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Are the visual arts racist?
Trying to be equal but different
[26-Mar-2004]
| Working as a critic in the London art world, it is true that I rarely encounter a black or Asian artist, curator or critic - and certainly no collectors! But we have to consider carefully what we infer by this absence. The art world is not, by and large, particularly representative of broader British society, and if we approach the 'evidence' of racism merely on the basis of the marginal representation of black and Asian practitioners, we could just as easily come to a whole other set of negative conclusions about who the art world represents. |
| The public art world has indeed 'bent over backwards' over the past decade to encourage representation, participation and inclusion; but such attention is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't include black artists. Black critics of arts policy such as Raimi Gbadamosi accuse multiculturalism of tokenism and containment by an intractably white, conservative middle-class art establishment, while old-fart white conservatives such as David Lee accuse multiculturalism of tokenism and the imposition of politically correct agendas by贰n intractably lefty, bleeding-heart liberal art establishment! |
| Clearly there is a fantasy art world, which both Gbadamosi and Lee inhabit, and into which each projects their particular political and cultural anxieties, and there is a real art world, in which a complicated, imbalanced mix of people and interests has to face a political culture that assumes that racism is everywhere in British society. Manick Govinda and Gbadamosi are rightly suspicious of how cultural diversity policy continuously emphasises and ingrains the notion of cultural difference in the name of 'celebrating' it. Unfortunately, they fall for the same contradiction that informs the multiculturalism that they seek to criticise, wanting to be equal while wanting to be recognised as different. |
| But now that 'recognising' and respecting different identities has become the accepted norm in mainstream culture, multiculturalism's demand for recognition takes on a new character. Rather than confronting the false universalism a racist white culture, multiculturalism now imposes an equally false and unchanging notion of cultural difference, in which the possibility of identities forged out of new encounters and experiences between individuals is constantly restricted. |
| It is the tension, between wanting to be accepted as an equal in an open and liberal art world, while being constantly encouraged to celebrate one's attachment to a specific culture, that is most destructive to the ambitions of black and Asian arts practitioners. After all, if an artist's work is only understandable to people of one cultural group, how can you expect the rest of the art world to engage with it? Art always has to deal with a process of translation and negotiation in the creation of new cultures of meaning, rather than the lifeless reiteration of fixed meanings and the fixed identities that receive them. |
| If racism is not a common aspect of art world encounters, the policing of difference is. Rather than the endless hand wringing in response to accusations of 'institutional racism' at the level or art institutions, we should be making a more sober appraisal of both the practical and cultural reasons why black and Asian people do not pursue careers in the visual arts today. People tend to forget that art is a career, and entry into the art world is still dominated by some form of formal training. For young people from already less advantaged economic backgrounds, the prospect of an uncertain future in art may mean studying business instead. |
| But again, if one's initial encounter with the eccentric world of visual art is already viewed through the lens of one's cultural origins, and the overarching apprehension that what happens in contemporary art is 'for white people', it is hard to see how a creative, open and productive engagement can occur. |
| JJ Charlesworth, UK |
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