San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Challenges inspire innovation
The COVID19 outbreak wrought havoc on Bay Area museum and gallery exhibition schedules, as well as budgets, especially in the nonprofit realm. But the Bay Area art world confronted more than just pandemicrelated access issues and reopenings. The death of George Floyd in May also sparked a major conversation about issues of representation and equity within many of these institutions and prompted museums to examine who they serve in the 21st century.
Here are two of this year’s most talkedabout stories from the Bay Area art scene:
Most 2020 moment: It’s been 3 ½ years in the making, but at last, artist Lava Thomas has been given the official goahead for her monument to author Maya Angelou outside the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library. Given the desire to promote a more diverse range of subjects in San Francisco’s public art, honoring Angelou ( who was the city’s first Black female streetcar conductor) was an easy decision.
“Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman” will be a bronze, bookshaped sculpture, bearing a quote and portrait of the author.
Getting the work confirmed has been a saga. In 2017, thenSupervisor Mark Farrell announced legislation to increase the representation of women in public art. Farrell’s office raised funds for the project and, by summer 2019, Thomas, an acclaimed Berkeley artist, was announced as one of three finalists. A panel — which included Angelou’s son, Guy Johnson — named Thomas’ submission as top choice, but it still required approval from the full San Francisco Arts Commission.
The hitch came when Supervisor Catherine Stefani, who took over Farrell’s seat on the board, as well as the statue project, objected to the work, preferring a more Eurocentric, traditionally representational statue. “I wanted to do it in the same way that men have been historically elevated in this city,” she said at the time.
In response, the commission’s Visual Arts Committee started the process over again, with many asking why a white politician with no noted expertise in art or African American culture should have the final word on honoring the author.
In August, the Arts Commission apologized to Thomas and, a month later, Stefani and Mayor London Breed followed suit. In November, the full commission voted to cancel the second attempt at finding a new design and awarded a contract of up to $ 250,000 to Thomas.
Best moment of 2020: When former San Francisco Museum of Modern Art communications associate Taylor Brandon objected to the museum’s use of a screen print, “We’re Black and Strong,” by Glenn Ligon on SFMOMA’s Instagram account in May, she clapped back publicly, alleging the museum “has a history of using black pain for their own financial gain.”
“You don’t only get to amplify black artists during a surge of black mourning and pain,” Brandon’s comment on Instagram read. “Having black people on your homepage/ feed is not enough.” When the comment was removed by the museum, it sparked an uproar that led to artists from the Nure and Heavy Breathing collectives making statements in support of Brandon and canceling their involvement in museum programming. SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra issued an apology to Brandon, and also apologized to “current and past Black employees who may also have experienced pain or anger in this decision.”
Five highranking museum employees left SFMOMA over the summer. SFMOMA isn’t the only museum undergoing a reevaluation about race, representation and staff relations. The Instagram account @ changethemuseum, which has more than 40,000 followers, has been posting anonymous concerns from museum staff members recounting their experiences with bias at their institutions. Among those named along with SFMOMA is Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center, whose director, Susan Dackerman, resigned in November after an internal investigation revealed “a toxic work culture.”