Recently, Frick Pittsburgh came under scrutiny for making the decision to postpone an Islamic art exhibition, originally scheduled for November, to August 2024, in light of the events unfolding in Palestine. This postponement is reflective of an inaccurate belief and perpetuates harmful stereotypes, as it groups Islam with terrorism and/or anti-semitism. This cancellation is an explicit example of non-Western art being silenced, and while originally intended to elevate Islamic culture, has actually had a reverse effect and done more harm than good by attaching negative connotations to the display.
Western organisations shouldn’t be able to silence non-Western art in this way, especially when they have so many stolen artefacts proudly on display. This also creates a kind of invisible/implicit ‘hierarchy’, in which non-Western bodies have to be scrutinised by the West acting as a morally intact, non-corrupt board of judges, which is definitely not the case - it ultimately perpetuates Western supremacy as it implies a Western ‘clean slate’. Art is such a powerful tool for preserving and bridging the gaps between different cultures, and it should not be censored for any reason, let alone for reasons born from ignorance. If anything, the exhibition in Pittsburgh could have served as a means of mutual understanding and proved even more useful at this moment in time, but its postponement has prevented this.