Premium
Curating Inequality: The Link between Cultural Reproduction and Race in the Visual Arts
Author(s) -
Blackwood Andria,
Purcell David
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
sociological inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.446
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1475-682X
pISSN - 0038-0245
DOI - 10.1111/soin.12030
Subject(s) - sociology , white supremacy , reproduction , gender studies , narrative , critical race theory , face (sociological concept) , social reproduction , construct (python library) , the arts , social inequality , aesthetics , race (biology) , inequality , social science , visual arts , art , ecology , social capital , mathematical analysis , literature , mathematics , computer science , biology , programming language
Although the U.S. population is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, research indicates that minority participation in the arts continues to decline. This article addresses the racial disparity of public art museum attendance by examining the role of the art museum curator and the process by which concepts of race are reproduced within the space of the public art museum. Utilizing Bourdieu's theories of cultural reproduction, social space, and symbolic power as a preliminary framework of inquiry, we examine the concept of whiteness as privileged social construct. Through face‐to‐face in‐depth interviews with museum curators, we investigate the means by which the dominant cultural narrative of whiteness is maintained through the preferences, decisions, and social interactions of curators. We draw upon critical white studies, a part of critical race theory, to underline the manner in which whiteness presents itself as a position of dominance. Our findings show that whiteness is maintained through the process of exclusion by presenting the white cultural narrative as both ordinary and invisible.