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Let's Talk About: Speed's Breonna Taylor Exhibit with Blya Krouba
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And then lastly, the third section, remembrance, focuses on a beautiful portrait of Brianna Taylor done by Amy Sherild, which was featured in the 2020 issue of Vanity Fair. And it also features some other commemorative pieces. Now I have my own thoughts on this exhibit and what they've done, but I would really love to hear from you bleed first, what are your first impressions of what Speed is trying to do with this exhibit? Do you like what they're doing?
I feel that ever since Covet and the George Floyd incident and just everything that happened within the Black Lives movement, a lot of different people were using art as kind of like decoration, not necessarily to really do anything about the problem, but to just kind of put a bang date on it
And then it is now then the Media's job to really deal with this educational, the motive and this educational side and historical side that you're talking about that you feel is missing because I do feel that we all cope in different ways. And I do think that black artists and black people they feel like, oh, you know, this art exhibition is going to help me cope than it is what it is
And most of my work as an artist is just that, like activism through my artwork, I feel that art that is acting as activism is really art, that just promotes conversation. A lot of time. For me, my artwork is not necessarily work that I go in thinking like, oh, yeah. I'm trying to prove this to an audience or this and that it's mostly like me talking about my experiences, right
We are the ones who built the beast who made this monster, and we're the only one who can kill it and make sure it doesn't come back because we're the only ones keeping it alive. Without us, it wouldn't be here. And I think acknowledging that might be the first step to doing better. Now, I want to talk briefly about the point you made gleea about how anecdotal arts is activism and by anecdotal art, I merely mean personal, vulnerable art
And so I think it's ethical for you to make money using that work. But with the idea in mind that you're going to use that money to help that community. For example, if you're making money off of an event that someone else's story, I do think that the money should go to that person. I think, of course, the bare necessity is you need to look somehow, so take some portion of it, but definitely help out that community
Leah, if you assume me for a moment, what do you think that should and could look like if museums and art institutes started to be bigger proponents of activism and engage in that more actively in their efforts? Because in my mind, the arts have always been a tool for rebellion. It always has the potential for that not necessarily revolution itself, but revolutionary ideas. It's a great platform for that
So, yeah, I think activism within institutions, like museums just means truly including black artists and hosting them permanently. That's something that black artists definitely struggle to do to have a space within such historical and important sites, like museums. A lot of times, they say, oh, we're marketing to a certain palette because they want to get funding from certain people who usually donate to museums. And a lot of time
But what really boggles my mind is that it's taken so long and it's taking so long because we haven't come to a point where space is readily available and offered to an artist regardless of their background. So until that is the case, I think we need to see more change prioritized in the art industry as a whole, because that's where we need to move. That's how we need to progress
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