Liberal White and Disconnected

Throughout my art history lectures on art in the 1970s to the present, lectures on issues in contemporary art focusing on “controversial artists”, visiting my local art galleries, and the Milwaukee Art Museum I am beginning to realize the insular, overwhelmingly liberal and white art world in America.  I live in an area where the White population is 57%, Black is 25%, Hispanic is 12% and other minorities are 6%, yet in my entire art department there are only several black people and barely a handful of other minorities.  The stark whiteness of my department is the equivalent of the white walls of Modernist America that continues to this day.

Today in class we discussed artists such as Santiago Sierra and Michael Heizer‘s “City” and how controversial they are, yet looking further I begin to wonder to whom are they controversial?  The illegal immigrants in several of Sierra’s performance pieces aren’t protesting or questioning his work (that we know of), yet the art world is aghast.   Same with Heizer, the art wold has been abuzz with criticism of the man’s work, but who really cares (or knows about the project) outside of the art world. Instead of focusing on actual occurrences of worker exploitation or environmental ravaging, the art world seems more interested on debating and pointing out all the things other artists are doing  “wrong.”

I don’t normally rant about art, but sometimes the art world has too many whiny, hyper sensitive, and disconnected people for my liking.

A picture of “City” from space:

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