Protests against Dana Schutz painting of Emmett Till [View all]

[Kentonio]

White Artist’s Painting of Emmett Till at Whitney Biennial Draws Protests

The open-coffin photographs of the mutilated body of Emmett Till, the teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in 1955, served as a catalyst for the civil rights movement and have remained an open wound in American society since they were first published in Jet magazine and The Chicago Defender at the urging of Till’s mother.

The images’ continuing power, more than 60 years later, to speak about race and violence is being demonstrated once again in protests that have arisen online and at the newly opened Whitney Biennial over the decision of a white artist, Dana Schutz, to make a painting based on the photographs.

An African-American artist, Parker Bright, has conducted peaceful protests in front of the painting since Friday, positioning himself, sometimes with a few other protesters, in front of the work to partly block its view. He has engaged museum visitors in discussions about the painting while wearing a T-shirt with the words “Black Death Spectacle” on the back. Another protester, Hannah Black, a British-born black artist and writer working in Berlin, has written a letter to the biennial’s curators, Mia Locks and Christopher Y. Lew, urging that the painting be not only removed from the show but also destroyed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/arts/design/painting-of-emmett-till-at-whitney-biennial-draws-protests.html?emc=edit_th_20170322&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=33386653&_r=0

I have a real issue with this. Firstly surely the whole point of art is that the message comes from the creation not from the creator. If this had been a painting by an African American artist, no protest would have occured, its purely based on the ethnicity of the artist. Secondly, even if people had an issue with where the painting was being displayed, or it being included in a particular event, the idea of calling for art to be destroyed just repulses me. It's no different than calling for a book to be burned in my mind.

Am I missing something?