Addressing white supremacy in exhibitions of Greek and Roman antiquities at two United States museums

Abstract

The United States has witnessed a resurgence in white supremacy and white nationalism in mainstream politics. In addition to the foundational belief in a racial hierarchy, white supremacy is ideologically reliant on notions of gender/sex essentialism, national identity and xenophobia. White supremacists routinely appropriate Greek and Roman art and history in support of their ideology and these appropriations are made possible by an academic tradition, and public perception, of Greek and Roman antiquities as white, both literally and figuratively, with all of its associations with racial superiority, civilization, beauty and purity. The purpose of this study was to better understand how United States art and archaeology museums, in their exhibitions, interpret Greek and Roman antiquities especially in relation to issues of imperialism, slavery, race, gender and sexuality, both historically and contemporarily. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology served as case studies for the exhibition of ancient Greek and Roman art in the United States. The results of this study indicate that imperialism, race, slavery, gender and sexuality are topics which are addressed, to greater and lesser extents, in exhibitions of ancient Greek and Roman art. The museums often differed in the language they used to address these topics and in the content they chose to emphasize; this is likely due to the different curatorial strategies of the museums, and the time at which the exhibitions were installed. More than anything this study has demonstrated that it is possible to create exhibitions of Greek and Roman art which challenge white supremacist myths, but that this work is not complete nor universal.