Self censorship: a way of avoiding difficult conversations?
Was it right to cancel plans to display Philip Guston's provocative set of paintings of the Ku Klux Klan at Tate? Aindrea Emelife sees it as a patronising move of the cultural establishment to protect itself from criticism.
What would it be like to be evil? Philip Guston invites us to reason this in a provocative set of paintings of the Ku Klux Klan from the 1960s. “They are self-portraits,” said the white, Jewish artist. “I perceive myself as being behind the hood.”
Philip Guston Now, a touring exhibition that was set to open at National Gallery of Art Washington, and travel to Tate Modern, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Boston, could have been art’s final call-to-action in the year Black Lives Matter was reignited as a social justice movement after the murder of George Floyd.
Now, however, the show may as well be called Philip Guston: When? In February 2024 to be precise – a postponement of three years (the retrospective was due to open at Tate Modern this February). In a joint statement, the museums said that the delay will be 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”... Keep reading on the Guardian
What would it be like to be evil? Philip Guston invites us to reason this in a provocative set of paintings of the Ku Klux Klan from the 1960s. “They are self-portraits,” said the white, Jewish artist. “I perceive myself as being behind the hood.”
Philip Guston Now, a touring exhibition that was set to open at National Gallery of Art Washington, and travel to Tate Modern, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Boston, could have been art’s final call-to-action in the year Black Lives Matter was reignited as a social justice movement after the murder of George Floyd.
Now, however, the show may as well be called Philip Guston: When? In February 2024 to be precise – a postponement of three years (the retrospective was due to open at Tate Modern this February). In a joint statement, the museums said that the delay will be 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”... Keep reading on the Guardian