SECTION 01 DECONSTRUCTING RACE

“History is a production as much as an accounting of the past.”
Marisa J. Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive
01
Introduction
Throughout United States history, biased understandings of racial difference have been constructed and maintained by institutions of learning.

Objectives
In this section, we will:
  1. Learn about the history of racial categorization and theories of racial “types.”
  2. Examine how spaces such as museums and universities uphold theories of white supremacy, the belief that the white race is inherently superior to other races and that white people should have control over people of other races (Merriam-Webster).
  3. Analyze how contemporary artists such as Ben Ripley are deconstructing racial stereotypes that are historically upheld by these institutions.

Caption
Ben Ripley. Part of AMITY/ENMITY at MASS MoCA.

Unfounded Theories
TK
Museum Authority
TK
Ben Ripley’s series of photographs for his AMITY/ENMITY exhibition at MASS MoCA are a collaboration with museum educators to undermine common constructions of race as defined by institutions. According to the museum, they focus on the Hall of the Races of Mankind exhibition, unveiled in 1933 at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, depicting various racial types to illustrate a “brotherhood of man.”
The science upholding the exhibition was based on the racial theories of anthropologist Arthur Keith, who became known as an influential figure in the modern white nationalism movement in the United States.

In A man from Korea #32, Ripley superimposes a photograph of his face and body onto a 3D scan of a bronze bust of an ethnic type in the 1933 exhibition.

Selected Texts
Fuentes, Marisa J. Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2016), 1–12.
Resources & Additional Reading
“How Mining the Museum Changed the Art World,” Kerr Houston for Bmore Art, May 2017
“Are Art Museums Racist?” Maurice Berger for Art in America, September 1990
SEC. 01
DECONSTRUCTING RACE
SEC. 02
DISRUPTING MASTER NARRATIVES
SEC. 03
DECOLONIZING THE ARCHIVES




SEC. 04
ENDING SILENCES
SEC. 05
DENYING HISTORICAL SURVEILLANCE
SEC. 06
WRITING COUNTERHISTORIES




SEC. 07
BUILDING PROJECTS OF FREEDOM
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