Black Emergency Cultural Coalition Explained

The Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC) was founded by a group of artists as an art strike to protest New York museums for their exclusion of black artists and curators in major art exhibitions. For many years, the BECC and its members directed and sponsored counter-exhibitions, arts education programs, and artists-led demonstrations, including the Harlem on My Mind protest.

History

The Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC) was founded in January 1969 by a group of Black artists-activists to protest questionable practices at The Met and the Whitney Museum.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The Met

Benny Andrews and others[6] organized the BECC to protest the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s documentary exhibition, “Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900–68,”[7] that did not include one painting or sculpture by a Harlem-based artist.[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, and Faith Ringgold were all living in Harlem at the time of The Met exhibit, and works by Bearden and Lawrence were already included in The Met's permanent collection.[7]

The BECC argued that by not including the work of a Harlem artist in a show about Harlem, a community with historical significance to Black artists,[13] the Met was passing judgement on the quality and relevance of Black artists.[4]

Whitney Museum

In addition, the Whitney Museum mounted “The 1930’s: Painting and Sculpture in America” exhibition in 1968, and did not include any black artists in the show.[1] [14] [4]

In response to the Whitney's omission of Black artists, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the BECC presented “Invisible Americans: Black Artists of the ’30s,[14] [4] which included Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence who, ironically, were exhibited at the Whitney in the 1930s.[14] The BECC used as their protest slogan the phrase, “Ignored in the ’30s, ignored in the ’60s.”[14]

The BECC protests and demonstrations led to discussions between the Whitney and BECC about future museum shows.[14] [10] The BECC believed that the “Contemporary Black Artists in America” exhibit planned for the Whitney in 1970, would be an opportunity for the Whitney to hire black curators.[14] The Whitney did not agree; Robert “Mac” Doty, a white curator who had organized three previous Whitney shows of black artists,[3] [12] was selected to direct the “Contemporary Black Artists in America” show.[14] [3] To show solidarity with the BECC, 15 Black artists withdrew from the Whitney's “Contemporary Black Artists in America” show.[3] [12] [14]

Two outcomes from the BECC-Whitney protests were: 1. the Whitney purchased additional works by Black artists for its permanent collection;[3] and 2. the Whitney agreed to host “at least five one-man shows for black artists in the small gallery off the Whitney’s lobby.”[14] Between 1969 and 1975, the Whitney hosted one-person shows for Mel Edwards, Richard Hunt (1969),[3] Alvin Loving (1969),[15] Betye Saar, Alma Thomas (1972),[16] and others in the ground-floor gallery, albeit away from the main gallery spaces on the museum's upper floors.[14]

Counter-exhibition

As a counter-exhibition, the BECC presented “Rebuttal to the Whitney Museum Exhibition: Black Artists in Rebuttal,” at the black-owned Acts of Art Gallery, located at 15 Charles Street in Greenwich Village.[3] [17] [18] The Acts of Art Gallery was founded by artists Nigel Jackson and Patricia Gray to present the work of Black artists in a neighborhood “outside of the ghetto areas.”[19] "Rebuttal" featured the work of 47 black artists who opposed the “Contemporary Black Artists in America” exhibit.[20] [21] [22]

Prison Arts Program

In 1971, the BECC created a Prison Arts Program in response to the Attica Prison riot in New York.[23] [2] [24] The following year, the BECC, in collaboration with Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Vietnam,[25] published the, “Attica Book,” that included black-and-white reproductions of works by forty-eight artists, including Benny Andrews, Faith Ringgold, Irving Petlin, Jacob Lawrence, Jack Sonenberg,[26] Mary Frank, Melvin Edwards, and Vivian Browne.[24] Eventually, the prison arts program would expand to twenty states, and the BECC would sponsor similar programs in juvenile detention centers and mental health facilities throughout the United States.[2]

The BECC sponsored several other arts education programs, including the Artisan Alliance (Green Haven Correctional Facility: Stormville, NY)[27] and Sinbad School of Art (Brooklyn, NY).[2]

Non-profit status

In 1972, the BECC was incorporated as a non-profit organization.[2] The directors and artists worked on a volunteer basis, and the organization received funding from public and private sources.[2]

The BECC continued to advocate for the inclusion of Black artists and the hiring of Black professionals in curatorial and decision-making roles within New York museums and art galleries into the mid-1970s.[4]

In 1980, the BECC, in partnership with the PPS-Galerie and S. Fischer Verlag, sponsored the 1980 “Xango” exhibit at the Countee Cullen Branch Library in Harlem.[2] [28]

In 1982, the BECC ceased operations.[2] [23]

Members

BECC membership ranged from a dozen of artists to 150 members.[12] The following is a partial membership list.

