Art and Time Matters: Robert Colescott Paved the Way

When we walk into a museum, we are immediately thrown into a time warp. History surrounds you, engulfs your sense of place and era and makes you contemplate and assess how, where and why works were made. Often, as is the case with the brilliantly dense Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott, presented at the New Museum in NYC, we find ourselves asking how did we miss this, why did art history wait so long to capture the essence and depth of a career, such an influential and pivotal figure, like Colescott. Race matters, yes, and our institutions are beginning to ask these questions: why did we wait so long to inject the complexity of a career…