Artists slam decision to postpone Philip Guston art exhibit containing KKK images as commentary on racial injustice
Artists, curators and scholars on Wednesday slammed four institutions for postponing an exhibit of works by the late Philip Guston, saying his depictions of Ku Klux Klan figures serve as needed social commentary that speak directly to this moment of racial reckoning.
The retrospective, “Philip Guston Now,” is composed of 125 paintings and 70 drawings by Guston, an influential American-Canadian painter who died in 1980. He was a contemporary and high school classmate of Jackson Pollock, and an influential part of the New York City art scene in the 1950s, along with Pollack and Willem de Kooning, according to Artnet.
Guston’s KKK-derived figures served as direct commentary on “racial violence and American identity,” as CNN put it. His works hold a unique place in 20th century art and inspired legions of artists, according to a profile in ARTnews, especially in light of his family’s flight to the U.S. from Ukraine due to antisemitism in Europe.
“We are postponing the exhibition until a time at which we think that the powerful message of social and racial justice that is at the center of Philip Guston’s work can be more clearly interpreted,” said the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and London’s Tate Modern in a joint statement. “The racial justice movement that started in the U.S. and radiated to countries around the world, in addition to challenges of a global health crisis, have led us to pause.”
They were referring, though not by name, to the protests against police brutality against people of color, and systemic racism that were sparked by the killing in May of George Floyd in Minneapolis while in police custody, and of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., while she slept, in March.
The museums' statement did not detail which of the works were considered problematic, but a National Gallery spokesperson alluded to “painful” imagery in the KKK characters and others depicted in 25 of the drawings and paintings that are part of the exhibit.
“There is a risk that they may be misinterpreted and the resulting response overshadow the totality of his work and legacy, especially since it is known that Guston was an ardent supporter of racial equality and opponent of discrimination,” the National Gallery spokesperson told ARTnews.
On the contrary, the artists said in an open letter published in the journal The Brooklyn Rail, based in New York City, current events make the exhibit more timely than ever. In fact the logic behind the cancellation is the very reason it’s important to show the works now, they said.
“Rarely has there been a better illustration of ‘white’ culpability than in these powerful men and women’s apparent feeling of powerlessness to explain to their public the true power of an artist’s work—its capacity to prompt its viewers, and the artist too, to troubling reflection and self-examination,” the letter stated. “But the people who run our great institutions do not want trouble. ."
Signed originally by 100 artists, the letter was posted on Wednesday and garnered hundreds of signatures overnight from artists and supporters alike.
“If they feel that in four years, ‘all this will blow over,’ they are mistaken,” the letter said. “The tremors shaking us all will never end until justice and equity are installed. Hiding away images of the KKK will not serve that end. Quite the opposite. And Guston’s paintings insist that justice has never yet been achieved.”
Guston’s daughter herself came out against the decision, telling ARTnews the move saddened her and noting his lifelong stand against oppression that made his works even more important in this moment.
“This should be a time of reckoning, of dialogue,” Mayer, a scholar who writes about her father’s work, said. “These paintings meet the moment we are in today. The danger is not in looking at Philip Guston’s work, but in looking away.”
