The Buffalo AKG Art Museum was closed for more than 3½ years as the art world, sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement, went through a period of re-examination of the artistic representation of people of color and women in museum collections.
The remade modern and contemporary art museum, formerly Albright-Knox Art Gallery, grappled with these issues as well, but also made huge strides in diversifying the artists it presents long beforehand.
Since 2000, some 47% of all works acquired by Buffalo AKG have been artists who are people of color, compared to 10% represented in the collection between 1862 and 1999, according to Holly Hughes, senior curator for the collection.
The acquisition of works by women artists jumped to 33% from 20% over the same period, in a collection that now numbers 7,868 artworks, roughly half paintings, sculptures, installations and video works and the other half artwork on paper.
“We acquire works because they are great, and you cannot build a great collection right now without representing the diversity of artistic production, including artists of color, women artists, indigenous artists, nonbinary artists and others,” Chief Curator Cathleen Chaffee told The Buffalo News.
Many of the artists coming into the collection use their art to reflect on current and historic conditions, Associate Curator Andrea Alvarez said.
“The art world and the museum world are so deeply shaped by the legacy of colonialism, capitalism and imperialism,” Alvarez said. “That’s something that, even though we are not an encyclopedic museum, we have a responsibility to think about, and it is something the artists that are living and working today are very much addressing in the global contemporary art world.
“It is certainly something that manifests in the collecting practice and the exhibition practices of any contemporary museum worth its salt.”
Serving diverse audiences is especially important for a museum whose…
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