A Museum Visit – Analyzing Social Injustice Through Art (2024)

There are several major issues surrounding racism, sexism, and classism in the art world. In the following activity, students will investigate that through a museum visit. . I think having them do it in groups of two or three would make it even more dynamic, but it does create a strain for scheduling a museum visit. Virtual museum visits will be allowed, but in-person visits will be strongly encouraged.

Rather than only focusing on the art and artists while in the museum, I will instruct students on how to read the ENTIRE plaque that goes with the artwork. This includes who owns that piece or who donated it, which gets to the root problem of classism in the art world. Who decides what goes into the museum? How did it get there? Was it all charitable donations, or is there an issue of cultural theft or gatekeeping? Students are invited to uncover the origins of a specific artwork or even an entire wing of a museum. Art in museums tends to spread to other facets of our lives, from fashion to architecture and even technology. It’s important to question who is setting the trends and who is telling us that the work is important. If they’ve decided one piece is important, that means they decided that other pieces (and artists, usually artists of color and/or women) were not.

The questions the student needs to ask changes depending on the work chosen. Students should consider the original intent of the piece, as well as ideas of privilege, displacement, social class, and favoritism when researching the artwork and the patron associated with it.

Here are some resources for students to use to help them consider some of the social biases, including:

• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/survey-finds-majority-artists-represented-major-museums-are-white-men-180971771/Links to an external site. 
• https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/approaches-to-art-history/tools-for-understanding-museums/museums-in-history/a/art-museums-and-art-objectsLinks to an external site. 
• https://azmagazine.co.uk/classism-and-the-arts-we-still-have-a-long-way-to-go/Links to an external site. 
• https://hyperallergic.com/654108/how-an-art-museum-betrays-its-social-class-bias/Links to an external site. 
• https://blog.americansforthearts.org/2019/05/15/art-vs-racism-privilege-and-displacementLinks to an external site. 
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/42978107Links to an external site. 
• https://blog.artsper.com/en/lifestyle/who-decides-the-value-of-an-artwork/Links to an external site. 
• https://elephant.art/class-visual-arts-barriers-need-broken/Links to an external site. 
• https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-gatekeepers-tastemakers-decide-call-artLinks to an external site.