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On March 31, Executive Order 14253, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” was signed by President Donald Trump. In short, it was an attempt by the administration to censor museums, galleries and other institutions under the direct aegis of the federal government, and to a lesser degree, to independent cultural organizations that receive some federal funding.
It was a blatant attempt to dissuade museum directors and professional curators from presenting exhibitions that addressed certain subjects, including slavery, critical race theory, and revisionist history. After all, the administration has tried, with limited success, to quash Ivy League schools, law firms, journalists, and late night TV talk show hosts.
Maybe it was time to go after the art institutions, bastions of free expression, tethered to nothing but the history of creativity and the yearning to see the world for what it is. But you can’t easily get a curator to kowtow.
On Aug. 23, Suzanne de Vegh, the executive director of the New Bedford Art Museum, issued the following statement:
“We are deeply concerned by the Executive Order titled ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,’ which seeks to restrict federally funded museums from addressing slavery, systematic oppression and structural injustice. This directive threatens to erase vital parts of our national story and undermines the role of museums as spaces for education, reflection, and open dialogue.
“Sanitizing history endangers public understanding, weakens democratic engagement, and risks silencing critical conversations about race, equity and identity. As others have warned, it creates a chilling effect that may lead institutions to self-censor.”
Frankly, with de Vegh at the helm of the Art Museum, that is unimaginable.
Currently on display is an exhibition that almost seems to be a direct rebuttal to Executive Order 14253. But it’s more likely just a serendipitous happenstance. The artwork in “The Shape of Who We Are: Exploring Identity” was curated by England-based independent curator Marcelle Joseph.
But the identities being explored are the ones that would make those who formulated 14253 squirm with discomfort and disdain: strong Black men, even stronger Black women, Asians, immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, people who identify as biracial, and some who fall into more than one of those categories.
“The Shape of Who We Are: Exploring Identity” features 17 artists within a wide range of disciplines.
Nneka Jones is a Trinidadian multidisciplinary artist who seeks to celebrate and protect women and young girls in her work. “Beyond the Horizon” features a Black girl on the cusp of adolescence. Her head is cocked to one side, confidently staring back at the viewer. She appears somewhat translucent as she sinks chameleon-like into the background banner of red and blue, while simultaneously floating in front of it.
Keina Davis Elswick has ancestral roots in Africa, Ireland, Scotland, Eastern Europe, Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere. She explores stories within a Black-Irish diaspora hybridity. “Evolution of My Father” mingles paint, photography and collaged materials and with it, she elevates the ordinariness of a complex family history into something bordering on the mythological.
Wendell Brown, a former assistant to the late famed quiltmaker Faith Ringgold (with whom he shares a common aesthetic sensibility), takes inspiration from Negro spirituals, African masks and sculptures. “Between Here and Elsewhere” is a large wall-mounted quilt of a family, which suggests an understandable transition not only between here and elsewhere but also between then and now.
“I Wish We Were Trees” by Emily Wisniewski, oil paint on plexiglass (salvaged from a dumpster), explores “two queer figures as they relate to one another and the landscape.” Transformation itself is the primary subject. The artist has certainly nodded to the ancient Greek myth of the nymph Daphne, who when pursued by the lustful god Apollo, prayed to her river god father to rescue her from his ravages. He did as she pleaded and turned his daughter into a laurel tree.
“How Important is Being An American to Your Identity?” is an oil painting by Hyohyun (Sophie) Lee that melds together disjointed elements of the American flag and a portrait of a young Asian girl. Something is gained and something is lost. It is worth noting that the artist seemingly goes by the name Sophie, rather than Hyohun. Acquiescence is acceptance but sadly so.
Zac Thompson is a trans-nonbinary photographer who uses disposable film cameras in an attempt to immortalize queer and trans faces in Brooklyn, where they have lived for the last eight-plus years. Their picture of “Daniella Darling” (a Warhol-influenced name, if there ever was one) features a drag queen in a glittery short pink dress, dancing as dollar bills rain down. A sign in the background reads “Black Trans Matter.” Thompson noted: “As a queer and trans-non-binary artist, if I don’t document my community, who will?”
