrance off of Bloor Street. The exhibition aimed to engage with its Modernism on the Ganges exhibition and the question of how institutions and individuals react to problematic creators.
 |
| Protestors march carrying a #MeToo sign in Paris. (Image source.) |
This was not a perfect exhibition. Jaishri Abichandani, who accused Singh of raping her, said that it was not comfortable working with the ROM. Some visitors to the exhibition with whom I spoke with felt that it did not engage explicitly enough with the allegations made against Singh. Others felt that keeping it physically separate from Modernism on the Ganges made it too easy for visitors of that exhibition to ignore these allegations. And yet, despite all of these complaints, #MeToo and the Arts struck me as very brave.
To the best of my knowledge, #MeToo and the Arts is the first time that a Canadian museum has heard allegations about a featured artist and responded by starting a conversation, not sweeping those allegations under the rug. A perfect, and roughly concurrent, example of this is the Musée des Beaux-Arts Montréal. Indeed, the MBAM showed D’Afrique aux Amériques: Picasso en face-à-face d’hier à aujourd’hui [From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-face with Picasso from yesterday to today] from May 12 to September 16 of the same year. The exhibition received rave reviews, and did not engage with Picasso’s exploitative relationships with women. In general, this is how museums handle controversial artists: show their art, hide their history, and hope audiences don’t probe. #MeToo and the Arts may not have gone as far as some visitors may have wanted, but at least it asked questions.
 |
| Pablo Picasso's Mujer con sombrero y cuello de piel, a portrait of Picasso's mistress Marie Thérèse Walter, with whom he had a very troubled relationship. (Image Source.) |
When #MeToo and the Arts was first announced, I thought it would be a turning point for museums. I thought, finally a major museum is asking the right questions and encouraging audiences to do the same. I looked forward to the next #MeToo exhibition, and wondered which museum would take up the mantle. Perhaps the National Gallery of Canada, with its extensive collection of Indigenous art, would explore artistic violence against Indigenous women. The Art Gallery of Ontario could comb its collection for problematic artists and explore their stories, and showcase their art in light of those stories, with an honest and frank exhibition. Or maybe this would lead to the founding of Canada’s own National Women’s History Museum. I was excited. I was hopeful.
I was disappointed.
#MeToo and the Arts should have been the beginning of a long, complicated, and difficult conversation in major Canadian museums. Following the ROM’s example, this could have been the year when Canadian museums explored their collections and challenged misogyny in the art world. Instead, this was pretty much a normal year for major Canadian museums.
 |
| This year in major Canadian museums saw European painters, dinosaurs, and arachnids highlighted. (Image source.) |
So, what happened? Why didn’t other institutions run with this conversation and bring it into their own spaces? I have theories, of course. It would be too much trouble. It might impact revenues to suggest that artists are to be challenged, not necessarily celebrated. And of course, nobody wants to appear to be promoting an artist who engaged in violence against women, in which case, best not to mention them. I do have to wonder at which point ignoring an artist’s controversy becomes lying about an artist’s controversy, and whether or not Canadians will ever themselves become invested enough in #MeToo to demand this kind of accountability from museums.
It does not seem likely the Canadian museums will embrace the #MeToo movement in any comprehensive way any time soon. In curating #MeToo and the Arts Dr. Dewan offered other institutions an opening to give Canadian museology its #MeToo moment. Perhaps it will fall to us, the museum students of today and professionals of tomorrow, to finally answer that call.
See past Musings editor Kathleen Lew's take on #MeToo and the Arts here.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.