I mentioned in class on Tuesday that the Whitney Biennale is often the site of heated "art world" debate. Dana Schutz's painting Open Casket depicts the disfigured body of Emmett Till, a murdered teenager at his funeral. The painting provoked a massive response on all sides (not just two), and it's instructive to consider how and why dealing with it and debating it is crucially important. Some people might argue that the best option is to just forget it. We need to remember that the so-called "art world" is part of the so-called "real world." Just because the issue centers around a painting in a museum doesn't make it any less relevant to everyday life. Art is not a thing apart from life.
This video, a debate about the two primary positions, is from a Boston television show about the arts. And this wonderful and in-depth essay, by Coco Fusco, uses passionate writing to defend her position that censorship is never right. The website for the 2017 Whitney Biennale does not acknowledge that the painting was in the exhibition. By the way, this was not a "one-off" thing. Just today I read an article about Amanda Gorman and a white Dutch translator.
After we watch the short video debate, everyone should register his/her/their position on the debate in the Zoom chat. Think of it as a short and fast five-minute mini-paragraph. What do you think and why?
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