Makeup Museum (MM) Musings is a series that examines a broad range of museum topics as they relate to the preservation, research and exhibition of cosmetics, along with my vision for a physical Makeup Museum. These posts help me think through how I’d run things if the Museum had more resources or occupied a physical public space, as well as examine the ways it’s currently functioning.
In 2024, the Makeup Museum’s 15th year, I did a significant amount of reflecting. I especially wanted to dig deeper into how the Makeup Museum can participate in creating social change. This is an incredibly broad topic so it will be broken into several sections that relate to social justice. Picking up where volume 29 of MM Musings left off, volume 30 will explore the idea of what I’m calling problematic objects – those pieces with clearly racist, colonial or otherwise offensive characteristics. The exhibition of these objects is part of the larger topic of decolonization of museums, which will be discussed in detail in a later MM Musings post. For this installment, however, it seems prudent to focus on just one way in which the modern museum can work towards decolonization (spoiler: I don’t believe it’s possible for many museums, the Makeup Museum included, to ever be fully decolonized.)
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As I mentioned in the follow-up post on cultural appropriation, nearly every single brand is problematic if you look closely enough. Even if they appear innocuous on the surface, all modern makeup is inherently the product of an ugly industry rooted in racism, labor exploitation, animal testing, and a tremendous disregard for the environment; it was not created with anything except profit in mind, harmful outcomes be damned. In her book The Ugly History of Beautiful Things, Katy Kelleher describes the history of dangerous beauty treatments (lead face paint, belladonna eye drops, toxic lash tints, etc.) and how the desire to obtain physical beauty through makeup remains unchanged today, with many women feeling like they have no choice but to purchase and use makeup. “Makeup is a way to dominate one’s own body, molding it into shape so that its form better coincides with the beauty standards of the time…makeup can have serious benefits and terrifying consequences; it can help you land a job and it can give you cancer…any risk, even the risk of physical harm, tends to feel ‘worth it’. Because physical beauty is valued so highly, people are often willing to set aside their own discomfort in order to achieve this state.” Kelleher also includes a rather poignant quote from American author Ursula K. LeGuin, who said, “I resent the beauty game when I see it controlled by people who grab fortunes from it and don’t care who they hurt. I hate it when I see it making people so self-dissatisfied that they starve and deform and poison themselves.”
Given the larger issue of how the industry was built, its continued perpetuation of beauty standards and significant contribution to climate change, can there really be any makeup objects that aren’t problematic? Can we separate makeup from the industry and beauty standards? In reading two recent books on a similar topic – separating art from the artist – I don’t think it’s possible to fully untangle makeup from the industry that produces it. And it’s not clear what separating the art from artist actually means; in reading both Erich Hatala Matthes’s Drawing the Line and Claire Dederer’s Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, I believe separating means enjoying the work of the artist and largely ignoring all the horrible things they’ve done. I’ve concluded that generally speaking, it’s impossible at the organizational level to separate makeup from the industry and standards that produce it. So now what? How does a museum educator or curator decide what to collect and display, and how? Should museums even exist, especially one dedicated to something as fraught as makeup? Most experts agree that museums should continue existing, but must completely reframe their collections and institutional histories to reveal the truth behind them. They must be honest in how their collections came to be, and add context to some of the pieces. And for some museums, repatriation of objects belonging to cultures outside of their own is necessary.
Obviously I don’t think the Makeup Museum should cease existing or collecting, even though makeup will always be historically rooted in negative things. There is a positive side to it; makeup history and contemporary makeup culture intertwine with many other areas of history and research and can teach us so much. Plus, makeup provides a very accessible outlet for creative and artistic expression, and can also contribute towards gender affirmation. Along those lines, it doesn’t mean we can’t personally enjoy makeup or that enjoying it makes us bad people. When I’m applying makeup, I’m actually able to ignore the problematic aspects of it because the joy of color and texture overtakes my knowledge. In that sense I am able to separate art from artist, and I think most of us are able to do the same. (Also, think about those who make a living off of applying makeup professionally – I do not believe they are immoral for creating art.) Dederer’s main argument is that art is highly subjective and personal/emotional. Most would not consider makeup and its brands to be art, so it might be misguided to use Dederer’s outlook here. But the Makeup Museum’s entire premise is that makeup is art, and most people have a personal connection to makeup, so I think her argument is relevant here. However, while most of us are personally able to separate makeup from its roots, it’s disingenuous and insensitive for a museum to do so. There is a responsibility for a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public to acknowledge the negative aspects surrounding makeup. Thus, maintaining the Makeup Museum raises the question of what to collect and how to display it. I spend a considerable amount of time debating whether to acquire racist or otherwise problematic objects and if I do, I’m unsure as if or how to present them. Ditto for sharing histories or profiles of not-so-great brands or people.
Ultimately I think problematic topics and objects should be shared. I believe museums have an obligation to educate and tell a complete story, and part of that is confronting uncomfortable truths. History should not be sanitized. Says Leah Huff, a graduate of the University of Washington, “It is important for us to be critical museum visitors who question how artifacts and pieces are acquired and why certain stories are told or forgotten. Visiting museums and memory institutions requires us to be critical of the narratives that are presented…[Museums] should emphasize truth-telling as opposed to presenting a white-washed version of history. The process of truth-telling involves speaking the truths about colonialism. Museums should not present narratives that glorify the age of exploration. Rather, they should show the consequences of Western expansion, colonialism, and imperialism.”
