Portraits and Other Likenesses from SFMOMA, now on view at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) marks the regional culmination of On the Go, SFMOMA’s itinerant exhibition program that places items from the museum’s collection at other institutions while its own doors are closed for expansion.
For this project, curators Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins and Caitlin Haskell, representing MoAD and SFMOMA respectively, selected objects concerned with identity as it is shaped (or misshaped) by history and stereotype. While the exhibition is well worth seeing, it raises questions about the On the Go project as a whole, and whether this series has showcased true institutional cooperation or merely solidified SFMOMA as a magnanimous monolith about to overwhelm the Bay Area museum scene.
Portraits and Other Likenesses is the second exhibition to inhabit MoAD’s newly renovated interior. Gone are the informative yet dated installations that addressed the roots of the historic African Diaspora and its critical influence in western cultures. In their place is sleek open space. The renovation, as well as recent and upcoming exhibitions that focus on emerging and mid-career contemporary artists, represents what Executive Director Linda Harrison calls “MoAD 2.0.” That positivity is palpable, as everyone I encountered at MoAD appears deeply invested in the museum’s success and believes in its bright institutional future.
To enter Portraits and Other Likenesses, it’s recommended that you take the stairs, not the elevator, to see Wangechi Mutu’s High Chair and Strange Fruit (2005), a sculptural installation that references the abject history of lynching in the United States and demonstrates what LeFalle-Collins and Haskell offer as “other likenesses.” In Mutu’s piece and others throughout the exhibition, particularly Paula Santiago’s quietly devastating De la serie: “Quitapesares 1” (1999), definitions of what portraiture is, who is absent or present and why, broaden.
Once inside the second floor gallery, violence, stereotype and sexuality — and their role in shaping identity — unfold. Necklines (1989), photographer Lorna Simpson’s black and white triptych, pairs beautiful and fragile images with derivations of the word “neck.” The piece translates differently for black and white viewers; what reads as pleasing wordplay turns sinister when associated with the hate crimes committed against African Americans. Meanwhile, stereotype is literally smashed in Me and It (1995), a two-channel video and ceramic installation in which Fred Wilson mimics a thick-lipped ashtray and other racist knickknacks. It is deeply satisfying to watch as the figurines, seemingly benign examples of our material culture, are pounded into dust by an anonymous hammer-wielding hand.
Gloriously occupying half of the floor is the work of Mickalene Thomas who, fresh from triumphant exhibitions in Santa Monica and Brooklyn, contributed Between Ourselves Again (2015). The commissioned installation includes an imagined 1970s living room awash in upholstered orange, brown and yellow fabric. Thomas’ photographs feature stationary models who practically vibrate with presence, offsetting a loop of Soul Train dancers on the living room’s TV. Thomas’ work in the show also includes Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman, a moving video tribute to Sandra Bush, her mother and muse. The installation as a whole speaks to constructions of black identity as defined by celebrity. Thomas presents fame as a path out of disenfranchisement that, for some, comes at a terrible price.
On the third floor, notions of portraiture balance between representational and interpretive. Nick Cave’s Soundsuit (2009) stands near the center of the gallery not far from Sargent Johnson’s Forever Free (1933), which is among the oldest objects in SFMOMA’s collection. In motion, Cave’s sculpture resembles African or Caribbean masquerade garments. When presented on a mannequin, the same piece hints at the heavy layering of time and experience informing one’s sense of self. Where Cave takes a maximal approach to sculpture, Sargent Johnson chose minimal simplicity in conveying a black woman and children. As an allegory of safe harbor in the wake of ongoing violence -– particularly the state-sanctioned murder of unarmed black men by police — the potency of this small sculpture far surpasses its physical dimensions.
Positioned at opposite ends of the third floor gallery are two images that encapsulate the challenge of visualizing identity. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s Sapphires Under Cotton (2013) portrays a black man with downcast eyes. Yiadom-Boakye eschews the traditional practice of working with sitters in favor of conjuring figures from her imagination. Her subjects are everyone and no one, beautifully undercutting traditional definitions of portraiture as the sole purview of the white, wealthy and well-known. Similarly, photographer Deana Lawson portrays subjects she regards as family but who are, in fact, strangers. Dirty South (2010/2011) features a man seated in an old-model car looking back at the photographer with a faint smile, his history and future unknown. The image offers nothing decisive, and yet Lawson implicates the viewer in a legacy of racial bias if we assume this man is up to no good.
While On the Go exhibitions at the Asian Art Museum and Oakland Museum of California included objects from the host collections and SFMOMA, MoAD is not a collecting institution. Portraits and Other Likenesses features objects solely from SFMOMA — arguably northern California’s best-known and best-funded museum. When I first read about MoAD’s partnership with SFMOMA, I wondered what a co-produced exhibition would include. More to the point, I saw the partnership as an opportunity for MoAD’s mission (exploring diaspora history and contemporary conditions through art) to recontextualize items from SFMOMA’s collection.
Instead, this exhibition raises a series of questions about the true nature of the partnership and collaboration. How did regional museums benefit from participating in On the Go? Increased attendance is an obvious answer. If the crowds I saw are any indication, MoAD gained a possible membership bump.
On the Go is lauded as a demonstration of collegial institutional relationships amidst a highly competitive philanthropic environment. Yet curator Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins reports that SFMOMA “forbid her from corresponding with the exhibiting artists.” LeFalle-Collins believes this was a disservice to the exhibition. Speaking to the artists while writing the wall text could have allowed her “a more culturally insightful interpretation of the works,” she says. SFMOMA’s final editorial pass further circumscribed contributions by both curators.
LeFalle-Collins is an independent curator and makes no claim to speak for or represent the interests of MoAD. SFMOMA curator Caitlin Haskell asserts that On the Go collaborating institutions provide “the interpretive framework for the project, and that SFMOMA’s staff works to help realize that vision in the best way possible.” MoAD’s director, Linda Harrison, termed the partnership “creative and fluid.”
As informative as they are, the extended labels and wall text don’t dig deep enough into how these objects reflect diaspora experiences across the wide cultural span –- African, American and Latin American –- represented in the exhibition. The descriptions of Joaquin Trujillo’s photographs Daniela (2001) and Hil (2002), both from the series Los Niños, miss an opportunity to examine the works through concepts of colonialism and the reclamation of identity. What does it mean to photograph children of mixed-race heritage in the garb of historic oppressors? This type of commentary is sorely lacking.
SFMOMA has the right to maintain its relationships with the artists in its collection and present that work in the context of its choosing. But must that voice and level of control tarnish professional relationships between it and other institutions? If that’s the case, how are we to appreciate On the Go exhibitions as something more than glorified branding and marketing exercises? In the end, the true opportunity in this unique partnership is lost: that of viewing the SFMOMA collection in a different context, thereby freeing the artwork from its role in one collection to allow it to be viewed by the greater public in alternative and thought-provoking ways.
Portraits and Other Likenesses from SFMOMA is on view through October 11, 2015 at the Museum of the African Diaspora. For more information visit moadsf.org.