{"id":129139,"date":"2015-12-15T19:32:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T02:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/15\/amending-art.html"},"modified":"2015-12-19T18:14:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-20T01:14:19","slug":"amending-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/15\/amending-art.html","title":{"rendered":"Amending Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am fully behind updating and amending the descriptions of artwork to modern terminology, including wording that reflects contemporary sensibilities about language.<\/p>\n

I'm a lot more leery about changing the titles<\/i> that artists gave to their works, even if said titles including language that people today find offensive. That's a lesson of history, as much as the art itself. And to make some amendments is a slippery slope, as it justifies all sorts of retitling shenanigans based religious, patriotic, or political "sensitivity".<\/p>\n

So, for example, the illustration below is by Simon Maris, c. 1900. The old title was "Young Negro-Girl". The Rijksmuseum is retitling it to “Young Girl Holding a Fan”. That strikes me as taking away from the history of the piece for the sake of avoiding offense to people who might not want to know that currently objectionable terms were once used a century-plus ago.<\/p>\n

(Note: if the title is not the artist's, but one given to the work by a museum or initial owner at the time, I have no objections to changing it, though keeping a record of the change, both for provenance and for that historical perspective, should be a part of that process.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\n
\n<\/a>
\nRijksmuseum Removing Racially Charged Terms From Artworks’ Titles and Descriptions<\/a><\/span>
\nThe Rijksmuseum in Amstersdam is in the process of removing language that could be considered offensive from digitized titles and descriptions of some 220,000 artworks in its collection.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am fully behind updating and amending the descriptions of artwork to modern terminology, including wording that reflects contemporary sensibilities about language. I'm a lot more leery about changing the titles that artists gave to their works, even if said titles including language that people today find offensive. That's a lesson of history, as much … Continue reading “Amending Art”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,66,740,348,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-media-art","category-race-racism","category-women","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":450,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/11\/all_your_pr0n_i.html","url_meta":{"origin":129139,"position":0},"title":"All your pr0n is belong to us","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 11-Apr-03 1:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Hmm. Seems like the RAVE Act wasn't the only bit of behind-the-scenes amending to the Amber Alert Bill which Congress did, indeed, pass. Among the other bits slipped in, subject...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10705,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/15\/pakistan_tiptoes_forward.html","url_meta":{"origin":129139,"position":1},"title":"Pakistan tiptoes forward to the late 19th Century …","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 15-Nov-06 3:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Woo-hoo! No more death penalty for adultery in Pakistan. And, possibly, some rape victims will have a slight chance of seeing some modicum of justice done. A slight chance. Pakistan's...","rel":"","context":"In "Crime & Punishment"","block_context":{"text":"Crime & Punishment","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/crime-punishment"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9549,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/06\/07\/talk_and_demago.html","url_meta":{"origin":129139,"position":2},"title":"Talk (and demagoguery) is cheap","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 7-Jun-06 9:37am","format":false,"excerpt":"The President on amending the Constitution to define a social convention and restrict rights rather than enhance them: We should also conduct this difficult debate in a manner worthy of...","rel":"","context":"In "Marriage Equality"","block_context":{"text":"Marriage Equality","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/marriage-equality"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29864,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/16\/cu-and-gun-toting-student-housing-separate-but-equal.html","url_meta":{"origin":129139,"position":3},"title":"CU and gun-toting student housing: separate but equal?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 16-Aug-12 3:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not all that thrilled, at a gut level, about college students carrying guns with a CCW permit -- but if it's legal, it seems to me that segregating them into their own housing is of dubious legality (showing a compelling reason for doing so would be the first challenge).On\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18672,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/21\/unblogged-bits-tue-21-sep-10-2330.html","url_meta":{"origin":129139,"position":4},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Tue. 21-Sep-10 2330)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 21-Sep-10 11:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Poll: One out of Five Americans Do Not Believe Obama Exists \u00ab Borowitz Report - It would be funny, if I didn't think it was too close to being real. What it means when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41828,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/27\/tv-show-main-titles-i-have-loved.html","url_meta":{"origin":129139,"position":5},"title":"TV Show Main Titles I Have Loved","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 27-Apr-14 7:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I used to collect TV theme songs on my cassette tape recorder. I've always appreciated good music and good visuals to introduce a TV show, and lament the steady elimination of both opening and closing credits.Here's my Top 5 list, more or less without too much thinking it over.1. \"Jonny\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129222,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129139\/revisions\/129222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}