One morning, lawyers and other employees at the mega-firm Duane Morris‘s Philadelphia headquarters arrived to see the artwork above hung on a hallway wall. It was not appreciated. What was going on? Apparently it was time to switch out some of the firm’s publicly displayed artwork. One of the firm’s non-legal staff picked something out from the inventory of originals in storage, and efficiently hung one of 20th century African American artist Herbert Singleton’s painting depicting events he says he experienced growing up in the southern U.S. before anyone was troubled by a blank space. A placard explaining the work might have helped, but for some reason none was posted.
This prompted a long, long mea culpa by the firm’s senior partners and management after the painting was removed, presumably with the speed of light. I’ve bolded and numbered appropriate sections.
Duane Morris is committed to providing a safe and supportive working environment at our offices. (1) Recently, privately owned artwork was installed – by non-Duane Morris personnel and without Duane Morris management’s knowledge (2)– at our Philadelphia headquarters and we acknowledge this particular artwork was disturbing and painful. (3) It was installed after normal business hours and the following morning when Firm management discovered the work, they immediately took it down.
Our Firm Chairman Matthew A. Taylor and Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer and partner Joseph K. West (4) subsequently conducted a video meeting with the Firm’s Black/African American Attorneys and Black/African American Staff ERG organizations (5), which was attended by more than 100 attorneys and staff members. During this meeting, our Chairman apologized for this mistake to the group personally and on behalf of the Firm. We will continue to work collectively to learn from this event, as it does not reflect our Firm values (6).
The artwork is from 20th century African American artist Herbert Singleton, whose work depicts images of the poverty, violence and crime he experienced growing up in the American South. This piece was not appropriate for display at our law firm, regardless of individual views on art and the purpose of art in our society. (7) It is part of a private, world-renowned collection of “Outsider Art” owned by a retired partner and was installed by non-firm personnel. This collection includes additional artwork from Herbert Singleton as well as many other African American artists. In their work, these artists often depicted the social injustices and trauma that they and their families have experienced. (7) For more than 40 years, hundreds of artworks from this extensive collection have been exhibited as part of a rotating display; the collection as a whole and Herbert Singleton’s work specifically has also been the subject of exhibitions at major museums, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.(8) Works from the collection displayed in Duane Morris’s office have been routinely moved for curation and conservation purposes. When an artwork is removed, it often replaced by non-Duane Morris personnel with another artwork for a period of time, and that was the case in this instance.
Going forward, Duane Morris will conduct an internal evaluation of artwork from this collection to determine whether certain pieces are appropriate for display at the Firm and any future placements in our offices, consistent with our values and concern for our personnel. (9)
Observations:
- (1) The firm immediately defaults to woke-speak. There is nothing “unsafe” about hanging artwork, no matter what it depicts. Clearly, the firm’s management is terrified of how this dumb but understandable mistake will be leveraged by the group grievance activist on the staff.
- (2) Blaming the non-legal staff is ducking responsibility. The non-legal staff probably had instructions to replace firm-displayed art overnight and was under the impression that anything the firm had in its collection was appropriate. It’s quite likely that that whoever chose that painting didn’t even look at it carefully: they are not paid to be art critics. One would hope that anyone would realize that a painting, however admirable from an artistic standpoint and whatever the message it is intended to obey, depicting a lynching is guaranteed to provoke controversy in a workplace, and that indeed some employees are looking for opportunities to give them power and leverage. However, if the painting was in the firm’s collection, and this one was, it is management’s fault that it ended up on the wall, and wrong for management to blame the staff in any way.
- (3) Art is often “disturbing and painful;” that doesn’t make it bad art. What the firm means to say is that paintings with political or controversial themes are not appropriate in a common space and one that will be seen by visitors.
- (4) Ugh. So even big law firms feel it necessary to have DEI officers, which means that the firm tacitly endorses “good’ discrimination.
- (5) Double Ugh!. The firm’s black employees are organized into segregated organizations? This tells me that the firm does not appreciate viewpoint diversity, and is in thrall to the ideological Left. Good to know.
- (6) Wait…what values? This is vague virtue-signaling without further clarification. Artistic values? Workplace management values? Woke values? Competence? The painting is from a retired partner’s collection. Is the firm now saying that it rejects his values, since he bought the painting?
