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Towards a Curatorial Activism

“As a hegemonic discourse, the current art system privileges white male creativity to the exclusion of everyone else”

-          This states that the art system favors the creative work of white males while excluding other groups. Groups like women or people of color. This shows that the art world has an issue when it comes to representation and power dynamics. They make it seem like white men are the only ones whose art should be publicized while others shouldn’t. Now even if they do let other groups show their artwork it’ll only be like 3% out of 97% showing their work in the museums or galleries. This is not okay!

“On investigating price differentials, and sex–race ratios in galleries, within thematic and national exhibitions, and in the press, the numbers demonstrate that the fight for equality is far from over.”

-          We have come a long way from earning our rights as women and as people of color. Some things just don’t change and that means we going to have to continue to fight for it. Hopefully, one day things do change.

What is Curatorial Activism?

“These are not issues from the past, folks. This is now. We are living and working in an art world that cares little about racism and sexism.”

 -You would think after so many years of fighting for equal rights for women and people of color, things would change. Sorry to say it’s not going to change any time soon. The lack of concern they have about what’s going on is crazy. We need to acknowledge the wrongful doing of the art world and start fighting toward creating a more inclusive space and stopping white dominance.

 

“What we need is more transparency, and more education: If we cannot help others to see the structural/systemic problems, then we can’t even begin to fix them.”

-          This quote stuck out to me because sometimes you have to realize that no matter what generation it is there will always be some form of racism or sexism. It’s like it’s been passed down from generation to generation. People don’t even realize when they are doing it. So, Dr. Maura Reilly is right because how are we supposed to fix a problem on something people are so uneducated about? Even if they are educated about it at least put yourself in their shoes and adjust the wrongful doings.

 

Curatorial activism is making sure large groups of artists, who have been silenced or left out, are no longer excluded from the master narratives of art. One way we can improve art is by making representation more diverse. Stop having just white artists be the face of the art world. Support artists who have been underrepresented. What I envision for the future of art is art activism becoming more embraced. Meaning artist will use their platforms to address the issues that are going on more frequently. Also, the art world would finally change to the point where there wouldn’t be racism, sexism, or exclusion going on.