The first sight that greets visitors to "Fred Wilson: Objects and Installations" looks curiously like a window display for a security guard uniform outlet. In "Guarded View," four headless mannequins, all brown-skinned, stand on a low platform, modeling security guard uniforms.
Wilson told the crowd at the show's opening last Friday that he knows a thing or two about museum guards. His long association with art museums - he was a curator and worked on education staffs at some of New York City's top museums before striking gold with his own work - began as a museum guard while he was in art school.
Wilson remembers the experience well. "When you're a guard, you're on display like everything else. You're also invisible," he said. The majority of guards at New York art museums are African-American and at many museums that is the highest position African-Americans hold, said Wilson.
"The guards love this piece," said Wilson. He said he has seen museum guards stand still at the end of the line of mannequins and startle museum-goers by moving when they got to them.
After he became a well-known artist, Wilson played a joke on the staff of one art museum. He told the staff he would lead a tour at the museum if he could wear a costume. Staff members were delighted and showed up at the prearranged time and place in the museum, but they didn't see Wilson there. Suddenly, an African-American guard, who had been sitting down on a bench in front of them, stood up and announced the tour would begin. No one had recognized Wilson sitting before them in the guard uniform.
| Continue Ben Hellmann's Andover Townsman article "Art on guard"
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