What Would It Actually Take To Deconolinize: Response to Distinguished Lecture

Abstract

What Would It Actually Take To Deconolinize:Response to Distinguished Lecture Damani J. Partridge I approach Thomas Haakenson's lecture not as an art historian, but as a Black anthropologist who also engages the work of major art museums and their attempts to engage a broader public, particularly in cities such as Detroit and Berlin, where the preeminent museums are in the center of the city and simultaneously seen as White spaces. Because I knew I had to write this piece, I went back again to the "Who is Queen?" exhibit also addressed in Haakenson's lecture, to take more notes and think about it more in relation to decolonization. Again, one of my primary experiences was one of being policed. This time, I didn't even get in. Because it was cold, I brought my violin. I was meeting a friend who was already in the museum. I had my COVID-19 immunization records ready. But still, they didn't let me in. When I first tried to enter through a door in the middle, the security motioned, somewhat rudely, to the door to the left. How was I to know? There was no sign to this effect. Already feeling, again, as if I wasn't really wanted in this space, I went to the door to which they were motioning. Without really speaking with me, they talked to each other about needing a supervisor. With the exception of the man who eventually came to talk to me directly, they were all Black. But their Blackness seemed to be beside the point. Their bodies and motions were like tools for a broader establishment. The extent of what I mostly remember hearing from them was, "No." That was from the supervisor when she eventually came. They were already in the midst of their "security" mindset. Could I take it with me? "No." Could I check it in? "No." They didn't say why. They just said, "No." My friend didn't have time for the exhibit anyway. I was going to go afterwards, but we went instead to a restaurant nearby. She told me about how one of her other friends was boycotting the museum because of its colonialism. I also spoke about the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) as a White space. She noted that, well, people already [End Page 359] know that the New York MOMA is in a White space, but Detroit? That's a Black city. Even there, the Museum often seems like a White space. Nearing the time of a return visit to New York, when I look on a calendar, I see that the exhibit is already gone. I won't get to see it again, at least not in that space. For whom is the exhibit anyway? I am reading the Manifesto in the Black Dada Reader by Adam Pendleton,1 the same artist who produced the exhibit "Who is Queen?". I am struck by several lines: i think "what black arts did was inspire a whole lot of black people to write" (336) In my case, it is not only the art, but also the refusal to allow me to engage the art on my own terms. It is all of the policing, the policing, in particular, of my body. In the Manifesto, I am not sure what Pendleton's statements mean for someone who is not already part of the context that already values their art. Did Pendleton ever try to enter the museum to see his exhibit on my terms? I remember going to a conversation between another Black artist, Isaac Julien and Kaja Silverman, then a prominent film theorist at UC Berkeley. I love Isaac Julien's films, but I remember asking him: "Why the museum?" Why should this be the space for his activism? Both Professor Silverman and Isaac Julien looked at me as if they didn't know what I was talking about, as if my question was irrelevant. I forgive Julien, but I still have the same question. I also very much value Pendleton's art. On my first visit to "Who is Queen?", on the occasion that the security guards did let me in, even...