Historian Claims Tate Britain ‘Censored’ His Curatorial Proposal for Turner Painting in Rehang

A historian has alleged that Tate Britain “censored” his proposal for a rehung gallery featuring a J. M. W. Turner painting in the London’s current rehang.

In a London Review of Books article, historian Marcus Rediker claimed that Tate Britain ultimately did not accept his suggestion to place Turner’s ca. 1835 painting A Disaster at Sea beside an object that would more explicitly elucidate histories of state violence in England. When Tate declined to do so, Rediker cut ties with the museum this past fall, ahead of the opening of the rehang in May.

“I resigned in protest when one of my curatorial choices was censored by the museum,” Rediker wrote on Twitter, labeling it a “disturbing episode.”

According to a biography on his website, Rediker was guest curator of the Turner gallery at Tate Britain for five years. A Tate Britain spokesperson said this was incorrect, however. The museum instead said he was one of many historians enlisted to help find objects that could be viewed as responses to the art on view.

Rediker did not respond to a request for comment. He is a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh and has written multiple books about slavery, including The Slave Ship (2007), which Alice Walker once labeled a “transformative” read.

Tate Britain’s rehang has received a significant amount of attention in the UK because it has placed greater emphasis on women and artists of color than the museum has in the past. For that reason, it has polarized the British press. Apollo accused the rehang of “tokenism,” and the Telegraph labeled it “a hectoring history lesson.” The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones remarked, “Today’s Tate Britain is where art goes to sleep,” while the Evening Standard termed it a “masterclass.”

Many of the rehang’s detractors seized on Tate Britain’s new emphasis on connections between works in the collection and the slave trade—something that proved controversial even before the presentation went on view to the public.

According to the London Review of Books article, Rediker had been asked to help Tate Britain find a way to respond to Turner’s A Disaster at Sea, which is thought by some to depict the 1833 sinking of a vessel containing 108 female convicts and 12 children. Although that ship, the Amphitrite, did not sail from where Tate Britain is currently site, the museum is currently set at the former location of a prison that held women convicts before they were transported to Australia.

Rediker had reportedly proposed to show either a real or replica “punishment box,” a device used to punish women convicts on ships like the Amphitrite, next to the Turner. But since it is not certain which ship is represented in A Disaster at Sea, the museum reportedly declined to so. The museum also feared “triggering” views and that the punishment box would have a “domineering presence,” according to the London Review of Books.

“The historic rooms in the rehang include several vitrines of images and artefacts selected by curators, as well as responses by contemporary artists, intended to surface hidden histories,” Tate Britain director Alex Farquharson said in a statement to ARTnews. “I invited Marcus to be one of these curators, but sadly one aspect of his proposal – to build an interactive replica of a torture device – was neither an artwork nor historic artefact, and would have presented a number of insurmountable practical problems for an art museum. I remained supportive of his other proposals, and all our discussions about the rehang were inspirational, as is his work in general.”