Isabella: Exhibiting Blackness and an Exploration of African Exhibitions Across the US

Today, I spent a good part of my evening finishing up the Exhibiting Blackness readings. I thought the readings were an incredibly interesting dive into the history of Black American art in museum exhibitions and into the powerful relationship between racial hierarchies and museum representation (in that aesthetics and "high art" are shaped by the standards of white supremacy and how museums reinforce and proliferate white supremacy through their exhibits). The article spoke of how African American art is caught in an either/or paradigm between the anthropological approach (that serves to "other" Black Americans in order to strengthen white culture) and the corrective approach (that serves to correct for the misrepresentation and absence of Black American art in art institutions). In other words, the work must be either an artifact or an artwork. Through this paradigm, Alain Locke's idea of creating artwork inspired by African tradition would be seen as impossible. Often, work by Black American artists were seen as purely anthropological or sociological, rather than regarded as serious art. Reading about this paradigm clarified for me the tensions between the Penn Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art over the Creative Africa exhibit. The same objects were straddling this paradigm, being presented as purely aesthetic art in the PMA and then being presented as artifacts in the Penn Museum. Is the Penn Museum playing into this reductive paradigm by only showcasing these objects for their function, or are they just fulfilling their role as an anthropological museum? I think it will be interesting to explore if the Penn Museum ever muddied the line between artifact and art in previous African exhibitions by talking about the object's artistic value.

The Exhibiting Blackness readings also inspired me to research the many Black American artists referenced to throughout the piece. It was really interesting to compare artists who followed a more Eurocentric tradition (such as Henry Ossawa Tanner) to artists who were more subversive and redefined how Blackness was represented in mainstream art circles (such as Hale Woodruff), but how all were forced to fight up against white audience's inability to link artistic achievement and Black identity. Instead of having their work recognized DESPITE their Black identity, Black identity was integral to their work and integral to the greatness of their work. One aspect that I found surprising was that Henry Ossawa Tanner, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, May Howard Jackson, and Richmond Barthe all were either born or raised in Philadelphia.  Philadelphia is the birthplace to countless incredible Black American artists and Philadelphia art museums should be a true place of celebration for Black artists. Just as I walk around the city, I see amazing artwork on every sidewalk and wall and mailbox. The artwork of Philadelphia expands beyond the confines of a museum, but I still feel there needs to be more celebration of these great Black Philadelphian artists in our museums. 

Continually, I spent the rest of my time researching the different African exhibitions in the Brooklyn Museum, British Museum, DIA, Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Museum of African art. I was particularly curious of how the Brooklyn Museum seems to break the either/or paradigm through their African Innovations exhibition. Not only do they organize their artifacts chronologically (breaking the static and stuck in time feeling of other exhibitions), but they aim to recognize generations of artistic excellence and end on an exhibit of contemporary African art. I imagine that this would be interesting to incorporate at the Penn Museum, but I would have to discuss more of this later. Finally, I ended the day beginning the Mining the Museum readings and looking over evaluation resources.