Next month, the Milwaukee Art Museum opens its “Summer of China,” featuring The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City and four smaller exhibitions.
There’s also a hefty schedule of lectures, art talks, a trip to Chinatown and other programs.
So it was timely of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s art critic Mary Louise Schumacher to raise the outstanding pertinent question about all this the other day in a piece headlined Should the Milwaukee Art Museum Protest Ai Weiwei’s Detention?
This is the same show that recently left the Metropolitan Museum and previously drew crowds at the Peabody Essex Museum. But Ai Weiwei’s arrest had not yet occurred when those exhibits opened. Coming last on the tour, MAM has had ample time to consider its position — and do to something.
Ai’s imprisonment since April 3 has sparked statements of outrage from government officials around the world and demonstrations in places like Hong Kong. It has also spawned an unprecedented response from the international art world and debates about whether cultural institutions have a role to play when artistic expression is suppressed by foreign nations….
Should the [Milwaukee] museum join many of the world’s other cultural institutions in signing petitions and speaking publicly? Would China pull the show? And if they did, would MAM lose the exhibition fee, presumably in the millions?
If MAM is mum, however, will it run the risk of the appearance of appeasement? Does the museum have an obligation to educate its audience about the oppression of Ai Weiwei during its “Summer of China?”
Does this show provide an opportunity for dialogue or even diplomacy? And – a question for all art museums – will overt forms of protest be more effective than behind-the-scenes efforts in affecting Ai’s release?
MAM has yet to say anything about Ai, and Dan Keegan, the museum’s director, declined several requests to be interviewed by Schumacher. He did, however, “release a brief statement by e-mail”:
The political situation is extremely complex and the Museum is sensitive to the discussion that Ai Weiwei’s detention has created and we are obviously concerned for his well being. To that point, I think that our ‘Summer of China’ can play a role in expanding understanding and forwarding the dialogue between cultures.
Schumacher covers the issues beautifully in her article, giving both sides, and she is scrupulously fair, neither condemning nor condoning MAM.
In the end, she takes what I think is the proper stance: “The “Summer of China” should not pass without an airing of Ai Weiwei’s case.”
I think she is correct: MAM doesn’t have to join the protest, but it should provide some forum, some panel, some context, about dissent in China and about Ai’s case. Otherwise, the Summer of China will look like propaganda, whether it is or not.
UPDATE, 5/24: Many others have now take the same stance as Schumacher, and me, and she has summarized and gathered links to some of those comments here.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum