Home > Essays > Repeating Carl Swanson's blunder
By Alonso del Arte, December 13, 2015
It's been almost a year now since Carl Swanson's epic blunder in Vulture magazine, in which he profiled nine white artists living in Detroit. Thing was he just said "artists," as if to suggest that artists of other races are somehow not as good as white artists. The Swanson blunder presents a lesson not just for clueless reporters from New York, but also for directors and curators in Detroit.
When a Detroit art gallery commits a similar blunder, doesn't it somehow excuse Swanson's blunder? Wasn't Swanson merely reflecting the bias that already exists here, rather than bringing his own bias?
Last week, I picked up a card for an invitational art exhibit. More than a hundred artists were invited, and the card proudly listed all their names. But I could only recognize one black artist, one Latino artist and two Asian artists.
Swanson featured just nine artists in his article. One could argue he tried to take the same proportion as a Detroit gallery would have, but in going from more than a hundred to just nine, the minority artists became statistically insignificant.
Maybe the joke is on me, maybe all the names I don't recognize on the card are the names of black artists I don't know. Honestly, though, it's far more likely that less than five of the artists I don't know are artists of minority races.
Supposedly the gallery invited a diverse group of artists. But only two or three black artists responded? Only one Latino artist? Only two Asian artists?
Well, I guess that absolves the gallery of any responsibility. Hey, they made a half-hearted effort to reach out to minorities and surprise, surprise, it mostly failed.
I'm not advocating quotas. It's not like if you're in Detroit and you have a show with 100 artists, you have to have exactly 83 black artists. But when it's more like 98 white artists and just two black artists, you're at the very least guilty of a sin of omission. As soon as you notice this lopsidedness, it's time to get pro-active and figure out how to get good artists besides the usual white artists you normally think of.
But what if you honestly don't know any good artists other than white artists? Surely the white artists you do know can lead you to some really good artists to bring demographic balance to your roster. Hey Connor, hey Emma, you know any really good artists who are not, you know, white? I bet they do.
Another idea: look at the Kresge Fellows in the Visual Arts. Choosing to invite them may seem rather obvious, but hey, at least you know they have to be very good, right? It's a lot better than giving the appearance that you went out of your way to only invite white artists.