Black Lies Matter

or How to Lose Friends and Antagonise People

Shortly before I retired as director of a tiny art organisation, something happened that, although small, helped push my feeling of alienation from the so-called art industry past the point of no return (but I was already pretty close). It all started when I decided to offer a project to one of the only two artists I have sacked in 27 years of operations. Let's call them ‘Artist’. While I was well aware that their personality quirks made them a risky proposition, there were reasons to offer them the project I had in mind. But it is also true that I felt a bit guilty for firing them years earlier, so I decided to take the risk. Isn't that what contemporary art is all about? Taking risks? Being open to ‘dangerous ideas’? 

Everything seemed to be going OK until a First Nations activist, AKA ‘Activist’, contacted us requesting we take down a statement the artist had published on our website. In Activist's judgement, the text had breached what they regarded as the appropriate protocols for dealing with sensitive cultural Indigenous material. Even though the complainer’s authority to adjudicate on this issue was self-granted, our program manager decided that the case had some prima facie merit, so they took the text down. While I would have preferred a disclaimer, I accepted the decision.

To anyone living in a country without a First Nations presence, it may seem bizarre that when a self-appointed activist calls an art organisation and asks them to take down a text that breaks no law of the land, the organisation just complies. However, in the government-subsidised Australian art industry, there is a consensus that the interaction between non-Indigenous organisations and Indigenous art workers, communities or cultural materials had to respect certain cultural protocols. 

It is certainly true that Aboriginal artists and culture have been exploited since colonisation started, but there are issues with protocols. Firstly, they are not entrenched in Australian law and sometimes conflict with it. For example, communal or cultural copyrights can clash with laws governing standard individual intellectual property, raising the question of whether a creation by an Indigenous artist belongs to the creator, their community or both. This can lead to paradoxical situations, such as when the First Nations artist who designed the Aboriginal flag sold its copyrights to a private company that then charged for its usage, at least in some circumstances. While the flag was not originally a traditional motif, it has since become one - all traditions must start at some point -  and it is hard to imagine anything more communal than a flag.   

Secondly, some protocols contradict modern Western ideas of artistic autonomy and freedom of expression. For example, non-Aboriginal artists or content creators are often expected to submit their representations of Aboriginal people or culture for approval before presenting the work to the public. While unflattering artistic depictions of individuals or communities are never well-received by their targets, there is no legal requirement that the latter pre-approve how they are represented. If this weren't the case, all we would get from journalists, writers, filmmakers and artists would be hagiographies. Of course, this basic principle must be mitigated by considering the power imbalance between who can speak and who is simply spoken of. And there are communities, such as Australian Aborigines, that have been at the receiving end of such power disparities more than many others. However, asking for approval before publication, unless simply to fact check, runs the risk of turning cultural productions into press releases. 

Thirdly, protocols can be vague, so much so that, ultimately, they can be reduced to a basic maxim:  listen to what people tell you and try not to be a jerk. Collaborations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural producers are governed by the ethics of hospitality, with the former being the host and the latter the guest. My organisation stuck to this basic approach and managed many successful collaborations with Indigenous bodies and individuals. 

Unfortunately, Artist was not sympathetic to the ‘don’t be a jerk’ principle. They spent too much of their long life cultivating their persona as a scruffy, anti-institutional Don Quixote to comply with the niceties of cultural protocols. Predictably, taking down their text did not go down well with them and set them on a collision course with Activist, who, although more rational and level-headed than Artist, also seemed eager to charge at ideological windmills. I won’t go into the details of this messy kerfuffle; there is too much ‘he said, she said’, and I want to keep this short. But if you are interested, an article on the Australian ABC website deals with it.¹ 

For the present purpose, it suffices to know that in the end, the owner of the regional gallery where Artist was supposed to present the work that Activist thought should not be displayed decided to cancel the exhibition before it had opened to the public. I would have preferred to open the exhibition, wait for a written complaint outlining why the work should not be shown, and then ask an independent, qualified expert to rule on its merit. But I am a naive old man who still believes in old-world principles such as facts, clear rules, and independent adjudication of disputes.

End of story? Not so fast! Even though we had taken down Artist’s statement and the exhibition never opened, Activist decided to go public on social media, denouncing us for doing what we hadn't done at their request. Activist probably did not know that the exhibition had not gone up, but I suspect they were eager to make a public case of it (to be fair, this is the job of activists). I was incensed and immediately replied on the same social media site, stating that the post was factually untruthful. Predictably, nobody on that site seemed interested in discovering what happened, which would have been easy. For example, they could have just fact-checked my reply before rejecting it. But who cares about truth, that old whore! Contentions of this kind are decided a priori on pre-existing identity and ideological grounds.

I alerted my chairperson, AKA ‘Chair’, about the kerfuffle because I knew that board directors fear storms in teacups. As a consequence, and unbeknown to me, Chair decided to publicly apologise to Activist for the hurt caused. The fact that she didn't consult with me first was a breach of chair-director protocol, something very unusual in our organisation. But I decided to say nothing because Activist and their supporters immediately accepted the apologies and started to say good things about us such as: ‘anyone can make a mistake! You are a good organisation!’ What they didn't say is ‘what we claimed never happened’.

Chair’s realpolitik approach was pragmatically correct, but it persuaded me that it was finally time I retired (although, for personal reasons, I waited a few months before acting on my decision). There were other causes for my professional ennui, and I discuss them in other posts in this forum. Still, that event made me realise that I was no longer able or willing to adjust to the rise and rise of ever more rigid forms of identity politics. Politics, power and identity are closely intertwined. Still, interpretations of these power dynamics should never be reduced to knee-jerk reactions.

At a board meeting, called especially to discuss this, I stated that apologising for something one hasn't done may be pragmatically useful but is ethically unacceptable. The false claim had damaged our reputation, and we decided to do nothing to repair it. But I knew I was the only person in that room to think that way. One could argue that suffering a relatively minor injustice is a small cross to bear compared to the many wrongs Indigenous populations endure. However, leaving aside the fact that the two wrongs don't make a right, historical guilt is not a good adviser. See, for example, what happened in Germany during the last Documenta. The overreaction to one of its artworks containing a detail that could have been construed as antisemitic was so hysterical that the future of the exhibition is now in question.

And while the intellectual left wraps itself into ever tighter identity blankets, the majority of voters react to this ideological overreach by electing appalling right-wing populists or rejecting measures aiming to extend minority rights, such as the so-called ’Voice’ referendum in Australia. 

1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-09/art-removed-aboriginal-appropriation-claims-wa-wheatbelt/101135708