Alt-Left Learns From Alt-Right, Demanding Dana Schutz Show In Boston Not Proceed

Dana Schutz, Getting Dressed All at Once, 2012. Oil on canvas, 73 1/2 × 56 1/4 in. (186.7 × 142.9 cm). Private collection, Courtesy Reiss Klein Partners. Courtesy the artist and Petzel, New York. © Dana Schutz

Alt-Left Learns From Alt-Right, Demanding Dana Schutz Show In Boston Not Proceed AOC The Wokes

After all the controversy surrounding Dana Schutz's Emmett Till painting at the Whitney Museum this spring, you might be excited to attend the free talk scheduled at Boston's ICA on Sep 14, 2017 at 6pm.  That is if the Dana Schutz show -- now open at The Institute of Contemporary Art Boston -- continues!

Following the Spring 2017 Dana Schutz controversy, the same activists now seek to shut down her Boston show entirely, making what normally is a right-wing argument justifying censorship.  America's far-left-wing argues that Schutz does not deserve a show because she is harmful to America in some way. She affronts! Schutz doesn't deserve acclaim as an artist, even stronger now because of the Whitney controversy. The demands are positively chilling, as I outline in what is admittedly a visceral response to news that activists are trying to show down the Schutz show. 

Note that in Feb. 2017 Freemuse moved the USA onto their list of Top 10 Censoring Countries in the world, putting us in the company of Russia, Pakistan and Iran. My comments were focused on censorship coming from the alt-right but the growing faction of the Sanders wing underscores the reality that demands for censorship also come from the far-left in this explosive demand that her entire show be closed. Chilling!

2017 Whitney Biennial Curators Lew & Lockshave Stand Firm On 'Open Casket' Controversy

2017 Whitney Biennial Curators Lew & Lockshave Stand Firm On 'Open Casket' Controversy AOC The Wokes

Not in recent memory has a single painting caused such controversy and furor in the contemporary art world as Dana Schutz's 'Open Casket' (2016), part of New York's current Whitney Biennial. The portrait focuses on the disfigured corpse of Emmett Till, murdered in 1955 at age 14 by a Mississippi lynch mob after conflicting stories about whistling -- or 'worse' according to suggestive innuendos in court testimony -- at a white woman. 

The two Biennial creators  Christopher Lew and Mia Lockshave also become the target of criticism, and Artnet New's editor-in-chief Andrew Goldstein spoke to Lew about the controversy.

Fake Letter Requesting Removal Of Dana Schutz' 'Open Casket' Emmett Till Painting Dials Up Protest Temperature

The controversy around artist Dana Schutz' controversial painting 'Open Casket' and the horrific death of Emmett Till continues at the Whitney Biennial. This shocking image above appeared in Google Images and is from former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos' website. 

The debated work is based on a photograph from the funeral of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black American who was murdered in Mississippi for flirting with a white woman. 

Schutz shared her perspective about the painting with ArtNet News, saying:

You’ve said in the Times that you approached the painting as a mother, and as a way to explore a mother’s pain. Would there have been no way to address the subject without, as your critics would have it, appropriating black experience?

It was the feeling of understanding and sharing the pain, the horror. I could never, ever know her experience, but I know what it is to love your child. I don’t know if there would be a way to address the subject without some way of approaching it on a personal level.

Could you have foreseen that you were stepping on a third rail by treating this explosive subject? If so, what made it necessary to paint Emmett Till specifically?
Yes, for many reasons. The anger surrounding this painting is real and I understand that. It’s a problematic painting and I knew that getting into it. I do think that it is better to try to engage something extremely uncomfortable, maybe impossible, and fail, than to not respond at all.

Will the reaction to the painting change anything about your practice in the future?
I’m sure it has to.

On Thursday morning several new outlets including Artsy, Frieze, and Out Magazine published parts or all of an open letter alleged to have been written by the artist Dana Schutz, requesting that the painting be removed from the exhibition. Shortly after, the letter addressed to Whitney Biennial 2017 co-curators Christopher Y. Lew and Mia Locks was declared to be a fake by  Stephen Soba, the Whitney Museum’s director of communications.

Queer artist Parker Bright has maintained a vigil in front of the painting, blocking its view. Bright met with Lew and Locks to express his views, and he was assured that Schutz would not sell the painting or profit from it in any way, writes Out.

Artist Hannah Black sent a letter earlier in the week to the curators, requesting that the painting be moved and destroyed. AOC will revisit this story after digesting a number of essays and thoughtful pieces about the controversy.

Read AOC's original story, including the full text of Black's letter to the Whitney and new details around Emmett Till's death: Dana Schutz' Painting Of Emmett Till Creates Controversy At Whitney Biennial 2017 AOC The Wokes

Dana Schutz' Painting Of Emmett Till Creates Controversy At Whitney Biennial 2017

Dana Schutz' Painting Of Emmett Till Creates Controversy At Whitney Biennial 2017