Humanity Is Not A Spectator Sport

The racial vitriol towards President Obama, the election of Donald Trump, the racially fueled murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Ahmed Arbery, and the endemic inequalities surfaced by the Covid outbreak have brought on a profound reckoning for many, including myself. A giant spotlight is now shining on what I felt I must urgently address in my artwork. 

 

The question that occupies me most is how I can continue to recognize and actively use my privilege in order to bend the arc of justice. What is required of me at this critical point in time? While I ardently believe in the need for systemic and institutional reform, I am acutely aware that one must also question one’s own personal narrative. And yet, it’s too easy to point fingers or blame others for inequality and racism when in fact, we all play a role. I play a role.

 

Over the last few years, I have spent significant time engaging in “difficult conversations”, a term coined by Robert Livingston of Harvard University. Dinners, walks, and studio visits with artists, friends, activists, and colleagues have resulted in a very intentional investigation of my role, responsibilities, and culpability as a white, Jewish woman within the racially charged and unequal society in which we live. Voicing aloud and giving a visual presentation to my own deeply-instilled judgments remains a first key step in an ongoing pursuit of deeper understanding and better engagement with our social inequalities. 

 

This exhibition, Humanity Is Not a Spectator Sport, attempts to offer a deep and intimately visual response to this reckoning offering both a very personal portrait, as well as a call to action. This conceptual mixed media work draws heavily from core Jewish tenets and my deep Jewish identity, interchanging between the personal and the universal. One such tenet that I hold as a guidepost comes from the book of Deuteronomy 16:18-

 

     Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof

     Justice Justice You Shall Pursue

 

Musa Meyer, the daughter of the world-renowned artist Phillip Guston, said of her father’s paintings: “The paintings are essentially about white culpability - the culpability of all of us, including himself… he wasn't pointing fingers at others, he was pointing it at himself. What hope is there if an artist can’t examine themselves?”. Her words deeply resonate with me. In Humanity is Not a Spectator Sport, I am, in part, pointing the finger at myself and my hope is that it will inspire others to face their culpability and look inward as well.  This I believe is the significant role art can play in reshaping how we think about the significant issues they address.

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The title of the show is a riff off the term “Democracy Is Not A Spectator Sport,”  attributed to Lotte E. Scharfman, a refugee who escaped with her family from Austria during World War II. After coming to the United States, Scharfman became a member of the Massachusetts League of Women Voters, devoting her life to working for the democratic process and to helping citizens gain access to their government. She embodies the concept that in humanity as in democracy, we must all take an active role.