"But the people who run our great institutions do not want trouble. They fear controversy. They lack faith in the intelligence of their audience."

"And they realize that to remind museum-goers of white supremacy today is not only to speak to them about the past, or events somewhere else. It is also to raise uncomfortable questions about museums themselves—about their class and racial foundations. For this reason, perhaps, those who run the museums feel the ground giving way beneath their feet. If they feel that in four years, 'all this will blow over,' they are mistaken. The tremors shaking us all will never end until justice and equity are installed. Hiding away images of the KKK will not serve that end."

From "Open Letter: On Philip Guston Now" (Google docs), via "The Philip Guston Show Should Be Reinstated/An open letter, signed by nearly 100 artists, curators and critics, accuses four museums of 'hiding away' from controversy. A long postponement is an admission these institutions are not up to the job" (NYT). We talked about this controversy on the blog a few days ago, here.

The NYT art critic Jason Farago writes:

For as the artists suggest in their open letter, the reason to reinstate “Philip Guston Now” is not, or certainly not only, because he passes some anti-racist litmus test. It is to continue and accelerate the transformation of our museums into institutions that can do justice to the work of all artists and the experiences of all publics. A museum unequipped to exhibit Guston will never be able to show truly “problematic” artists like Paul Gauguin or Francis Picabia — but just as inevitably it will fail [Matthew] Barney’s mythopoetic melding of bodies, [Joan] Jonas’s culturally hybrid meditations on gender and climate, [Adrian] Piper’s exacting probes of self and stereotypes.

Barney, Jonas, and Piper are all signatories of the open letter. The NYT critic says, "Really, a museum unequipped to exhibit Guston is barely a museum at all, or else only a museum in the most derogatory sense: a dusty storehouse of dead things." And then he suddenly, in his last paragraph, talks about... can you guess?
Trump!

This week, at the first presidential debate, the incumbent was asked if he would condemn white supremacy outright. His response was to tell one of these white supremacist groups to “stand back and stand by.” It was only the latest reminder that our art institutions cannot afford anything less than a united front against racism and anti-Semitism, and should not be spooked by their own shadows when actual hatred is already at the gates.

I'm sorry but this is incoherent! You can't say that museums must courageously present truly “problematic” artists and that they must staunchly maintain "a united front against racism and anti-Semitism." The NYT article trips over itself and so does the open letter which decries the museum's timidity about getting into trouble because the meaning of the paintings isn't blatantly obvious but also vigorously insists that that the artist's racial politics are exactly right. They say, "Guston’s paintings insist that justice has never yet been achieved." Paintings insist.

No, they don't. And that shouldn't be the point. Paintings — unless they're raw propaganda — don't insist. They entice and intrigue. They scare and confuse. They make you worry that you're thinking something forbidden and dangerous. They don't soothe you and reinforce your pre-existing, pre-sanitized ideas. They're transgressive! They're complicated! Or who gives a damn about art?  What if high art and museums are white supremacy? Now, that's a scary idea for the trustees. Pity them in their need to withdraw for 4 years to work that one out or to hope that the culture calms down and lets them live with their doubts and decrepitude.