Tate Britain Announces Decision on Racist Whistler Mural
By Katie Bono
Tate Britain’s Rex Whistler Restaurant. Photo by: Jeffery Isaac Greenberg via Alamy Stock Photo.
After a lengthy deliberation, Tate Britain has decided to leave Rex Whistler’s mural “The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats” intact. The 55-foot mural was commissioned in the 1920s and completed in 1927 to entice diners in the Tate Gallery restaurant. The work depicts a hunting party traversing mountains and vaguely Oriental landscapes in pursuit of exotic food and drink. Two sections of the mural, each inches large, sparked a discussion that forced the Tate to reckon with Britain’s attitude towards race and empire and its own role in institutional racism. The sections in question showed a white woman dragging a young Black boy as her slave and another section that shows a Black boy running behind a horse-drawn cart with a collar tied to his neck. In summer 2020, several posts surfaced on social media of the racist images with many people calling into question why the Tate had allowed such derogatory depictions to remain on display. While this was certainly the most public discussion of the mural, there were other internal discussions in the museum prior to the social media frenzy. The issue was raised repeatedly by staff members of colour but the only concession was a brief explanatory text attached to the door of the restaurant in 2019. Tate Britain has since stated that the work is unequivocally offensive and racist.
MP Diane Abbott advocates for Tate Britain to move the restaurant.
Tate Britain announced the space will no longer be used as a restaurant or named after Rex Whistler; the museum noted the incredibly uncomfortable juxtaposition of enslaved children of colour and a dining space. Instead, an artist will be commissioned to produce a work that critically engages with the racist subject matter in Whistler’s painting. Tate Britain has begun the process of selecting an artist to exhibit within the space. The decision to leave the mural intact came as a disappointment to several art history scholars and activists who had hoped that the Tate would take more of a hard-line stance and remove the mural altogether. Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente, who run the art criticism account The White Pube, feel that the mural can remain part of critical discussions on race and be removed. The duo highlighted that it is inherently problematic to continue to restore a racist work with millions of pounds in funding for the sake of discussing its imagery.
Legally, however, any sort of destruction was not an option. In 2020 Cultural Minister Oliver Dowden implemented a “retain and explain” policy for works of art that reflect institutional racism in Britain. The decision followed the public toppling and removal of a statue of a slave trader in Brighton and general public outrage over overtly racist images on display throughout Britain. Dowden has explained that objects should remain on display rather than removed or covered for political motivation. The idea is to prompt recognition and critical engagement with problematic legacies. As such, museums are limited in the nuances of their approaches to decolonization. The retain and explain policy stipulates that works are not allowed to be altered or removed so that the cultural context is preserved. In the case of the Whistler mural this means that the images of the Black boys may not simply be covered or removed from the mural, nor can the mural be covered by another work entirely.
Tate Britain’s Rex Whistler Restaurant. Photo by: Jeffery Isaac Greenberg via Getty Images.
In order to reach a decision, Tate Britain formed a committee to discuss the Whistler mural that met with artists, art historians, young activists, and civic representatives. All co-chairs of the group were people of colour apart from Tate Britain’s director Alex Farquharson. Members of the committee noted the difficulty of the resulting conversations and said that many discussions resulted in deep disagreements. Ultimately the work reflects the attitudes towards race and empire that British citizens held nearly a century ago. While the figures in question are mere inches of a 55-foot mural, their casual placement and the relative lack of thought given to them are indicative of the broader issues faced in decolonizing public spaces. Responding to racist legacies can no longer be avoided by museums and Tate Britain must contend with its history.
Bibliography
Bailey, Martin. “Tate to commission artist to ‘critically engage’ with racist imagery in Tate Britain restaurant mural.” The Art Newspaper. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/02/16/tate-commissions-contemporary-artist-to-critically-engage-with-racist-scenes-in-rex-whistlers-tate-britain-restaurant-mural.
Marshall, Alex. “Racist Mural Puts Tate Galleries in a Bind.” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/11/arts/design/tate-mural-rex-whistler-racism.html.
“Tate Britain forms plan to keep offensive Rex Whistler mural.” BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60406878.