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I agree with you wholeheartedly that the curators, from your description, clearly failed to do their primary job in this case. I have not seen the show, but have seen others recently and been shocked at how lazy museum labels can be. I often see obvious pictorial
description, but very little historical context to broaden our understanding of the artwork. And even if that information was in a catalog, it should be on the wall for those who cannot afford the book, or didn't think they needed to bring it to the exhibition.
Thank you for calling this out.
I guess one could stage a guerilla action and type up the words in all of the works, make a bunch of copies and distribute them at the show to model what should have been done. A conscientious curator should welcome that, and it might
push change. At the very least it would create a document for the historical record, something this artist deserves.
I went to the Faith Ringgold exhibit at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco today.
It is an excellent show, but a little frustrating. Most of her quilts carry a large amount
of writing, her hand-written texts. The texts are written on the white fabric. Here are 2 representative samples:
It is very difficult to read the texts, as they are either 10’ above the floor or
close to the floor, 1’ or 2’ above the floor. And the museum labels did not reveal the full
texts either.
I couldn’t wait to go to the museum store, hoping to find a book, a smallish
book or the catalog to read the full texts for each quilt reproduction.
Nope! Nada!
I couldn’t help think that the lack of accessible text in print form created by the various
museum curators was disrespectful. Her works are very political and historical.
Her subject matter is clearly racism. Some of the texts that I did manage
to read (oh, my creaking knees) were didactic, opinionated. Some were
fantasies and stories. Some explicated the painting itself.
The exhibit, as far as I can tell, was initiated by the Serpentine in London in 2019.
In 2020 the exhibition was at the Bildmuseet, Sweden. In 2021 The Glenstone Museum.
In 2022 the New Museum in the first half of the year, and the De Young Museum for the
2nd half of 2022.
Some of the archival materials included her typed polemics from the 60s and 70s on how few women compared to men were exhibited, and how few of the women were black. Her gender and race were clearly important to her, and were amplfied in a variety
of ways in her texts in the quilts.
I think this deserves to be called out for what it is, and rectified.
Have reviews mentioned this?
Am I just a cranky old lady? (Retired from ARLIS/NA and my job in 2006)
I don’t think so!
Maryly Snow
ARLIS/NA Retiree’s SIG
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