This Met is Mine
February 1, 2023 by Ben Khadim DeMott
Manhattan’s Just Above Midtown (JAM) gallery became a haven for Black Atlantic artists in the 70s and 80s. A current exhibit at MOMA chronicles work first shown at JAM and includes art by Lorraine O’Grady. The author of the following post was born long after JAM’s moment. He encountered O’Grady’s work on the campus of the University of Chicago. It launched him on a trip that took him back to the playful start of his own art-life…
I came across one of the sixteen diptychs that make up Lorraine O’Grady’s Miscegenated Family Album— (Cross Generational) L: Nefertiti, the last image; R: Devonia\’s youngest Daughter, Kimberley—in the the Booth collection.
It’s placed in an international corner with pieces from Pakistan, Australian fishing nets, German photographer Ursula Schulz Dornberg’s pictures of the Soviet steppe, and another photography project from China. Maybe this area works like the rest of Booth’s eclectic mixes, but it made me feel like I was at a pricey international art auction, a realm where diversity training and pseudo-artistry converge. The Scottish accent on the audio guide—an ocean away from South Side’s—sounded like a Sotheby auctioneer’s. I was
grasping for a means to connect with this less than accessible part of the collection, until I found O’Grady’s work. Initially drawn in by its title. I wondered if the piece might have some personal resonance, since I’m mixed. My way into the work, though, would rest on my little history at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as my biracial identity…
The Met on a rainy day is a fine thing. It was the first time I had been in a while (this was after the first Covid wave). Under the enveloping awning to keep dry from the summer rain (even though it didn’t really need escaping from), I got ready to show my vax card at the door—a procedure that still felt new and strange at the time. The usual harmonies from different languages were muffled by masks and the decrease in tourists. Despite these changes, it was good to be back…until it wasn’t. It was quick, slight. I was checking my bag, and one of the attendants—my memory fails me here—was it a hand gesture, a contemptuous tone, a directive, a condescending combo? My reaction, though, remains easy to recall. I felt disrespected. The attendant had somehow made it clear he assumed I didn’t know where I was supposed to go. ( … )