Art in the Courtroom: Dealing with New Deal-Era Murals – Part II

By Olivia Taylor

At one of the TEFAF New York Coffee Talks on “Public Memory and Public Monuments: Where Do We Stand in 2018?”, Professor of Art History at Columbia University Barry Bergdoll introduced the notion of “a meaningless monument as the only one that can occupy public space” due to public criticism of historical monuments. He cited the obelisk in Central Park as an example, only in the sense that the majority of the public is unaware of what an obelisk actually is and in this ignorance, are unable to be offended by it. This disheartening phenomenon surrounding historically controversial art was addressed in terms of censorship in Part I of this two-part article series focusing on one controversial piece: Pursuits of Life in Mississippi. At the conclusion of Part I, Artist Simka Simkhovitch’s mural, located in Jackson, Mississippi, and completed in 1938, had been placed under a preservation easement and sold to a private developer.

However, an easement and a change of hands do not make the work any less controversial. The 1930s mural still contains imagery of a city where African Americans pick cotton while white men hold jobs in positions of power. In 2009, the first African-American federal judge in the state of Mississippi, Henry Wingate, posed in front of the mural for a USA Today article saying the following:

“It does not belong in a courtroom where everyone should feel equal. On the other hand, it should not be destroyed, because it is our history.”