From the Catalogue: Controversy & Crisis in Visual Culture
We interact with art nearly every day – through music, books, paintings, and photography. We watch television and visit art museums. What happens when someone’s art offends us? What happens when art becomes controversial over time? Are all museums providing viewers with the full story about a work? These are just a few of the questions Dr. Lisa Nicoletti’s course, “Controversy & Crisis in Visual Culture,” explores.
The course examines “controversial” art both locally and nationally. It also explores racism and lack of diversity in museum staffing and the exclusion of art from Black artists in museums.
The introduction of Zoom in the classroom has provided the ability for students to hear from special guests. This semester, the class was fortunate to have visits from Caddo Commissioner Steven Jackson to discuss “The Last Confederate Flag,” Caddo Parish’s Confederate monument; Centenary professor emerita and geologist Dr. Marry Barrett to discuss the Colfax Riot murder; and Centenary alumni Alissa Klaus and Ben Green, both museum professionals. Klaus is the director of Centenary’s own Meadows Museum of Art and Green is a cataloguer at Phillips Auction House in New York City.
Green discussed how he deals with questions of attribution and authenticity in his position as well as the complex relationship between living artists and the secondary market, specifically POC and emerging artists.
Klaus shared her experiences working on the exhibit, Does the Art Excuse the Accused?
She asked the class to think about what happens when you learn information about an artist that changes the way you view their work.
Candace Metoyer ’14 spoke with Dr. Nicoletti about how she designs the “Controversy & Crisis” course and her goals for her students.
What is your favorite thing about teaching this course?
I love providing students with a behind-the-scenes look at the cultural and historical issues people face, manage, endure, and struggle with in their professional and personal lives. Our guests include a government official addressing a painful Confederate memorial debate; a professor emerita whose ancestor participated in the Colfax Massacre, its racial terror enshrined through a state historical marker; an activist artist who was wrongfully targeted by the FBI under the Patriot Act; and museum directors and curators who have had to rethink their roles and collections.
How do you decide what to cover in the course? What influences your choices?
Contemporary events play a major role. Recent, major social movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter have helped to reveal the narratives of exclusion that must be addressed in our cultural institutions and civic landscapes. Many museums, even major ones, are 18th- or 19th-century relics that haven’t changed all that much in how they collect, interpret, and display cultural artifacts to the public. Cities, too, are beginning to address monuments and memorials that don’t represent their communities or aspirations. Have we entered a post-memorial era? Can museums successfully pivot to embrace diversity, disruption, and change? Are we on the verge of requiring widespread repatriations, seeing collections as looted objects that must be returned to their ancestral homes?
What do you hope students take away from the course?
I hope they’ll be critical thinkers when they enter any museum or see any monument or memorial and ask, “Who is this for? Whom does it serve? What narrative or audience is excluded?”