This March, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York issued an apology after security asked Heather Agyepong, a British-Ghanaian artist, to leave an exhibition titled Black Power Naps. The irony was immediately apparent: Artists Navild Acosta and Sosa had created this show specifically to create a space for Black people to rest.
When it opened, Black Power Naps was met with wide acclaim. After the controversy at MoMA, however, Acosta and Sosa say they’ve found it challenging to find new venues for the installation. Following an unexpected cancellation of the project last month, Acosta, who uses they/them pronouns, is worried that MoMA’s actions, and the controversy that ensued, are making institutions hesitant.
“I’m anxious that because of what happened at MoMA, people are backing out of showing the work because they’re afraid of this instance happening in their institution,” Acosta said.
This spring, Acosta and Sosa were working with the city of Toronto to feature their work in Nuit Blanche, a yearly night-long arts festival that takes place in September. But a month prior to the event, Acosta said they received notice that the city would no longer be showing the work, with “little to no explanation.”
A spokesperson for City of Toronto Culture told Hyperallergic that “the City of Toronto worked with the artists from Black Power Naps to bring the project to Toronto for Nuit Blanche,” but that “negotiations were unsuccessful for the 2023 event for a variety of logistical and financial reasons,” and that “the City looks forward to the opportunity to work with the artists again.”
Acosta, however, said that they were unaware of any such logistical and financial reasons for the cancellation. The sudden change meant that the artists were left with just a few days to retrieve all of the materials from Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, where pieces like mattresses, cushions, and curtains were being stored. “I did not sleep, I did not eat. I spent every moment on my phone or on my computer, calling people for help to pick up the pieces,” Acosta told Hyperallergic.
Acosta hurriedly coordinated with artist Robin Markle to truck the materials to a building in South Philadelphia, where they are now being stored. The artists have also launched a GoFundMe drive to raise $10,000 in the face of what they describe as a “financial crisis” with the mounting bill of storage fees.
Back in March, Heather Agyepong posted a video on Twitter explaining that she was visiting Black Power Naps at MoMA when she asked a White woman in the space to quiet down her laughter, since it was an exhibition centered around the needs of Black people. The woman reportedly began threatening her and calling her “aggressive,” and museum security responded by escorting Agyepong out of the show. Her video quickly went viral and the museum issued an apology.
“I think Heather [Agyepong] was extremely careful about not blaming us and shifting the responsibility to the institution,” Acosta said. Even so, some social media users blamed the project and its creators. On a Hyperallergic video summarizing the situation, one commenter opined that “the installation is literally segregating people like they did back in the South.”
Acosta said they had asked MoMA to implement structural racism training that the artists had developed specifically for the exhibition to mitigate such situations, but the museum allegedly chose not to provide the training because of budgetary and timing issues. The artists noted to Hyperallergic in March that they felt that the museum had brushed off their concerns about potential issues arising. It was after their apology to Agyepong, however, that the museum worked with the artists to implement training for the final weeks of the show.
MoMA has not responded to Hyperallergic’s request for further comment, including questions about the timeline of its decision to implement specific training for the show. At the time of the incident, the museum provided a statement to the Art Newspaper promising to “protect the experiences of Black visitors and visitors from Indigenous communities and communities of color.”
The creators of Black Power Naps say they encountered issues with MoMA even before the cascade of events following Agyepong’s expulsion from the exhibition. In February, MoMA posted photos of the artists and collaborators at the exhibition’s opening on their Instagram, allegedly without their approval. The photos showed the artists and collaborators posing in front of famous pieces of art; one showed them napping in front of a Picasso painting, and another was what Acosta describes as a “crotch shot” of Sosa. After it was posted, “suddenly, we were getting a lot of hate,” they said, describing people who were “racist, and loud and proud about it.”
“They were coming to our pages and trying to dox us and threaten us. It was really, really bad,” Acosta said. “And MoMA had a horrible response to that.”
When the artists asked that the museum make a statement on their Instagram in their defense, they allegedly refused. The museum did not take down the post, which is still live on their page. MoMA has not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s inquiry regarding the museum’s handling of the Instagram post.
Acosta and Sosa created Black Power Naps to address the racial “sleep gap”: Studies have shown that Black Americans get significantly less sleep than White Americans. Bathed in rich hues, the installation is placed in a “space that we try to make as Black as possible.”
The artists also push back against the traditional association between literal whiteness and rest. “White, white linens, white cotton, white sand — white is very much associated with what we know about self-care and rest,” Acosta said. “We’re basically proving that a saturation of color is fun and also restful.”
“We’re looking at rest in different dimensions of space and time,” Accosta added.
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