Introduction | Task | Process | Museum | Gallery | Curate | Conclusion | Evaluation | Teacher Page

Turn in your second guide sheet, then move on to Part Three.

PART THREE

Your sponsors have gathered fifteen notable works of art for you to choose from for your exhibition. You may choose any five works from among them, but you must be able to justify your decisions. This involves explaining both why you chose certain works and did not choose others. The sponsers have requested that you fill out a work selection form which will also include reflective questions for your group to answer. Print this form, then view the works.

On December 1, 1950, a man arrived at Duke Hospital in Durham, North Carolina with life-threatening injuries from an automobile accident. His name was Maltheus Avery and he was a twenty-four-year-old student at a nearby college. He had been in the emergency room for ten minutes when doctors instructed the ambulence driver to take him to Lincoln Hospital, a smaller and less well-equipped facility nearby. Avery died minutes after reaching the Lincoln emergency room, leaving behind a wife and young daughter. The reason for his transfer? Fifteen out of 120 beds were already full that night - the fifteen beds that Duke reserved for black patients. Avery had been refused treatment because of the color of his skin. There might as well have been a "no trespassing" sign on the hospital doors. (This incident is described Spencie Love in her book One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew.)

This legacy of discrimination persisted not only in society, but within the art world as well. While being kept out of a hospital is an extreme example (even though it happened in numerous cases), there was a time when African-Americans would not even be allowed to visit certain places. Museums often serve as a cultural storehouse and in the past, minority artists were almost completely excluded from museums because their culture was not valued by white society. Since this is one of the roles museums play, the variety of work contained therein is often restricted. For example, the Museum of Masterpieces that you visited represented the dominant Western art world that historically excluded minority artists. This imbalance is perpetuated today in museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the artifacts of European culture fill entire floors, leaving African and other cultures relegated to a few rooms. Galleries, in contrast, tend to have greater freedom in terms of the types of works they can present. They do not attempt to represent culture as a whole, usually opting to showcase individual artists instead. Your group curated a gallery show. How might your show have been different if it were in a museum?

While numerous minority groups have been discriminated against, the African-American experience has been unique. The legal restrictions that burdened African-Americans and other minorities were removed during the Civil Rights Movement, however the discriminatory attitudes of the past still persist to this day and will continue until every individual becomes aware of his/her own prejudices and erases them. One should question the images presented by museums and think about who is on the inside and who is left outside. Museums make choices about the work they include in exhibitions every day, just as you did when you created your show, but keep in mind that these are the subjective choices of individuals. Hopefully, if you visit a museum sometime in the future you will notice not only the work on display, but the types of work that are not displayed as well.

 

In this webquest, you curated your own gallery exhibition after examining the type of works traditionally found in museums and contemporary work that critiques the lack of multiculturalism in museums.

Evaluation of this project will be based upon the thoughtfulness of your responses to the following questions: (you may respond to these questions on your work selection form)

  • Why did you choose to include certain works? Explain your reasoning. To what extent did you
    attempt to balance the representations in your show? Which criteria were the most important to you?
  • Why didn’t you choose the other works? Give specific examples. To what extent are the works not
    included similar?
  • What roles does the museum play in society? To what extent does your show fit into these roles?
  • How has your perception of museums changed as a result of completing this webquest?
  • In what ways does discrimination persist today?

On behalf of the gallery sponsors, we would like to thank you for curating a fantastic exhibition!

 

Return to Top