Power of the People: Art and Democracy

Agit Prop at the MFA

By: MFA - Oct 02, 2024

 

Throughout history, artists and makers have expressed ideas about democracy and asked citizens to contemplate its promise, participate in its practice, and call for improvements. Organized against the backdrop of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Power of the People: Art and Democracy at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), presents diverse perspectives on democracy through 175 works of art that include ceramics, coins, inscriptions, paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, posters, and fashion. The objects range in time from democracy’s origins in Greece to today—from a marble portrait of Socrates, who famously criticized the political system, to a multimedia work by Cambridge-based contemporary artist Tomashi Jackson that explores the history of voter disenfranchisement and suppression in Black communities. Power of the People is drawn almost entirely from the MFA’s collection, including celebrated works that have been re-contextualized for the exhibition alongside objects on view for the first time.

Leading up to the exhibition’s opening, the MFA is hosting voter registration in partnership with SPARK Boston, offered during the Museum’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day Open House (October 14), and MFA Late Nites (October 25). On October 26—the opening day of the exhibition—and October 27, the MFA’s Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art will serve as an early voting location from 7 am to 8 pm. Power of the People: Art and Democracy is on view through February 16, 2025 in the Charlotte F. and Irving W. Rabb Gallery and Henry and Lois Foster Gallery.

“Artists and the works they create invite us to evaluate what’s working and what isn’t working in our democracy. Their voices have been crucial for advancing democracy’s cause through the ages,” said Phoebe Segal, Mary Bryce Comstock Senior Curator of Greek and Roman Art. “When we look at the art of the past we see that our challenges are not unique. Art can help us make sense of our time—and to feel less alone in it.”

Segal curated the exhibition in partnership with Patrick Murphy, Lia and William Poorvu Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, in addition to collaborating with colleagues across curatorial departments. Six high school students from Curatorial Study Hall—one of the MFA’s three paid teen programs—helped to choose objects for the exhibition, develop concepts, and write a selection of labels. College students from MFA Pathways—the Museum’s paid internship program—also worked on the exhibition, contributing their perspectives on democracy to an in-gallery video.

The exhibition is organized into three thematic sections, exploring the promise, the practice, and the preservation of democracy:

• The design of the “Promise of Democracy” section was inspired by the bouleuterion, a building in an ancient Greek city-state with inward-facing, stadium-style stone seating, where the council (boule) met to discuss and vote on public matters. Several of the works in this room challenge the claims of the past, calling attention to the gap between the dream and the reality of democracies. Among the highlights is Sandow Birk’s large-scale print White Out: A Monumental Arch to American History (2021), displayed next to the epic 16th-century work of political propaganda that it was inspired by: Albrecht Dürer’s Triumphal Arch of Maximilian I (1515). Measuring six feet wide and eight-and-a-half feet tall, Birk’s piece re-examines American history as one built and shaped by people of color. It was acquired by the MFA specifically for the exhibition.
• The “Practice of Democracy” section explores voting and its protection as defining features of a democracy. The works on view range from Jean-Francois Millet’s The Sower (1850), painted when voting in France was restricted to only men who could demonstrate three years’ residence at their current address through tax records, to a marble relief portrait of abolitionist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe and Shepard Fairey’s Vote! poster (2008, Collection of Damon Beale) that encouraged voter participation in the 2008 presidential election. The section also includes works that highlight various forms of public service and others that acknowledge the obstacles that many groups still face to engage in democracy, including Tribal Map (2000) by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes).
• The works in the “Preservation of Democracy” section were made by artists advocating for social change. In May 1968, Boston’s Artists Against Racism and the War (AARW) group banded together to protest both the Vietnam War and racist crimes perpetuated throughout not just their city, but the entire country. Their portfolio of 25 prints, which range from didactic and straightforward to more abstract and open to more than one interpretation, is on display in its entirety. Another wall is dedicated to posters made by students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in May 1970. Some were printed for specific political events in and around Boston in response to the Kent State shootings, while others call attention to the civil rights and Black Power movements. This section also includes loans from the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists (NCAAA) in Roxbury, contextualizing what was happening around the time of the institution’s founding by arts educator Elma Lewis in 1968.

Public Programs

Organized in conjunction with Power of the People: Art of Democracy, the Estelle Shohet Brettman Memorial Lecture on November 2 brings Stanford University historian Josiah Ober to the MFA for a conversation with exhibition curator Phoebe Segal. Ober and Segal will discuss how we can use art and museums to shed light on democracies from ancient societies and our own.

On November 15 and 16, Emerson College students perform a modern take on Aristophanes’ play Assemblywomen. In the gender-bending comedy, which was originally performed in 391 B.C.E., the women of Athens take the state into their own hands, critiquing the aptitude and motives of the male citizenry. On December 5, Kurt Faustin of the Dropout Summit moderates an exhibition-related panel as part of The City Talks, the MFA’s conversation series that brings together local thought leaders.

Sponsors

Supported by the Museum Council Special Exhibition Fund.