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Wallace . Caroline V. . 2015-04-03 . Exhibiting Authenticity: The Black Emergency Cultural Coalition's Protests of the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1968-71 . Art Journal . en . 74 . 2 . 5–23 . 10.1080/00043249.2015.1095535 . 0004-3249.
  2. Web site: archives.nypl.org -- Black Emergency Cultural Coalition records . 2024-10-23 . archives.nypl.org.
  3. Web site: 15 of 75 Black Artists Leave As Whitney Exhibition Opens . 2024-10-23.
  4. Web site: Compagnon . Madeleine . 2020-07-06 . How Black Artists Fought Exclusion in Museums . 2024-10-23 . JSTOR Daily . en-US.
  5. Handler, M.S. "75 artists urge closing of museum's 'insulting' harlem exhibit". The New York Times. January 23, 1969.
  6. Web site: CV and Chronology . 2024-10-23 . Benny Andrews Estate . en-US.
  7. Web site: Baum . Kelly . Robles . Maricelle . Yount . Sylvia . 2021-02-17 . “Harlem on Whose Mind?”: The Met and Civil Rights - The Metropolitan Museum of Art . 2024-10-23 . www.metmuseum.org . en.
  8. Cooks . Bridget R. . 2007 . Black Artists and Activism: Harlem on My Mind (1969) . American Studies . 48 . 1 . 5–39 . 10.1353/ams.0.0137 . 2153-6856.
  9. Web site: Godfrey . Mark . 2015-05-01 . MELVIN EDWARDS AND FRANK BOWLING IN DALLAS . 2024-10-23 . Artforum . en-US.
  10. Cahan, Susan. Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power. see Chapters 2 and 3. Duke University Press, 2016.
  11. Web site: 2021-09-01 . Why Successful Black Artists Are Creating Residency Programs To Mentor Younger Artists . 2024-10-23 . Black Art In America™ Gallery & Gardens . en.
  12. Web site: 1971-04-12 . Art: In a Black Bind . 2024-10-23 . TIME . en.
  13. Web site: Harlem and the Historical Influence of Black Artists – One Twenty-Fifth . 2024-10-23 . en.
  14. Web site: Almino . Elisa Wouk . Wallace . Caroline . 2017-04-27 . Three Lessons from Artists’ Protests of the Whitney Museum in the 1960s–70s . 2024-10-23 . Hyperallergic . en-US.
  15. Web site: Alvin Loving Rational Irrationalism . 2024-10-23 . whitney.org . en.
  16. Web site: Alma Thomas . 2024-10-23 . whitney.org . en.
  17. Web site: 2018-10-04 . Acts of Art and Rebuttal in 1971 . 2024-10-23 . Hunter College Art Galleries . en-US.
  18. Web site: 2022-11-14 . By Way of Harlem: A Legacy Exhibition is a Survey of the Work of Iconic 20th Century Artists Collectors Should Know . 2024-10-23 . Black Art In America™ Gallery & Gardens . en.
  19. Web site: Acts of Art in Greenwich Village . 2024-10-23 . artguide.artforum.com . en-US.
  20. Weng . Sherry . 2022-01-01 . Color and Abstraction: Peter Bradley’s Resistance Against “Black Art” Through Curation and Painting . Research Days Posters 2022.
  21. Web site: Bryan-Wilson . Julia . 2016-06-01 . SUSAN E. CAHAN’S MOUNTING FRUSTRATION: THE ART MUSEUM IN THE AGE OF BLACK POWER . 2024-10-23 . Artforum . en-US.
  22. Web site: Brown . Jessica Bell . 2017-01-17 . How Black Modern Artists Defied a Singular Narrative in 1971 . 2024-10-23 . Hyperallergic . en-US.
  23. Web site: 2022-10-17 . The Black Emergency Cultural Coalition: Direct Action and Attica Prison – Rose Library News . 2024-10-23 . en-US.
  24. Web site: The Contemporary Arts of Attica Blank Forms . 2024-10-23 . www.blankforms.org . en.
  25. Web site: Artists and Writers Protest against the War in Vietnam . 2024-10-23.
  26. Web site: Jack Sonenberg . 2024-10-23.
  27. Artisan Alliance (Green Haven Correctional Facility: Stormville, N.Y.). Black Emergency Cultural Coalition records, 1971-1984. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division | Sc MG 399
  28. Web site: Exhibition examples . 2024-10-23 . Leonore Mau . en-US.
  29. Web site: Benny Andrews . 2024-10-23 . Studio Museum in Harlem . en.
  30. Web site: Andrews and Ghent . 2024-10-23 . Benny Andrews Estate . en-US.
  31. Web site: Williams . Kyle . 2022-04-03 . Benny Andrews: Looking for That "Bigger Thing" - The Metropolitan Museum of Art . 2024-10-23 . www.metmuseum.org . en.
  32. Web site: Mahler Ryder, 54, Teacher of Illustration . 2024-10-23.

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