This n' That: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
A film still from Arthur Jafa’s “Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death” (2016). (Courtesy of Arthur Jafa and Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York/ Rome)
Arthur Jafa Video Streamed on Major Museum Websites
This past weekend Arthur Jafa’s 7½-minute video, “Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death” (2016) was streamed, at no charge, on multiple museum websites. Thirteen museums around the world — including the Hirshhorn in Washington D.C. and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles -- participated, bringing Jafa’s moving work to a broad audience. The video features a montage of historical and contemporary footage spotlighting the experience of Black people in the United States. Kanye West’s song “Ultralight Beam” plays throughout.
Emmett Till with his mother, Mamie Bradley, 1950.
Everett Collection / Courtesy Everett Collection - stock.adobe.com
Black Lives Matter Mural in Bed-Stuy
A freshly painted Black Lives Matter mural now adorns a 565-foot stretch of Fulton Street between New York and Brooklyn Avenues in Brooklyn. Framing the words of the eponymous movement that has been the organizing force behind ongoing demonstrations against anti-Black violence and systemic racism, are the names of over 150 victims of recent racist killings. The mural is part of a series of planned murals to be painted throughout New York City’s boroughs. Volunteers began painting the mural on June 13, as part of an organized community effort led by the Billie Holiday Theater at Restoration Plaza and NYC Council Member Robert Cornegy Jr.
The theater’s director, Dr. Indira Etwaroo, conceived of the design which is meant to evoke the open casket, in a visual tribute to Mamie Till Bradley, who held an open casket funeral for her son Emmet Till, who was brutally murdered by two white men in the 1950s.
Photo by Bumble Dee - stock.adobe.com
Continued Push Toward Museum Transparency
The Art Institute of Chicago is the latest art institution to face criticism for its unclear policies amid staff layoffs and its announcement for reopening in the end of July. An open letter, signed by 186 employees, was sent to seven staff members last Friday. The letter demands increased transparency, accountability, and racial equity from museum leadership, citing concerning decision-making in regard to a new round of institution-wide layoffs. This letters follows a recent uptick in action by art workers to hold art institutions accountable. The Institute joins a growing list of museums, including the Guggenheim, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and Palm Spring Museum of Art, facing criticism for anti-Blackness and inequality within their institutions.
Photo by Alex Simpson on Unsplash
ICP called on to set ethics guidelines for protest photography
The International Center of Photography is facing criticism for “superficial” response to concern voiced by community members regarding ethics guidelines for protest photography. Noah Morrison -- a founding member of ICP Center Blackness Now (a recently formed black-led effort to hold the institution accountable) and a previous student, TA, and employee at the International Center of Photography -- reached out to ICP after seeing photographs of the protests published online by ICP students. The photographers chose not to blur out the faces of protestors and when Morrison reached out expressing his concern, some of the photographers refused to edit or take down their photographs. Morrison decided that a formal statement should be published by ICP, outlining guidelines for protest photography. After efforts to engage ICP on issuing guidelines for protest photography proved fruitless, and emails to Karen Marshall, chair of Documentary Practice and Visual Journalism at ICP, went unanswered, Morrison took to Instagram expressing his concern, using the hashtag #ICPUnconcerned. An ICP spokesperson told Hyperallergic that they acknowledge the concerns voiced regarding the ethics of photographing protesters, but they have not required students to “censor their work.”
