On Gatekeeping: A Note about the Redistribution of Power and Art in the African Diaspora
It would be easy to surmise that geographical fixity and notions of diaspora are inherently at odds, not only due to the conditions that create the latter, in terms of forced migration, displacement or other geopolitical factors that create transnational subjects, but also in relation to reception in contemporary art. For one, geographical fixity often follows the current of nativist sentiments, opposed to more radicalized and inclusive ideas of community-building, or what art historian and critic Terry Smith calls “defiant localism” in “Contemporary Art: World Currents in Transition beyond Globalization.”[1]
As a counterpoint to globalization, which assumes a type of accessibility to forms of art, and by extension to the intellectual labor and creative capital of those who make it, the local (a microcosm) privileges the reorientation of the parameters of taking up space. This line of inquiry is one that resonates in radicalized curatorial praxis, specifically how, in embodying spatiality, we are led to think about sovereignty and power and the ways in which those dual constructs show up positively for cultural practitioners from the African diaspora. In keeping with the underlying theme of countercurrents in artistic systems of the Global South, Smith identifies three markers of contemporary art made after 1989 in relation to its “being-ness” in the world. He writes:
For many of the artists, curators and commentators involved, it has evolved through at least three discernable phases: a reactive, anti‐imperialist search for national and localist imagery; then a rejection of simplistic identarianism and corrupted nationalism in favor of a naïve internationalism; followed by a broader search for an integrated cosmopolitanism, or worldliness, in the context of the permanent transition of all things and relations. The third current cannot be named as a style, a period, or a tendency. It proliferates below the radar of generalization… Each of the three currents disseminates itself (not entirely, but predominantly) through appropriate––indeed, matching––institutional formats. [2]
The scope of this essay is in response to the first two parameters as they relate to the “permanent transition” that characterizes contemporaneity and identity. If in shifting stereotypes related to identity, we effectively find the “rejection of simplistic identitarianism,” an endeavor that stems from both a question of authorship and reclaiming power, I subsequently ask: what is the role of gatekeeping Blackness–traditionally exploited as a means of relation– in culture and specifically in art spaces? In asserting the autonomy of an African/diasporic braintrust, does gatekeeping Blackness in arts institutions act as a form of restitution– as part of “defiant localism” that resists the cultural cachet of globalized aesthetics in (re)claiming power against reductive identitarianism, the latter which assumes monolithism?
As history would show, colonization crippled the African continent, and its bedfellow, the institution of slavery, further impaired the connected ligament of the diaspora from the continent. Cultural institutions and arts spaces, like museums, are tools of colonizing power; indeed, they are not the arbiters of progress they purport to be, as they are: (1) superficially committed to politicized issues (2) overpopulated with staff beholden to Eurocentric elitist practices and empty gestures of inclusion, and (3) uncritically attached to decontextualized objects, such that display becomes the primarily summation (or replacement) for restorative justice work. Museums, as repositories of/for performative disruption, will always produce—and consequently defend—anthropological, imperialist paradigms of stewardship, specifically because museums and collections therein cannot sustain the radical dismantling that would be needed to disempower the gaze and eradicate the power of the state. In other words, institutions aspire to be permanent fixtures of power, and therefore are transition-adverse. For example, in 2018, the Savoy-Sarr Report exposed the lack of axiological ethics within institutions in regard to the restitution of African objects, and very little in the form of restitution to the continent has occurred en masse. Museums exist outside of time, while power generates ways to invent itself.
Within this matrix of circumscribed, or fixed power, we are inundated with headlines such as “After decades of being overlooked, African art gets its moment” which was a piece published in The World on May 10th of this year [3] and “Art collectors turn to contemporary African art as industry sees boom,” [4] necessitating further investigation into who is buying contemporary African art, for what purposes and from whom, which are more complex questions than the space of this essay will allow. .As reported by africanews, “in 2022 alone, works by contemporary artists born in Africa generated $63 million (USD) at auction versus a previous record of around $47 million (USD) in 2021.”[5]At the same time, pilot programs meant to diversify leadership of museum staff on a global scale are slow to address systemic issues, with only incremental increases or meaningful progress in U.S. based institutions. According to a 2018 demographics survey done by the Mellon Foundation, “conservation and museum leadership roles are not keeping pace with education and curatorial departments towards diversifying their ranks….Most people of color hired into positions of intellectual leadership have been in education departments, which are quite large (constituting 12 percent of all positions recorded as opposed to curatorial, conservation, and museum leadership, which are six percent, four percent and two percent of the sample respectively).”[6]That is, there is an operational schism between the perfunctory support of African art in the form of short term exhibitions and acquisitions and that of hiring museum workers, curators, directors of otherwise of African descent to do the work of caring for the art and artists. And, for museums with permanent collections of African art both traditional or contemporary, the curator overseeing said collection will statistically be non-Black and/or non-African. There is the very real risk of an assumption of hierarchy in the conflation of hegemonic parameters applied from the top down, opposed to more discursive associations that are embedded in the concept of diaspora, whose very denotation invites comparison to a rhizome. That is, their power (negative gatekeeping with institutions as markers of empire) is concentrated in the hands of a select few, and specifically in a network that has traditionally excluded those with different types of knowledges. It is contained– monitored even– rather than being diffuse.
