CRITIC’s CHOICE (RISD MUSEUM 2019)
Critique is a hallmark of the art field. Yet, the vast majority of paid cultural critics, curators, museum leadership and museum visitors are white and affluent. In a world that systematically amplifies certain voices and silences others, what possibilities and truths are we missing?
“Critic’s Choice” is an exhibition of site-specific art interventions throughout the RISD Museum. The interventions—which span the Museum’s galleries, lobby, public signage, and website—address community members’ critiques about access, inclusion, and cultural and financial equity at the Museum.
Each intervention was carried out by a commissioned artist and advised by a paid “critic”—a Rhode Islander who doesn’t normally visit art museums. “Critic’s Choice” celebrates the knowledge of non-museum-goers, affirming that their lived experience is both a valid basis for cultural critique, and a crucial perspective that museums must center.
PROJECTS
The following projects were developed based on four participating critic’s first visits to the RISD Museum as part of Look at Art. Get Paid.
Topic: Belonging
Title: Con Permiso
Materials: Video, performance, print | Location: Chace Lobby
Critic: Laurilim Rosado | Lead Artist: Shey Rivera
Written in neon at the entryway to a museum, “You belong here,” reads as if it were true. But is it within the museum’s power to make this so? Who grants permission to belong? Who grants permission to belong? Taking up the politics of belonging, Shey Rivera’s multimedia installation directly responds to Tavares Strachan’s You Belong Here by amplifying the voices of those for whom the statement rings hollow.
To create Con Permiso (which translates to “excuse me”), Rivera asked community members what dominant institutions would need to look and feel like for the sentiment “You belong here” to hold true. The resulting quotes were interpreted and translated into video, print, and performance. The final iteration of the work is a document that will be sent to leadership at the RISD Museum. Con Permiso tackles the gap between what is and what ought to be––and in turn becomes a call to action.
Topic: Security
Title: Security Checkpoint
Materials: Cardboard, papier-mache, paint | Location: Grand Gallery
Critic: Orianna Rodriguez | Lead Artist: Dana Heng
Orianna Rodriguez was one of many LAAGP critics whose experience of the RISD Museum was shaped by the presence of security and surveillance. Many critics noted how security disproportionality impacted people of color—particularly those who weren’t dressed like “typical museum-goers”—more than others. As one critic remarked, “I constantly felt like I was being watched in every room.”
Dana Heng’s multi-media installation calls attention to the relationship between identity and security in institutional spaces. Security Checkpoint is a replica of a TSA security checkpoint—complete with stanchions, walk-through metal detectors, and a conveyor belt scanner. Visitors must wait in line to be ushered through the installation, bringing to center stage an experience of security that "typical museum-goers" might not otherwise consider.
Topic: Authorship
Title: risdmuseum.org/edit
Materials: Chrome Extension* on RISD Museum Website
Critic: Stephan McCants Jr. | Designer: Lukas Eigler-Harding
Many Look at Art. Get Paid. critics took detailed notes on their impressions, questions, and assessments during their visit to the RISD Museum. Working closely with project critic Stephan McCants Jr., designer Lukas Eigler-Harding built a Chrome Extension* that places these notes directly onto the RISD Museum’s website, bringing the voices of first-time museum visitors into conversation with the Museum’s voice.
A former graffiti artist, McCants is an expert at reading and writing on the urban landscape. He brings a unique ability to see—and subvert—hierarchies, be it on the street, in the museum’s galleries, or within the pages of the museum’s website. Visit risdmuseum.org/edit to download this free extension.
*A Chrome Extension is a piece of software that customizes a user’s experience while browsing with Chrome.
Topic: Public Signage
Title: LOOK, PRE-OWNED, BEAUTY, PERFORMANCE, VALUE, ALL WELCOME
Materials: Nylon, metal | Location: Chace Plaza
Critic: Debra Harris | Artists: Maia Chao and Josephine Devanbu
“[The Museum] feels like it’s something exclusive and tucked away just for certain people. If it were to be more visible I think that would be helpful.” —LAAGP Critic
Many LAAGP critics noted that they had driven past the museum hundreds of times, not knowing it was open to the public or what they could expect to find inside. This intervention into the RISD Museum’s signage aims to make the Museum more visible, legible, and approachable to those who aren’t already familiar with it. The installation uses feather flags—tall nylon flags commonly placed outside storefronts and businesses—to interrupt the cryptic and minimalist aesthetics of signage in elite art institutions. The phrases printed on the flags are often used by auto-dealerships, pawn shops, and beauty salons. They also happen to apply to the art museum.
Topic: Etiquette
Title: Bolita Lalim
Materials: Performance | Location: Multiple galleries throughout the Museum
Critic and Artist: Laurilim Rosado
“I just am so afraid that I’m going to do something wrong. Like, I don’t want to mess with anyone’s art, I don’t want to break anything, I don’t want to be disrespectful, so I’m really hesitant.” —LAAGP Critic
Many LAAGP critics commented on the implicit and explicit social codes of the art museum, and the strict rules of the space. They discussed the silence, stillness, and minimal interaction between museum-goers, along with their desire to touch the art. Many expressed a fear of “messing up,” attracting attention, or getting scolded.
