A diverse and kaleidoscopic art exhibition, curated by 17 members of its security staff, spotlights the perspectives of employees typically seen but rarely heard.
BALTIMORE — Museum guards have been a focal point of unionizing efforts and equity and safety conversations sweeping U.S. museums in the wake of Covid, Black Lives Matter protests and the recent stabbing at MoMA. Yet they have largely remained an anonymous group.
“When you’re a guard, you’re on display like everything else, but you’re kind of invisible to the public,” said the artist Fred Wilson, who worked as a guard in the 1970s at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, N.Y. Pushing for institutions to become more self-aware, he created a sculpture in 1991 called “Guarded View,” showing four Black headless mannequins wearing uniforms from different New York museums, and posed on a platform, that speaks to this paradox and its social and racial dynamics.
Now, in what may be the first show of its kind, guards at the Baltimore Museum of Art are stepping into the light as guest curators — and individuals. It is part of a national reckoning by museums striving for diversity and inclusiveness — and looking for original ways to bring in a range of voices to interpret the art.
Opening Sunday, “Guarding the Art” includes works from the museum’s encyclopedic collections selected by 17 members of the security team, for highly personal reasons. They have collaborated interdepartmentally on every aspect of the exhibition, from writing wall labels to developing brand identity to designing the installation.
Traci Archable-Frederick, 50, who worked in screening at the airport for the Homeland Security Department before joining the B.M.A. in 2006, was initially hesitant to participate but signed on because of her interest in the installation department. “I’ve seen so many different shows here in 16 years and they make everything magical,” she said. Her selection of Mickalene Thomas’s “Resist #2” (2021), a mixed-media canvas collaged with contemporary and historical images of civil rights protests, is “dealing with all the wrongs that are happening in the world,” she said. “When I saw it, I was like, ‘This is everything that I want to say.’”
