On the Offensive

the Rijksmuseum                                                                                                                    AFP

Where is the line? Is there a line? “Some people are angry with us,” says Martine Gosselink, head of the history department of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. “They say 'Why this change, the Rijksmuseum is trying to be so politically correct.' But in the Netherlands alone, there are a million people deriving from colonial roots, from Suriname, from the Antilles, from Indonesia, and so on that basis alone it’s important to change this." What she's talking about is a project she initiated, called "Adjustment of Colonial Terminology," in which the museum is taking what could be considered offensive language out of the titles and descriptions of its artworks. It is focusing mainly on the museum's online catalog. Words like "Negro," "Mohammedan," "Indian," and "dwarf" are being replaced or removed altogether. A circa 1900 painting originally titled Young Negro-Girl, for example, now bears the title Young Girl Holding a Fan. Most have already been renamed, but other changes are still being debated ~ as is the project itself: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/rijksmuseum-removing-racially-charged-terms-from-artworks-titles-and-descriptions/?_r=0