Museum’s Solution for Racist Mural
LONDON — For nearly 100 years, a 17-meter-long mural was the backdrop to a highclass restaurant at Tate Britain. As diners ate, they could glance at the painting by Rex Whistler depicting a hunting party riding through a fantastical landscape.
Few visitors appeared to notice two small sections of the scene, each taking up just several centimeters: one depicting a white woman, wearing a billowing dress, dragging a Black boy by a rope, as the boy’s unclothed, terrified mother watches from a tree; the other showing the same boy, shackled, running behind a cart.
It was only in 2020, after the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, that antiracism campaigners demanded the mural’s removal. Soon, Tate shuttered the restaurant, and administrators began agonizing over what to do about the painting, titled “The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats.” Last month, their solution went on display when Tate Britain reopened the room. The mural now surrounds a large video work by the Black British artist Keith Piper that aims to highlight and explain Mr. Whistler’s racist imagery. Chloe Hodge, the exhibit’s curator, said Mr. Piper’s work would be on display for around a year.
Tate Britain is trying to balance the demands of activists, who want offensive artworks removed, and conservative politicians and art enthusiasts, many of whom want museums to avoid “woke” posturing.
Called “Viva Voce” after the Latin name used for college oral exams in Britain, Mr. Piper’s 22-minute, twoscreen film dramatizes an imagined conversation between Mr. Whistler (played by Ian Pink) and a university lecturer (Ellen O’Grady). In the film’s first half, the academic questions Mr. Whistler about the history of the mural, which the artist completed in 1927. The mood switches when she points to the Black mother hiding in a tree.
“Who is this?” the lecturer demands. “Oh, just a bit of humor,” Mr. Whistler replies.
The lecturer has more questions for him: about the racist depictions of Black people in other works he produced, and about the treatment of minorities in 1920s Britain. Mr. Whistler is confused by the questioning, saying, “I thought you wanted to discuss my work.”
In Britain, discussions around problematic works have tended to focus less on an artist’s motivations, and more on whether they should be on display. But Mr. Whistler’s mural, which is painted on the museum walls, is protected under British heritage laws, meaning Tate Britain could not easily remove or alter it, even if it wanted to. Even so, some art critics and members of Tate’s diverse staff urged the museum to hide the mural behind a screen.
Ms. Hodge said she chose Mr. Piper to respond to the mural because she felt he would “engage deeply” with the painting. She added that she expected the work to divide opinion.
For decades, Mr. Piper — a founder of the Blk Art Group, a collective formed in 1980s England — has explored issues of racism and slavery in his art.
Zehra Jumabhoy, an art history lecturer at the University of Bristol, said she was surprised when Mr. Piper was chosen because “his early work was so angry.” If the museum had wanted to avoid inflaming tensions, there were safer options, she added.
Mr. Piper said that he had not seen the mural before the uproar. But he had not been shocked to learn of racist imagery on Tate Britain’s walls, he said — such stereotypical figures were once commonplace in British art. What had surprised him was how long the museum took to do something about it. While delving into the institution’s archives, Mr. Piper said, he found visitor letters dating from the 1970s that complained about the painting.
Mr. Piper said he did not agree with those who had urged Tate Britain to remove the mural or hide it.
“My argument is, by leaving it up, it becomes an important witness to history, and by countering it, we learn things and we hear things, that we may not have heard before,” he said. “That’s the important role of the arts and of museums.”