The positive news is that the lack of institutional support in sustaining diversity in tandem with growing interest in contemporary African art has enabled programs and arts residencies founded by Africans to flourish on the continent. In 2022, British-Nigerian artist, Yinka Shonibare launched G.A.S Foundation in Lagos, which provides opportunities for those working in the “fields of contemporary art, design, architecture, agriculture and ecology by giving space and resources to research, experiment, share, educate and develop work.”[7] In 2023, artist Amoako Boafo launched dot.ateliers, his highly anticipated artist residency, foundation, and exhibition space in his native home of Accra, Ghana. Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock Senegal in Dakar continues to support a growing community of early-career artists, introducing them to an international market as well as offering “ renewal to explore new ideas and to create work outside of a western context.”[8] To note, Wiley identifies as Nigerian-American. And, Nafasi Art space in Tanzania, another known incubator art space is now under the helm of Director Lilian Mushi, and continues to operate as a contemporary art center dedicated to the visual and performing arts run by local artists who can respond to the needs of their own communities.[9] These art spaces, among others, have found success precisely in their ability to platform artistic exchange between Africans and the diaspora, but of equal importance, they have shown that the interplay amongst radical liberatory ethos in the art world, cultural institutions, and the leaders of said institutions matter considerably in support of African art and artists. To the point of mobilizing gatekeeping as a generative force, they autonomize their artistic systems while promoting international exchange, neither compromising the determination to self-manage nor reproduce asymmetries found in Western institutions.
By 2050, it is projected that one in four people on the planet will be African, a seismic change that is already starting to register across many sectors– technological, industrial, and arts-related. As the art world continues to recognize its own shortcomings, and as African and African diasporic artists and cultural practitioners carve out their own paths (at home and abroad), the driving force of the most impactful initiatives will continue to center the creative potential, and eventual, actualized power of previously marginalized thought-leaders. To conclude, the guiding questions of this piece can be distilled into a singular one: what is, and will be, the role of gatekeeping, in this future world order?
Anita N. Bateman, Ph.D.
[1]Terry Smith. “Contemporary Art: World Currents in Transition beyond Globalization.” In The Global Contemporary: The Rise of New Art Worlds after 1989, edited by Hans Belting, Andrea Buddensieg, and Peter Weibel. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press for ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2013), 2. https://www.haa.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/SMITH%20Global%20Contemporary%20Art.pdf.
[2] Smith, “Contemporary Art,” 6.
[3] Halima Gikandi. “After Decades of Being Overlooked, African Art Gets Its Moment.” The World from PRX. May 10, 2024. https://theworld.org/stories/2024/05/10/after-decades-of-being-overlooked-african-art-gets-its-moment.
[4] AfricaNews. 2023. “Art Collectors Turn to Contemporary African Art as Industry Sees Boom.” Africanews. December 16, 2023. https://www.africanews.com/2023/12/16/art-collectors-turn-to-contemporary-african-art-as-industry-sees-boom/.
[5] AfricaNews.
[6]Roger Schonfeld, Liam Sweeney, and Mariët Westermann. “Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey 2018.” Ithaka S+R. January 28, 2019. https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/art-museum-staff-demographic-survey-2018/.
[7] “Yinka Shonibare Launches G.A.S Foundation in Lagos.” 2022. Contemporary &. November 1, 2022.https://contemporaryand.com/magazines/yinka-shonibare-launches-g-a-s-foundation-in-lagos/.
[8] Statement by Kehinde Wiley. “Our Story | Black Rock Senegal.” 2019. Black Rock Senegal . https://blackrocksenegal.org/our-story/.
[9] Nafasi Art Space. https://www.nafasiartspace.org/.
