Tate Britain has race attitude problem in its Restaurant which weasel words alone cannot fix. Quick to give ‘guidance’ to visitors to their British Baroque exhibition that ‘Paintings in this exhibition depict Black people in a demeaning way’, while Whistler’s The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats mural in their Restaurant carries no such warning. This despite being much more graphic, much more horrific and truly much more demeaning than Benedetto Gennari’s Duchess Mazarin Dressed as Diana. British BaroqueQuoting Tate on the mural: "As part of this Whistler depicts the enslavement of a [naked] Black child and the distress of his mother using highly stereotyped figures that were common at the time. In later scenes the boy runs behind a cart, attached to it by a chain around [the child's] neck". details from Whistler's murali Charles Aitken, the director who commissioned the work in 1927 had views which today, we would consider out of touch. Quoted in Daily Mail in 1929 racially described the presence of black figures in Stanley Spencer’s The Resurrection, Cookham “...waking from the death of humanity – the white races …occupied with things intellectual, the black races satisfied with simple tactile shapes”. Appreciate that was then this is now - views, feelings, ideas have changed. So rather than remove the mural, Tate might give the same thought that went into that ‘guidance’ sign for the British Baroque exhibition be given to an equivalent response to The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats, if Tate really wants to reaffirm its commitment to combating racism. For that response I propose a work of equivalent size to be on permanent display as close as possible to Whistler's be commissioned by Tate not from the established black artist but a fresh talent, on the rise, someone under 25, part of the generation that is on the streets, right now, proclaiming Black Lives Matter quite unlike Tate's mural. Update 9th AuGustSince I posted that Tate's position has become even more untenable and hypocritical. They knew about the consequences of these offensive images in 2013 ! We know this thanks to the leaked Tate Ethics Committee report from that year sent to the White Pube which they posted on Instagram .....and here's a screen shot from the 2013 BBC news video which reported on the restoration , it shows one of the images...
2 Comments
8/3/2020 09:17:11 am
Even if the Tate put a warning notice at the entry to the Restaurant as a black person i would NOT eat there. Commissioning a young black artist could be seen as compensation. But as long as that mural is up I would still not eat there..
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Holly
5/20/2022 08:58:57 pm
As a mother I am deeply affected by this depiction of a child being abducted into slavery. How can humans do this to each
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