Social Media and the Art World

Background: Over the past decade, social media has created a space where art seems to be accessible to everyone who has access to the Internet; no longer is art consumption confined to the walls of a museum or gallery space. Social media has also been used as a means of critiquing the art world and amplifying certain voices that remain excluded from spaces that hold institutional power. Prominent figures of the art world have begun interacting more directly with audiences through social media. Kimberly Drew, author, curator, and former social media manager for the Met, uses her platform to amplify the voices of Black artists and critique the ways that “high culture” is oftentimes racialized. Jerry Saltz, senior art critic for New York magazine, has stated that he hopes to demystify the art critic to a general art audience by engaging directly with audiences through social media while recognizing the asymmetrical power structure between critics and artists. More recently, social media organizations such as @changethemuseum and #museumsarenotneutral have been exposing the systemic racism that is so deeply embedded in many museums in an effort to enact change. 

Resources:

• @changethemuseum on Instagram
  • Hyperallergic: “An Instagram Account Is Amplifying Anonymous Testimonies of Racism in Museums”
  • Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art: “Can the @ChangetheMuseum account actually change the museum? How the Instagram account aims to institute change in our favorite art institutions”
• #museumsarenotneutral
• Kimberly Drew
  • Author of This Is What I Know About Art, co-author of Black Futures, curator, former social media manager for the Met
  • @museummammy on Instagram, @museummammy on Twitter (posts about art, culture, museums)
  • Black Contemporary Art on Tumblr (highlights the work of Black artists)
  • Some interviews:
    • Artnet: The New Innovators: Writer and Curator Kimberly Drew on Why the Stodgy Old Art World Is Finally Opening Up to New Ideas
    • Dazed: How Kimberly Drew, aka @museummammy, became the darling of the art world
    • The New York Times: Kimberly Drew Is a Curator of Black Art and Experiences
• Jerry Saltz
  • Senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine, received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2018, author of How to Be an Artist
  • @jerrysaltz on Instagram, Jerry Saltz on Facebook, @jerrysaltz on Twitter
  • Some articles:
    • HuffPost: New York Magazine’s Art Critic Jerry Saltz Is Killing It At Instagram
    • GQ Magazine: Why Jerry Saltz is the provocative art critic you need to follow
  • Saltz was briefly suspended from Facebook in 2015 after users reported provocative posts
    • Artspace: Jerry Saltz Responds to Being Called “The Donald Trump of Art Social Media’”
  • Jennifer Dalton’s “What Are We Not Shutting Up About?” at the FLAG Foundation in New York statistically analyzed five months of posts from Saltz’s Facebook page
    • Hyperallergic: Jennifer Dalton is “Making Sense” of Jerry Saltz’s Facebook Page
• Social media accounts where folks break down the art scene in different cities for the general public
  • @dallasartcritic on Instagram
    • On how the DMA displayed its Basquiat vs how it displayed its Caravaggio
      • UPDATE: Due to feedback from audiences, the DMA decided to move the Basquiat to a place where it is more visible. 
    • On the Dallas Contemporary’s joining of the Dallas Police Department’s “safe place” program, also mentions the Dallas Contemporary’s firing of two employees after they pushed the museum to make a statement about the surge of Asian American hate crimes during the pandemic

Questions:

• Do these social media efforts have any real impact on institutions? If not, what could be done so that these efforts enact tangible change?
• How do these social media accounts affect the relationship between the public and public-facing institutions?
• What are your thoughts on Kimberly Drew’s and Jerry Saltz’s social media accounts? Do you think their accounts are successful in demystifying the “art world”? Focus on how/what they write about art.
• How are accounts like @dallasartcritic shaping the way people engage with art institutions? Focus on how/what they write about art.

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Student Thoughts

I was scrolling through instagram and saw that the RISD museum posted this for Indigenous People’s Day. I think it is interesting that they are taking accountability of the land that they stand on and emphasizing one of the few European portraits of an Indigenous leader that is not as explicitly racist, while still choosing to opt for a European portrait over highlighting native art. I feel like this is very representative of a sentiment of checking off the boxes without actually changing the system: European portraits of natives are still the respected art form even on Indigenous People’s Day. 

I have recently been following a museum meme account called @museumshit that I think is really funny. Through comedy, they critique a lot of institutional structures and I think it’s very effective (but I am also already self-selected to like those ideas so ?). Anyways, here is the link.