BLACK HISTORY MONTH: “Exploring the Reality of Life”
Black and brown employees often labor in art spaces as docents, safeguarding artworks while providing guidance and answering the questions of museum patrons. They are central to the functioning of museums, but their presences are overlooked and their contributions to our experience in museums are rendered invisible.
Artist Deni Wohlgemuth-Ponty, however, made this black docent the subject of his painting “ArtGuard2000.” He is flanked by seemingly canonical artworks filled with white figuration. Ponty suggests that this coy figure also deserves our contemplation and scholarly attention.
Another notable example of acknowledging the significance of docents is evident in the work of artist Fred Wilson, who has always been conscious of the labor performed by black and brown museum employees. He incorporated them into his groundbreaking 1992 exhibition “Mining the Museum” at the former Maryland Historical Society and in “Guarded Views”—his contribution to the 1994 “Black Male” exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
