nt,
A Curatorial Perspective
Endeavoring to Relate to the Past and Present:
Political Dialogues and Contemporary Art in the Museum Space
by Amy Galpin, Ph.D., Curator, Cornell Fine Arts Museum
As a museum curator, I feel a responsibility to create exhibitions that
reflect current events and echo themes of social justice. I aim to create
projects that elicit conversation, debate, and reflection. I never want
people of disparate political beliefs to feel unwelcome in an exhibition
I have developed. A museum is a public space where visitors can assert
some sense of agency in their interpretive process. Visitors are not required to listen to a tour guide or read the labels or look at every work
on view—you can, but only if you wish.
A routine walk through the galleries at any institution can yield powerful feedback about the art on view. You can hear laughter, criticism,
confusion, and witness visual engagement just through observing the
people who visit the galleries. As a curator in an academic setting, I
often receive students’ candid, invaluable feedback. Recent questions
from student visitors include: “Why is one man’s abstraction more important than another’s?” “Does the fact that the artist had assistants
make his work less important?” “How are you planning to commemorate the tragedy that occurred at Pulse?” The answers to the first two
questions flow easily for me. The answer to the third remains elusive.
It can be challenging to curate projects about topics that feel too close,
too raw, and too emotional. I admire colleagues who are able to react
quickly; my projects tend to evolve over longer periods of time. I find Hugo Crosthwaite, Bartolomé, 2001, graphite and charcoal on wood
myself needing to go through a process in which I question every de- The San Diego Museum of Art
cision before a show comes together. This process remains especially Image courtesy of the artist and Luis de Jesus, Los Angeles
important for me when working with political art.
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Crosthwaite alludes to Catholic tradition
My interest in movement across the Mexico/U.S. Border led to in his reference to Saint Bartolomé, known to followers as a martyr
the opportunity to work with the artist Hugo Crosthwaite in 2010. whose skin was flayed. In the foreground of the composition, anonCrosthwaite’s compositions are informed by the history of art—his artis- ymous hands emerge from nowhere and pull the skin away from a
tic influences include central figure. Some of the figures depicted are badly beaten and others
Jess T. Dugan, Betsy, 2013, pigment print
street art, Francis- are hooded, evoking the highly-reproduced photographs of prisoners
Cornell Fine Arts Museum
co de Goya, Diego with shrouded heads. Here, the artist conflates time and history. His
Image courtesy of the artist
Velásquez, and José testament to the pain experienced by these prisoners becomes more
Guadalupe Posada, tangible as Crosthwaite’s figures are rendered before the backdrop of
among others. His his beloved city of Tijuana: home to many who struggle with economic
rendering of figural inequity, and who remain resilient in the face of drug violence and
forms evokes the tech- American visitors who treat their city as a playground. The atrocities of
nique of Old Master war are difficult to understand. Armed conflicts of the past and present
painters, but his sub- demand reflection.
ject matter functions
as an amalgamation In 2014, I curated an exhibition titled Women, War, and Industry that
of daily life experi- examined the myriad ways in which women have been represented
ence in Tijuana to the in relation to war and industry. During the twentieth century, both
political events and the advent of war and increased industrialization led to major changes
realities that disturb in the lives of women: their roles in their families, the way in which
him. Crosthwaite’s they dress, and the manner in which they are perceived in the public
Bartolomé was made sphere. There are iconic, historical, and fictional ways in which women
while the artist was have been represented in relation to the complicated and intertwined
listening to reports on factors of war and industry. This exhibition presented a historical traNPR about the abuses jectory and included World War I and II posters and the trailblazing
that took place at the work of American photographers like Margaret Bourke-White and Es43
www.ARTBORNEMAGAZINE.com