Both Andrea Fraser and Fred Wilson provoke a fundamental question: what role does a museum play culturally, historically and economically. By inserting themselves—as social commentators, as well as performance artists—into the hegemonic body of the museum, they undermine and re-assess institutional power and practices. Museums are, in a sense, responsible for the mainstream definition of the dichotomy between art and mediocrity: a role that curators, benefactors and staff willingly accept as powerful guards of ‘taste’ and institutional ideologies. It is this role, according to Andrea Fraser, that allows museums to perceive themselves as extricated from the nexus of art and economics. However, museums are undeniably linked to their financial backers and, as such, have a vested interest in catering to certain histories, traditions and portions of society. The presupposition that museums are distinct from this system is largely flawed and while Sensation critique condemns collectors like Charles Saatchi for his economic interest in art (and not merely art for art’s sake), museums are very much linked to the lucrative nature of art consumption.

Fred Wilson and Andrea Fraser infiltrate this model in separate ways, but to a similar effect: each artist highlights what museums choose to ignore. Mining the Museum draws on one collection to juxtapose mainstream visual traditions with the hidden histories of the American South. By placing racial and social history at the forefront, the artist highlights the historical rejection and exclusion of black history from institutional memory. By adopting the role of ‘curator,’ Wilson is at once an artist, a social critic and a voice of institutional power (selected and funded by the institutions he permeates). Andrea Fraser, as a docent, patron and performance artist, also becomes the voice of the museum by giving tours and highlighting the museum’s role within the community. By considering the context of a museum’s surroundings, patrons and historical role, Fraser calls into question the ideologies that museums create and disseminate. The artists thus raise the question of who museums cater to and which memories they disseminate.

Wilson: Mining the Museum draws upon the collection of the Maryland Historical Society to highlight the neglected past of African Americans, raising questions of historical and racial memory through unique juxtapositions of mainstream and hidden works of art.

Fraser: Fraser puts forth a wide spanning critique of museum politics, self-perceptions, censorship and curatorial choices through satirical tours, eloquent writings and direct communication with museum leadership.

Taylor: Taylor tracks the rise and spread of performance art from the 1960s onward, as well as the genre’s early artists.