When artist Dana Schutz presented "Open Casket"—an abstract painting of the open casket of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African-American from Chicago who was lynched in the Mississippi Delta in the summer of 1955—she could not have fathomed the conflagration that erupted.
The painting hangs at the Whitney Museum in New York City but under the daily watchful eye of protestors blocking its view they termed the "Black death spectacle." Some protesters sent letters of grievances to the museum curators requesting the painting be taken down and others have flatly demanded the destruction of it.
Because Schutz is white, queries abound about cultural appropriation and exploitation, asking whether a white artist can sensitively and appropriately depict Black pain.
The Whitney Biennial aims "to gauge the state of art in America today." Schutz's abstraction was inspired by the infamous photograph of Till's mutilated corpse. The photo first appeared in Jet Magazine, that galvanized support for the 1960s civil-rights movement, at the insistence of Till's mother, Mamie Till Bradley, who wanted the world to see the reality of racial violence on Black children.
In an interview, Schutz shared that the genesis for her painting was the reminder of the recent rash of unarmed Black males shot by police across the country, and that "the photograph of Emmett Till felt analogous of the time—what was hidden was not revealed." Schutz shared that, as a mother, she also empathized with Mamie Till Bradley.
While Schutz, and many white mothers like her, no doubt perhaps had their moments "empathizing with Black mothers"—realizing that Travyon Martin, Tamir Rice and Michael Brown, to name a few, are their children's age—none of their children, however, reside in the daily reality of the possibility of not returning to them or being gunned down because of the color of their skin, and then gazed upon like "road kill" ( as was the case for Brown ).
"Being a mother doesn't hold water," Corinne Cooper, a white woman from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, told me. "Schutz may carry a concern for her children's safety, but has she had 'the talk' about what to do if stopped by a police officer?"
"The talk" is a heartbreaking one that is needed for our children's survival outside the home. Sadly, it robs them their life—like it did 12-year old Tamir Rice. And, undoubtedly, it does psychic and emotional harm to their self-esteem and sense of innocence and fairness in the world.
Because Schutz is a mother who feels pangs of angst and outrage about how Black youth are presently policed in this country, she also feels her expressed empathy—both verbal and artisitic—represents all mothers, ignoring how such a claim both essentializes and erases the particular pain, history and context of the source of Black mothers' pain.
For example, there's the film sensation and best-seller The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, the white protagonist who helps Black maids—because of the love she had for her own—to expose racism in 1960s Mississippi, as if a civil-rights movement isn't already afoot. Schutz and Stockett, with all their good intentions, reinscribe the trope of the "white rescuer," suggesting they know how best to represent and tell Black people's pain and history.
Some critics have suggested that Schutz should have done what many artists do concerning their artwork: Let viewers arrive at their own interpretations. I'm glad Schutz didn't, because such an approach doesn't resolve the issue of whether white artists have a right to tackle thorny issues concerning race. I feel white artists should do so more often than not, highlighting it's an American problem and not the province of only racial groups.
Painter Norman Rockwell, for example, depicted a horrific moment of our racial past with his famous 1964 painting "The Problem We All Live With," with Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old African-American girl, escorted by deputy U.S. marshals during New Orleans 1960 desegregation crisis. The painting invites the viewer's point of view because protestors are not visible as you see the smashed and splattered wall behind Bridges—a wall with the N-word and "KKK."
Cambridge academician and artist Estelle Disch, who's white, doesn't shy away from racial issues and offered her advice:
"If white artists are going to deal with race, we need to be ready to take the heat and be accountable if we offend people, and then be ready to make things as right as possible, Disch told me. "In the Whitney case, the artist could do the right thing and ask that her piece be removed. An empty space on the wall would make a statement in itself. And she could post an acknowledgement and apology where the painting was."
Schutz refusing to acknowledge that "Open Casket" aestheticizes Black pain and suffering not only cultural appropriates a tragedy, but she violently dehumanizes Emmett Till, too—which is what his mother wanted the world to see.
