Dana Schutz's 'Open Casket'
This article deals specifically with Dana Schutz’s controversial painting, “Open Casket”, that is being displayed at the Whitney Biennial. This abstract piece of art depicts the disfigured face of Emmett Till during his open-casket funeral. Several African American artists primarily Hannah Black have criticized the piece for being the ill-intentioned and the insincere work of a Caucasian man. She goes so far as to call for it to be either simply removed or destroyed in its entirety. Author Coco Fusco argues that her logic is flawed but he insists that instead of “unadulterated rage” people should have an informed discussion. He discusses how art is a medium that can and should be used to challenge the status quo, how this is beneficial, as
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Can he or she legitimately feel their heartache or can they only muster the pretense of sympathy under a veil of hypocrisy? The answer for this can be found by looking retroactively at the treatment of women in the art field. The Guerilla Girls are an advocacy group whom, like the name suggests, are waging a “war” on the historical marginalization of female artists. Historically women have constantly been presented with similar misgivings by their male counterparts. Are women competent enough to make good art and be given the privilege of depicting the world around them? “Cultural appropriation” is the idea that one group will take another group’s culture and modify it and in the process, diminish its value. Both white artists depicting African American suffering and women painters have been accused of appropriating a world that they were deemed ill-fit to judge let alone recreate. Culture and art though is not something that is limited or isolated only to a group of individuals. It is a dynamic force that is only strengthened and broadened by the diversity brought to it. Fusco for example stresses that Till’s mother “wanted the world to see what those men had done to her son.” He was not only a martyr for black men but for all men. As such it seems only fitting that his image be associated with all
Can he or she legitimately feel their heartache or can they only muster the pretense of sympathy under a veil of hypocrisy? The answer for this can be found by looking retroactively at the treatment of women in the art field. The Guerilla Girls are an advocacy group whom, like the name suggests, are waging a “war” on the historical marginalization of female artists. Historically women have constantly been presented with similar misgivings by their male counterparts. Are women competent enough to make good art and be given the privilege of depicting the world around them? “Cultural appropriation” is the idea that one group will take another group’s culture and modify it and in the process, diminish its value. Both white artists depicting African American suffering and women painters have been accused of appropriating a world that they were deemed ill-fit to judge let alone recreate. Culture and art though is not something that is limited or isolated only to a group of individuals. It is a dynamic force that is only strengthened and broadened by the diversity brought to it. Fusco for example stresses that Till’s mother “wanted the world to see what those men had done to her son.” He was not only a martyr for black men but for all men. As such it seems only fitting that his image be associated with all