Mounting Frustration

December 1, 2015
According to Cahan (I Remember Heaven: Jim Hodges and Andy Warhol, 2007), Prior to 1967 one could count less than a dozen museum exhibitions that had featured the work of African American artists, with the exception of museums at historically black colleges and universities. Here she calls out the New York art establishment for its structural racism in an account of four controversial exhibits mounted during the late 1960s and early 1970sHarlem on My Mind at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Contemporary Black Artists in America at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Romare Bearden: The Prevalence of Ritual and The Sculpture of Richard Hunt at the Museum of Modern Art. Using a number of interviews with artists and an analysis of internal museum documents, Cahan perfectly renders the tenor of those volatile times. The elites of the art museum world are brought to task for their misguided attempts at inclusiveness and subtle (and not-so-subtle) attempts to preserve the status quo. Anyone interested in American art and society will find plenty to ponder in this thoughtful work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)