- (7) OK, so the painting was meant to be an indictment of racism. Wouldn’t an explanatory placard (which almost always accompanies displayed law firm art) solve the problem? If not, what difference does it make what the painting was intended to convey and why the artist painted it? In its eagerness to grovel, he firm is saying two contradictory things at once.
- (8) More double-talk. The fact that the artit’s painting have been exhibited all over the country and in renowned museums is an “everybody does it” rationalization, or it is an appeal to authority: “these people know art, and they aren’t ashamed to hang paintings like this.” The firm’s mea culpa says too much and not enough. What is needed is a single, clear declaration: “A law firm office is not an art museum but a place of business and a work environment. We have an obligation to decorate the office in a manner that will be pleasant and welcoming to all, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, personal views, and artistic preferences.”
- (9) Bingo.
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Facts: Above the Law
Ethics Alarms 
“group grievance activist”
Isn’t is amazing that nowadays this is actually a paid staff position in many organizations?”
I don’t see how a law firm, much less a big East Coast city law firm, has anyone responsible for doing anything inside the brick-and-mortar quarters – up to and including the janitorial staff – that would look at a painting like that and think, “Wow! This is a good one to display!”
True, but as Jack said that assumes that the janitorial staff actually looked at what they were hanging, and just grabbed a stack of paintings from the closet to replace the ones they’d just taken down.
Or…they looked at it and thought, “That’ll show them!”. We can argue about who ‘them’ might refer to.
And yes, I think something fairly simple like “We should have checked to paintings in the basement to be sure they were appropriate to hang in a law firm’s office.’ I bet they will in the future, though. 🙂
I suspect the art was selected to coincide with Black History Month and the powers who made the decision (“First Decider”) simply said, “Hey, we have a ton of art from renowned African American Artists. We should display that during February.” To which someone else (“Second Decider”) said, “Awesome. Let’s get the staff to put the paintings on the wall.” Then, First Decider said, “Cool, I’ll email my people and get them on it.” Second Decider: “Great. What’s for lunch?”
Then, First Decider emailed maintenance: “Good morning. We are honoring Black History Month in February. We have a number of really interesting paintings in our storage room. Would you be awesome and hang them on the walls?” Maintenance Engineer responded, “Sure. We will get it done this evening.” Maintenance Engineer told the staff who merely displayed the art on the walls without really thinking about it.
Then, somebody walked by and looked at that particular painting and blood ran cold in the veins, with an audible, “Oh, crap! That’s gonna hurt!” The problem took on a life of its own after that. Rather than simply state, “Really? You are pissed/hurt by a painting depicting something terrible? Have you seen ‘Schindler’s List’? How about stuff painted by Frida Kahlo? Or Picasso? And you call yourself lawyers? What kind of intestinal fortitude do you lack that you can’t look at a painting – which, frankly, I find juvenile and simplistic in quality and style – and realize, ‘yeah, we had some really awful times in our history. Hopefully we have moved beyond that.'” But, no, they have a Chief DIE officer whose job it is to make mountains out of anthills and recommend sensitivity training for all involved.
If I were a client, I’d pull my cases from that firm. Immediately.
jvb
Comment of the Day.
It’s Modern Art. It’s automatically unethical. So there’s no way to further analyze its use in *any* context or *any* event other than educating future artists on all the ways modern art is a style that should be refused at every turn.
It could’ve been a modern art piece on the liberation of slaves throughout the south by union soldiers. It’d be unethical. It could’ve been a modern art piece on a woman rocking a baby to sleep. It’d be unethical. It could’ve been a modern art piece of a bunch of squares of primary color. It’d be unethical.
Modern art elevates the ugly over the beautiful. It creates a space for lazy, juvenile and intentionally malcontent practitioners to use the sloppiest and least refined skills to pretend like there is some sort of mastery of a craft. There is not. The only mastery is in swooning wealthy people who think a certain way to rubber stamp the scribblings of artists who think the same way.
Modern art is unethical.
Is modern art really unethical? I am not sure about that – I will have to think about it. I do think your points about elevating sloppy execution to high art are well-taken, though. But, isn’t that really what The Left has done with everything? It has taken a hatchet to anything remotely considered tradition or culture in an attempt to replace it with a Marxist ideology. We see it movies, music, education, business, law, technology, and a whole host of other areas.
I think you’re like 75% of the way towards convincing yourself that yes, indeed, it is unethical.
Possibly.
jvb
Erg, I forgot with the new interface I have to actively turn on comment notifications.