OPINION
A new exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art glorifies the violent, left-wing protests of the 1960s and ‘70s in a way that encourages young people of today to do the same, Bobby Mars wrote recently at the Michigan Enjoyer.
The exhibition “American Sampler: The Art, Language and Legacy of Protest” features colorful posters and ephemera from the Black Panthers, Vietnam War protesters, and other leftist and socialist groups.
Included is a 1968 “Festival of Life” flyer from the anarchist group Yippies, which was “in large part responsible for the street violence that broke up” the Democratic National Convention that year in Chicago, according to the Enjoyer.
The exhibit also displays “documents and video from the Black Panthers …, another group from the 1960s that eventually spun out into a series of violent incidents and killings that overshadowed their racial activism,” the report continues.
Concerning to Mars is the overall tone of the exhibit. As he wrote: “UMMA is careful to stop just shy of actually calling for violence against the government, but the real meaning of this exhibition is plain as day. It’s an insulting distillation of pure anti-American resentment, and not even a clever one at that.”
He wrote:
The exhibition displays pamphlets, photographs, posters, documents, video, and all sorts of other propaganda material sourced from U-M’s Labadie collection. Named after Joseph Labadie, an early socialist activist in Michigan, the collection touts itself as one of the oldest and largest collections of radical literature in the world.
Guest curator Julie Ault, in a sprawling wall text at the entrance to the exhibition, writes, “American Sampler is a branching composition of archival materials and art arranged in layered groupings that blur the distinctions between forms of cultural expression.” She further writes that the exhibition “explores how collective and personal histories continue to shape the present and inspire new forms of agency.”
This is curator-speak for: “I’m glorifying left-wing protest movements by putting their pamphlets in an art museum, and pushing today’s students to protest against the government too.”
Curators love to play this game where they offer a coy explanation of an exhibition, in this case about how these are merely “layered groupings” of “archival materials and art” simply placed on the wall to explore “collective and personal histories.” Yet they know better than anyone the power that museum institutions have in granting meaning and legitimacy to the items on their walls.
Read his full piece at the Michigan Enjoyer.
MORE: UMich art museum hosts ‘fun’ election office led by Democratic donors