Larry Asaro’s black-and-white photograph of two performers called “Getting Their Drag On,” much like Thompson’s color photo, seems more like vital social documentation than traditional portraiture.
“Mother of Exiles” by Jess Lauren Lipton is a two-dimensional female figure as white and as disarmed as the Venus de Milo. Behind her, there are bands of shimmering red and blue, suggesting an ironic patriotic sensibility. The torso is covered with photographic images of significant figures in American history, including Barack Obama, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Muhammad Ali, Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem, Angela Davis and … the QAnon Shaman (?!).
There are two artists within the exhibition working with text that is quite purposely difficult to read.
Cascade Almond is a transgender printmaker living in Carbondale, Illinois. Their all-white embossed work says “I AM NOT INVISIBLE.” The struggle to read the message makes it even more significant.
When they transitioned, they changed their name, changed their clothes and thickened their skin. They note that transphobia has been repackaged as a concern for children. Almond notes they were “a queer child just being a kid. I was not influenced into being a queer adult. I was born queer.”
The other artist working with text is Veronica Jackson. There are four glossy black panels that make up her “A Constellation of Blackness (Triumph).” On each of the panels are a few words in white but the rest of the text is black, making reading difficult.
One panel reads, in its entirety, the following, with only the first five words in white:
COME CELEBRATE
WITH ME THAT
EVERYDAY
SOMETHING
HAS TRIED
TO KILL ME
AND
HAS FAILED.
Another panel reads as follows, with but the last nine words in white:
I EMBRACE
THE RADIANCE OF
MY BLACKNESS,
I ACCEPT,
ACKNOWLEDGE,
AND ADMIRE
THE WOMAN
I AM.
Perhaps, the point of the text offered up by both Almond and Jackson should be considered a reminder that sometimes, you just need to look a little harder. Even if there are people in power who don’t want you to look at all.
Don Wilkinson has been writing art reviews, artist profiles and cultural commentary on the South Coast for over a decade. He has been published in local newspapers and regional art magazines. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design and the CVPA at UMass Dartmouth. Email him at dwilkinson@newbedfordlight.org
I was overjoyed to read in today’s New Bedford Light Don Wilkinson’s fascinating piece, “The Face of Who We Are,” the new exhibit at the New Bedford Art Museum.
This intriguing and revealing art exhibit is a manifestation of my identity. Along with millions of other mixed race,
multicultural people in the world, I have been mislabeled, misunderstood, misrepresented, and maligned for insisting to be accepted as I am.
In just one of my four family lines, I am the direct descendant of Colonel Joseph Blake, who came to the USA from County Galway, Ireland.
Colonel Blake had a daughter, Betsy Blake, with one of his biracial slaves whose name was not recorded. Betsy’s birth certificate identifies her as being “born free,” that indicates Joseph granted freedom to his child upon her birth.
As an adult, Betsy and another Irishman, named Benjamin Ireland, had a child, James Wesley Blake, who was denied his father’s last name because of the miscegenation laws that prevented his parents from legalizing their union. Ironically, though James Wesley Blake was biologically 3/4 Irish, he was given the label, “colored,” due to the prevailing One Drop rule.
My father, Joseph M. Blake, is the grandson of James Wesley.
This racial relationship was repeated in subsequent generations, including my own.
My other family lines tell the same story. Intermarriages between Native Americans, African Americans, and Europeans, all resulting in ONE label, “Colored.” A label that has morphed in the American jargon, as “Mulatto, Negro, Black, African American ” to today’s “POC” or People of Color.”
In the current culture wars, people like me are still deemed less-than, unqualified DEI hires, despite our education, qualifications, and professional experience.
The attempt to erase, distort, or deny our history, is yet another assault on us.
We must continue to resist these hate-based efforts.
We will not allow our literature, art, music, and all of our significant accomplishments and contributions to disappear because someone feels threatened by our very existance.
Thank you to the New Bedford Art Museum and other institutions for having the courage to not give in to the threats and retributions, and who understand that our story IS the American story.
Local artists should try putting their work in local restaurants,coffee shops and other businesses with wall space. I have a gallery with wall space at 895 Rockdale Avenue in New Bedford. Any Artist that wants to put their work there I will let them.