Protests Lead to Whitney Museum Cancelling an Important Show
The Whitney Museum of American Art has experienced a heated controversy over the alienation of a section of youth artists it hoped to honour an exhibition titled, “Collective Actions: Artist Interventions In A Time of Change.” A number of them had charged the museum with continued propagation of systemic racism. The museum had not properly compensated BIPOC artists for their amazing work, neither did it ask permission from the artists to have their work displayed at the museum.
One of the affected artists, Gioncardo Valentine, tweeted that it was unreal for the museum to take such a step of acquiring one of his prints to be displayed at the show without his consent. He displayed a screenshot of a message claimed to be from a curator at the Whitney Museum of the American Art. The message had informed him that one of his works, “Untitled” was one of the prints acquired for special collections at the Whitney’s and had been planned for display at the upcoming show.
One of the benefits that Valentine was to enjoy if this could have gone through was an Artist Lifetime Pass that would allow him and another guest free entry into the museum with other lots of benefits. The museum through the message had expressed excitement that the work would reach Whitney’s audiences at the time when the world is experiencing both health and economic difficulties.
According to the press release that is now deleted, the exhibition that was to be opened on 17th September had been intended to display, “the critical role of artists in documenting moments of seismic change and protest.” It would include prints, photos, digital files and posters created this year in line with the COVID-19 pandemic and the movement on Black Lives Matter. The show was called off due to massive protests from th4e artists that were to be celebrated.
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