Just as we experienced a shift in the ways we live when COVID-19 first hit, there was also another reckoning going on throughout cultures as more and more people began pushing for diversity and inclusivity within the mainstream. One place where it’s easy to physically see whiteness dominating a space is within art museums, and director Sarah Vos’ documentary White Balls on Walls captures one museum’s process of trying to achieve inclusivity in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
It should come as no surprise that much of the art found in major museums around the world has been created by white men. Some museums are better at crafting a balance between the demographics of the artists whose work is displayed on their walls, but for the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, this is not the case. Or at least not until recently. White Balls on Walls — the title of which is a swift nod to a slogan used by the female activist group the Guerilla Girls during a protest held outside the Stedelijk in 1995 — follows the museum through its process of making changes to its very white-centric collection. However, what may seem like a no brainer (just include more artists of different backgrounds, right?) soon turns into a convoluted, self-congratulatory mess as the mostly-white museum staff struggles to strike a balance between their perceived ideas of “wokeness” and the so-called canonical works they have relied on for many years.
While the premise of Vos’ documentary is straightforward, it is anything but simple. At the start of the film, the museum’s staff is composed entirely of white men and women, and viewers are treated to a cringey sequence in which the museum’s director Rein Wolfs leads his team in a discussion about what is to be done about their very white — literally and figuratively — museum. The staff appears somewhat aware of the fact that they have absolutely little to no idea where to even begin working towards a more inclusive space, but they play along anyway, offering up ideas and brainstorming inclusive language. Viewers get the feeling that everyone in the room is mostly just playing along for the sake of the cameras and their jobs — no one here is looking to get cancelled — but in reality, their investment in diversification is minimal. It’s during moments like these when the documentary feels almost as if you’re watching a rough cut of an episode of The Office (Scott’s Tots would feel right at home here) or a strange, art world-centric film by Yorgos Lanthimos in which everyone and everything is veiled behind a bizarre and uncomfortable niceness that only the slyest of audience members will find funny. If the goal of White Balls on Walls was to make the Stedelijk look good, well, then Wolfs and his team better be asking for their money back.
But adulation doesn’t really seem to be the point of Vos’ film anyway. Instead, the camera seems interested in only capturing, honing in on all of the awkward conversations and meetings between Wolfs, a handful of artists and Stedelijk’s head of research and curatorial practice, Charl Landvreugd who is one of the only Black staff members at the museum. The tense and often bewildered expressions followed by abject silence that are exchanged between the involved parties say more about the state of the project than any in-depth, off-camera critique could. While some of the people working for the museum no doubt have a desire to do good, the overarching impulse to achieve more diverse exhibitions seems to be solely based on appearances. This is made all the more apparent during an uncomfortable conversation between Landvreugd and two members of the research staff, Frank van Lamoen and Dr. Maurice Rummens who both seem completely miffed as to why any change needs to happen at all. If the documentary could be boiled down to one specific scene, this one would capture the general joie de vivre of the entire thing perfectly.
White Balls on Walls is interesting then for all the things it leaves unsaid. Viewers must watch it with a particularly keen critical lens and a decent amount of reading between the lines. Or perhaps some people will think differently, preferring the film to be seen as a detailed account of one museum’s attempt at leveling the playing field. No matter how you choose to interpret the actions and motives of the staff at the Stedelijk, by the time the credits roll, it’s very clear that while the walls of the museum now have splashes of color to them, the layers underneath continue to remain impeccably white.
Photo courtesy of Icarus Films
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