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Humanities LibreTexts

8.14: An interview with Fred Wilson about the conventions of museums and race

  • Page ID
    182287
    • SFMOMA, "An interview with Fred Wilson about the conventions of museums and race," in Smarthistory, December 22, 2020, accessed December 22, 2022, https://smarthistory.org/interview-fred-wilson/.
    • Smarthistory

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    by


    Beginning in the early 1990s, Fred Wilson shook the museum world with his artistic interventions. At the Maryland Historical Society, he used the conventions of the the museum itself to comment on race, with startling juxtapositions such as 19th century armchairs displayed with slave shackles and a whipping post amongst finely crafted woodwoorking. His work uncovers inherent cultural biases and disrupts the more traditional way many Americans understand museums. By San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.