“Bolita Lalim” is a performance by LAAGP critic Laurilim Rosado, who trained as a clown in Puerto Rico before immigrating to Rhode Island in 2010. With a craft based in the close study of people’s behavior, Laurilim makes an intervention into museum etiquette by mimicking and subverting social norms in the Museum. As Bolita Lalim (Rosado’s clown name), Rosado makes visible the arbitrary etiquette of looking at art in a museum space and the steep learning curve of a museum newcomer. Laurilim hopes that her clowning will counteract the rigid rules of the institution, helping people feel more comfortable in the space.
CRITIC AND ARTIST BIOS
Laurilim Rosado
Laurilim Rosado works for the Central Falls school department where she serves as a interpreter and data compliance officer for elementary special education. She is also a passionate advocate for healthcare access for her family and her wider community. Laurilim moved to the US mainland in 2012, from Puerto Rico. Laurilim has been a practicing clown since 1998, getting her start visiting children's hospitals. She practices Yoruba religion and is a mother of three children.
Shey Rivera
Shey Rivera Ríos (pronouns: they/them) is a multi-genre artist active in the mediums of performance, digital media, installation, and poetry/narrative. Their creations span several genres and a myriad of topics, from home to capitalism to queerness to magic. Rivera has eight years of experience in the non profit arts sector intersecting with urban planning. Their work centers on art and culture as economic drivers in community development, grounded on racial and gender equity. Rivera is the former Artistic Director of AS220, an arts organization and creative incubator in Providence, RI. Rivera has a BA in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR-Rio Piedras), and graduate studies in Contemporary Media and Culture from the University of the Sacred Heart, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Currently, Rivera serves as the Director of Inclusive Regional Development at MIT CoLab, in the Dept of Urban Studies and Planning.
Orianna Rodriguez
Orianna Rodriguez is a Venezuelan rapper mami with flow. As a female rapper and producer, she’s finessed a voice that cuts through people's expectations. Too dope–but never too cool, Orianna believes music and producing is for everyone and helps beginners find their footing and sound. She's a risk taker who creates her own opportunities and pushes boundaries for her art and her people. Originally from Pawtucket, Orianna lives and works in Providence, RI.
Dana Heng
Dana Heng is an observer and an experimenter. She often collaborates with others, and she enjoys playing with different mediums, techniques, and ways of thinking. Much of her energy is focused on organizing and creating space for her community. She is currently an artist mentor at New Urban Arts, where she mentors high school students in painting and drawing. She also co-founded a cooperatively owned print and ceramic studio called Binch Press. In her creative practice and through object-making, Dana explores her family history, critiques social structures, and envisions new worlds and ways of being. She is a first-generation Khmer-American and was raised in the South Side of Providence, where she resides today.
Stephan McCants
Stephan McCants, of Providence, RI, has been working in retail for over ten years, and will probably start a business in that field. Currently, you can find him at Fully Rooted Juice & Kombucha. Stephan was introduced to art outside of standardized schooling through friends in graffiti crews. It was through this experience that he learned how to steal like an artist. Throughout the blog era Stephan used multiple platforms to display photography and things of the like. He tracks down sought-after fashion items and resells them in his spare time. He is depressed and living below the poverty line.
Lukas Eigler-Harding
Lukas Eigler-Harding works as an artist, designer, and web developer composing sites, identities, research, and strategy with collaborators and clients.
Debra Harris
Since 2015 Debra Harris has worked for Direct Action Rights for Equality (DARE) within its prison reform committee, Behind the Walls. She is also Founder and Director of Teens Matter, a community project that raises awareness about teenage suicide. Passionate about music and well-connected to RI’s music scene, Debra regularly hosts local musicians at her fundraising events for Teens Matter. Her goal is to teach community members who work with adolescents about suicide prevention. Someday she hopes to establish a crisis call center in her community. At the heart of all her community work is a dedication to fighting inequality and saving lives. Debra lives and works in RI.
Maia Chao
Maia Chao is an interdisciplinary artist from Providence, RI. As a child, she spent 10 years working as an exceedingly normal cashier named Eveny Chefa, at a fictional store in her parents’ basement called Harland’s. Guided by an abiding obsession with social norms and values, Chao’s work explores play and absurdity as subversive and emancipatory tools for collaboration and collective imagining. Chao holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from RISD. She is currently a Van Lier fellow for the Asian American Arts Alliance (NYC) and will be artist in residence at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, NY (2019).
Josephine Devanbu
Josephine Devanbu is an artist committed to socially engaged art that models counter-institutions, alternative spaces, and resource redistribution. Along with Look at Art. Get Paid. co-creator Maia Chao, Devanbu has held a Mellon Foundation supported artist residency at Haverford College (2018), and been shortlisted for the Creative Capital Award (2019). Devanbu holds a BFA in Painting from RISD and a BA in Science and Technology Studies from Brown University. She is on staff at RISD Research and artist in residence at the Dirt Palace, a feminist collective in Providence, RI.
“Critic’s Choice” is organized by Maia Chao and Josephine Devanbu—the artists behind Look at Art. Get Paid.
Assistance from Hanna Exel, Ruby Stenhouse, Kevin Wiesner, Gabby Widjaja, G Cha, and Benjamin Lundberg Torres Sánchez, and Bo Won Keum
This activity is made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by the City of Providence Department of Art, Culture + Tourism.
