Black Artists Among Those 'Disappointed' by Delay of Exhibition of Philip Guston's KKK Paintings

Bodo Marks/picture alliance via Getty Philip Guston painting

Nearly 100 prominent artists are criticizing the decision to postpone a Philip Guston retrospective featuring the artist’s Ku Klux Klan paintings, as they argue that the current social climate is all the more reason to embrace the works head-on.

Philip Guston Now was slated to open at London’s Tate Modern next year before coming stateside to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

But on Sept. 21, the four institutions announced that the exhibition had been postponed until 2024 for fear that Guston’s social and racial justice messages might not be “clearly interpreted.”

“We feel it is necessary to reframe our programming and, in this case, step back, and bring in additional perspectives and voices to shape how we present Guston’s work to our public,” the statement said. “That process will take time.”

The decision was met with blowback, however, from dozens of artists, critics, curators and scholars, who shared an open letter via The Brooklyn Rail saying they were “shocked and disappointment” by the postponement.

Martha Holmes/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images via Getty Philip Guston

The letter argued that by expressing fear and anxiety over Guston’s art, the institutions were publicly acknowledging that they have failed to educate, integrate and prepare themselves “to meet the challenges of the renewed pressure for racial justice that has developed over the past five years.”

“Rarely has there been a better illustration of ‘white’ culpability than in these powerful men and women’s apparent feeling of powerlessness to explain to their public the true power of an artist’s work — its capacity to prompt its viewers, and the artist too, to troubling reflection and self-examination,” the letter said. “But the people who run our great institutions do not want trouble. They fear controversy. They lack faith in the intelligence of their audience.”

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The letter also said that by postponing the retrospective, the institutions were attempting to avoid reminding museum-goers that white supremacy still exists today, and were warding off “uncomfortable” questions about class and the institutions’ racial foundations.

“If they feel that in four years, ‘all this will blow over,’ they are mistaken,” the letter said. “Hiding away images of the KKK will not serve that end. Quite the opposite. And Guston’s paintings insist that justice has never yet been achieved.”

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The letter featured signatures from a number of Black artists, including Lorna Simpson, Charles Gaines and Stanley Whitney, as well as contemporary artists like Nicole Eisenman and Matthew Barney.

It ended with a demand that Philip Guston Now be restored to its original schedule, and that museum staffers prepare themselves to discuss the art.

Spokespersons for all four institutions did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

The late Guston first incorporated hooded KKK figures into his works in the early 1930s in pieces that depicted the violence against African Americans, according to the Museum of Modern Art.

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But when the civil rights movement picked up in the late 1960s, he returned to the subject as a means of holding white people accountable.

“They are self-portraits,” he said of the cartoonish works, according to the MoMA. “I perceive myself as being behind the hood… The idea of evil fascinated me… I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan. What would it be like to be evil?”

The pieces show KKK members in various situations, including at an artist’s easel, or driving and smoking.

Works featuring the KKK were exhibited at the last major Guston retrospective in 2003 and 2004 in New York, San Francisco, Fort Worth and London, The New York Times reported.