(Re)Painting
Histories

As students at the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University, studying and thinking about art and design in English within a dominant Western European academic tradition, we are legitimizing a global colonial power structure. It is ironic that we are in what are colloquially known as the European galleries celebrating a publication whose entire work has been focused on revisiting South Asian artifacts and stories from Euro-American archives that often overlook subaltern truths. ¹

Within this room, narratives of European culture are told without mention of their colonial origins. In fact, a good number of the materials used to create these works were extracted from the Global South by imperialists. Histories of resource extraction and non-European aesthetic formativeness are rarely referenced in the architectural epicenters, or ‘grand’ galleries of museums.

(Re)Painting Histories attempts to problematize and acknowledge the realities of cultural exchange, and sometimes even erasure, evident in the production of the works on view in this gallery.² From Rembrandt’s Mughal influences to the South Asian origins of the color yellow, we invite you to join us on this journey through the RISD Museum’s collection far beyond what is exhibited on the walls of this gallery.

Here, we are committed to honoring the past and building a future that champions greater understanding, and inclusivity towards postcolonial subjects.

As you navigate this site, look for the ‘Illuminate’ signs.

NoTES

Refers to desi-gned, New England’s first publication for the South Asian diaspora.
(Re)Painting Histories was first shown at the launch event of desi-gned, in collaboration with Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia and The Fleet Library.

CREDITS

Created by Yukti V. Agarwal, with label designs by Mehek Gopi Vohra.

Special thanks to Alexandra Poterack and Kate Irvin.

Why Do We Need to Intervene?

A Brief History of Museum Interventions

[In 1969, artist Andy Warhol was invited to organize an exhibition of objects from the RISD Museum’s permanent collection. The resulting project, Raid the Icebox I with Andy Warhol, is now widely recognized as the first and possibly most significant artist-curated show of the modern era.] ¹ Warhol was asked to intervene by raiding the storage and collection of the Museum.

[The hope was that he would reveal what was hiding there, attract the attention of disinterested art students, and connect a fairly conservative museum to contemporary-art practices. But Warhol did not create a new narrative that disrupted the canon—instead he laid bare the arbitrary nature of the museum’s collection itself.] ² [Warhol’s exhibition asked complicated and incisive questions about how and why cultural institutions establish hierarchies of historical significance, beauty, and meaning.] ¹

[Since then, the exhibition has inspired similar presentations and the efforts of numerous artists working in a distinctly curatorial vein.] ¹ Additionally, undergraduate opportunities such as the Dorner Prize allow [artistic interventions that may take the form of physical, digital, or programmatic encounters that examine or critique the Museum’s historical and contemporary contexts, collections, architectural idiosyncrasies, habits of visitation, and/or web presence.] ³

Inspired by the pioneering intervention Warhol led in 1969, (Re)Painting Histories attempts to illuminate old narratives that echo in the galleries by excavating the ‘stores’ of the Museum and the objects it contains.

By intervening, we hope to not only bring to light stories and perspectives that have been overlooked, marginalized, or silenced, but also challenge the structures that have historically shaped our understanding of art and history. By intervening, we hope to foster a more inclusive and dynamic dialogue between the past and the present. By intervening, we hope to illuminate.

NoTES

RISD Museum, Raid the Icebox I with Andy Warhol
RISD Museum, Sarah Ganz Blythe, All Behind the Icebox Door
RISD Museum, Dorner Prize

* Parentheses denote quotations

IMAGE CREDITS

Courtesy of RISD Museum
Courtesy of RISD Archives
Photographed by Kaiolena Tacazon
Photographed by Boris David Gramajo

[No.01] Andy Warhol, Untitled (Painting storage with Matthias Stomer painting "Christ at the Column" and painting "Neopolitan Actors" attributed to Pier-Leone Ghezzi), RISD Museum, 1970. Courtesy of RISD Museum.

[No.02] Installation photograph of Raid the Icebox 1 with Andy Warhol, RISD Museum, 1970. Courtesy of RISD Archives.

[No.05] Installation photograph of (Re)Painting Histories at desi-gned II launch event at RISD Museum, May 19, 2024. Photographed by Erik Gould.

[No.03] Installation photograph of (Re)Painting Histories at desi-gned launch event at RISD Museum, April 13, 2023. Photographed by Kaiolena Tacazon.

[No.04] Installation photograph of (Re)Painting Histories at desi-gned launch event at RISD Museum, April 13, 2023. Photographed by Boris David Gramajo.

[No.05] Installation photograph of (Re)Painting Histories at desi-gned II launch event at RISD Museum, May 19, 2024. Photographed by Erik Gould.