A Museum for the Working Class

Abstract

A Museum for the Working Class Joanne McNeil (bio) Hulking granite mills tower over the city of Fall River, some fifty miles south of Boston, as a lingering reminder of its industrial history. The weathered buildings were infamous for cruel labor conditions back when Fall River led the country in cloth production. The Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art has occupied the ground floor of one such mill, which still operates as a textiles manufacturer; with factory workers sewing upstairs, it's an unlikely place for an art museum. That's exactly why it's there. When I first visited in the fall of 2021, I parked next to the VFW hall beside FR MoCA and met with its founders, Brittni Ann Harvey and Harry Gould Harvey IV. The couple, who are in their early thirties, met as teenagers attending punk shows at that same VFW. Now their art is exhibited at prestigious galleries in New York, but they [End Page 15] hold ambivalent feelings about this prestige—and its associated social mobility. So they choose to live and work in Fall River, close to their families. The museum, which opened in 2020, exists in the hatchway the artists have carved out for themselves between the art world and home. Click for larger view View full resolution Fall River Study no. 1 by Isaiah Raines (courtesy of the artist) The Harveys might have named their non-collecting art nonprofit the "Fall River Gallery," but "museum" conveys institutional heft. Plus, the word hints at how, through their curation, they playfully subvert the traditional gatekeeping of the art world. Conceived as a "museum," FR MoCA reveals where typical art institutions fall short. Art museums, while ostensibly for the public, cater to the tastes of the wealthy, especially major donors with sway over programming and exhibited work. Operating at a small scale, FR MoCA, modestly funded with state art grants and support from local businesses—including the owner of a Portuguese food emporium across the [End Page 16] street—has a grassroots ethos. The project demonstrates that art is not exclusive to the sons and daughters of capital; artists and art workers come from communities like Fall River, too. And their work has context and history. Art has long existed here, the Harveys are quick to point out, citing as an example the mill worker and artist Robert Spear Dunning, who began the Fall River school of still-life painting. When I first visited the museum, there were photographs, boiler inspection tools, and souvenirs from the Fall River Line steamboat company on display in the hallway entrance. On loan from the maritime museum, the artifacts highlighted the disparities between the lives of the workers below the decks and the Gilded Age robber barons who would ride between their residences in Newport, Rhode Island, and Manhattan. Inside the exhibition space were vibrant yet quietly affecting works by the late artist Kathleen White, including her "Love Letters" series of abstract paintings in lusty colors and her Play-Doh-bright "Car" sculptures molded into faintly recognizable vehicular formations. She was closely associated with Nan Goldin and the downtown scene of the 1980s and '90s, but crucially, for the purpose of this exhibition, White grew up in Fall River. Her grandfather was a Fall River Line captain. Exhibited here, in her hometown, one could sense the origins of White's humble brilliance. "Rendering truth" is how Harry summarizes the FR MoCA mission, referencing a Lonnie Holley song title. To Harry, it means the "emancipation" and utopias that emerge when art is produced with integrity. It's a phrase he uses regularly as a synonym for art or artmaking, for the perspective an artist shares outside any sort of market logic or transaction. In a sense, the rendered truth of FR MoCA is the roots it seeks to establish. Exhibited artists either come from the area or their work engages with the city. The regional focus, in this plainly unfancy old mill town, means that labor is an evident through line. The historical context the Harveys develop as curators—displaying mill-worker still-life painters alongside contemporary artists—offers a place for working-class art without tokenizing or...