Oh gods, spirits and ancestors, help us. It is 2018 and the Brooklyn Museum recently hired Dr. Lena Windmuller-Luna to serve as its new curator of African art. In this 21st century, holding a Ph.D. from Princeton University and a B.A. from Yale University will not be enough to grant white people a license to craft narratives on African art or anything else on the spectrum of the Africana experience. Colonizer mentality continues to insist that African forms of expression and art are only worthwhile if analyzed, acknowledged and approved by white institutions and its diploma holders. Enough is enough. The creation of African art over the last millennia preceded the existence of American Ivy League institutions. The interpretation, imagination and insight needed to curate avant-garde African art exhibits cannot be acquired by being mentored by old white academics, during study abroad programs or even extensive research fellowships.
We already know what the leadership at the Brooklyn Museum will say: there weren’t any qualified candidates and we didn’t receive any applications from African or African-American art experts.
The reality is that white institutions, like the Brooklyn Museum, are only comfortable when narratives about Africa are sieved by white gatekeepers (e.g. Dr. Windmuller-Luna). Move along, nothing creative or revolutionary to see over there folks.
I am neither an African art expert, nor am I an expert in human resources, but if I wanted to hire a curator of African art, Google would seem like a simple place to start a general search. The Brooklyn Museum could have asked a staffer to phone and email various African art institutions to share the job announcement as broadly as possible. Email is free. It doesn’t cost anything to send an email to Art museums in any of the 54 countries in Africa. Relying on intellectually incestuous job postings, outdated CV collection processes and familiar referral sources will deliver the same abysmal results: only 4 percent of art curators in the United States are black.
I spent two hours on Google searching for art experts in Africa; here is what I found:
Algeria
Director, Musée national des antiquités et des arts islamiques
Benin
Director, Centre art et culture
Director, La Fondation Zinsou
Burkina Faso
Director, Musée national du Burkina Faso
Cote d’Ivoire
Director, Musée des Civilisations d’Abidjan
Gabon
Director, Musée National des Arts et Traditions du Gabon
Mali
Director, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
Morocco
Artist ; President, Moroccan National Foundation of Museums
Former Director, Musée Mohammed VI d’art moderne et contemporain
Nigeria
Professor of Art History; Head, Department of Creative Affairs, University of Lagos
South Africa
Curator for Contemporary Collections and Acting Chief Curator at the Johannesburg Art Gallery
Tanzania
Executive Director, National Museum of Tanzania
Zimbabwe
Chief Curator, National Gallery of Zimbabwe