Artist and activist Michelle Hartney, who added her own labels to the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of her Correct Art History performance piece, agrees. “We need these works of art to remain in museums so we can learn from them,” she said. “Educating and presenting the truth is how we learn and do better; this information would be a powerful educational moment because it will show how long the patriarchy has ruled over women…In my opinion, the institution is not acting in accordance with their ‘profession’s highest ethical standards and practices’ when they knowingly eliminate negative narratives from an artist’s legacy, often using the excuse that it distracts from the art and can change a viewer’s experience with the art.”
Matthes also agrees that problematic art and artists should not be “canceled” by being removed from public view.* He also points out the danger of glorifying or honoring certain artists by allowing solo exhibitions that do not address their pasts.
Now that we’ve concluded the negative aspects or background of particular artwork or artists should be displayed, how should museums go about doing that?
Critic Candy Bedworth, writing for Daily Art Magazine, states: “Hold to account all the galleries, museums, curators, collectors, art historians, and inheritors of artists’ multi-million-dollar estates who prop up the systems of oppression and refuse to hear the voice of the victim. These people must set the work in context.” In other words, contextualize the object in a way that focuses as much as, if not more, on the oppressed rather than the oppressor. The Independent broke down one example in the British Museum (might not be the best museum to use as the British Museum is a leader in problematic practices, but this particular case is enlightening). The bust of noted enslaver Hans Sloane now has an updated label that discusses his role in the UK’s history of slavery and colonialism, and displays it alongside other objects that call attention to Black history rather than simply lingering on the colonialism and racism. In this way a useful dialogue can be created. “Sloane’s bust will be exhibited alongside objects, situating it against a backdrop of the British Empire and slavery. The Museum’s website already reflects this, providing information on its founder’s links with slavery. This kind of contextualisation will help us to understand the role the UK has played in both the slave economy and colonialism, where simply cancelling the object would not…[The] focus here isn’t on retaining Eurocentric history – it’s on retaining the Black history intertwined with it. If we throw such objects out with the trash, there’s a risk that we won’t remember the shameful parts of British history in years to come, or the lives of those slaves employed by Sloane and his wife…[We] should use the potential offensiveness of artefacts to create dialogue. If we retain such objects, but make it known that they emerged from this context of discrimination and injustice, we won’t inadvertently cause more damage in our attempts to mitigate history.”
(image from britishmuseum.org)
Using a vintage tube of blackface as a Makeup Museum example, perhaps one way to reframe or recontextualize it would be to show it next to an object that, while equally problematic on the surface, could actually serve to demonstrate how the Black community is highlighting the inequities in the makeup industry. In the spring of 2024, Youthforia launched new shades of its best-selling foundation after customers requested a wider range for dark skin. However, the deepest shade was nothing more than jet black paint. My mind immediately jumped to blackface and how a company in this day and age could be so clueless about the past. Fortunately, consumers were quick to call out the company, with beauty influencer Golloria leading the way. Swatching the foundation on one side of her face and the other with regular black paint, she gave a first-hand demonstration of what an incredible miss this was. While blackface was theatrical makeup historically used by white performers and has little to do with commercial makeup intended for deep skin tones, there is definitely a parallel here. Maybe showing these objects alongside each other could educate about both the history of blackface and efforts to ensure that companies today don’t reference it.
It seems like a relatively simple solution: make certain that object and exhibition labels provide adequate information on their problematic aspects, and present the objects in a way that does not glorify or condone them and instead open a dialogue. But a bigger question remains: where to draw the line? I won’t purchase anything from Jeffree Star’s brand, but I’m still buying Chanel, a company whose founder was a Nazi sympathizer (and the fact that the company still has not acknowledged that is troubling). Why do I think it’s permissible to blog about something like Tattoo, but I don’t feel right discussing Max Factor’s Pan-Stik in the shade “Chinese” that I bought last year? What are the boundaries of acquisition and display? Writes Dederer: “I wished someone would invent an online calculator — the user would enter the name of an artist, whereupon the calculator would assess the heinousness of the crime versus the greatness of the art and spit out a verdict,” Dederer writes. Similarly, I wish a calculator existed for the Makeup Museum. How “bad” is an object or person, and does their cultural or historical importance outweigh their awfulness? Unfortunately, Dederer states that “a calculator is laughable, unthinkable.”
Thus, there is no neat and tidy answer. Matthes and Dederer both conclude that it’s up to the individual in terms of what art and media to consume. Everyone has their own limits and reasons, and I can’t explain what mine are for the Makeup Museum. Perhaps it’s how overt the offensiveness is, but even that can be subjective. Perhaps it’s how much backlash from the public the museum would receive for purchasing particular brands or bringing up certain histories, even if I provided a thorough explanation as to why the object was acquired or the history was told in a sensitive, nuanced way. I strongly dislike confrontation and am very thin-skinned, so I would be very upset to receive nasty comments or lose support over something I bought or a topic was not explained as well as it could be. Most of all though, it’s the fact that I don’t want to inflict emotional distraught among BIPOC museum visitors or visitors from other marginalized groups. I imagine that a general discussion of cultural appropriation causes less pain than the aforementioned tube of blackface, but again, this is my own perspective – I can’t speak for the Black community. I must remember that while it’s not my goal to upset anyone, it’s about impact, not intention. So even if I did not mean to offend, it might still happen.
We’ve established that in order to provide a comprehensive account of makeup history, the bad needs to be presented along with the good. And we can do that through adding context and information. But how can a museum accomplish that without inflicting pain?
There are some museums where horrific histories and objects are not unexpected, such as the Holocaust Museum in DC or the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project. These are quite obviously upsetting, but people can decide in advance whether they want to visit – given the museums’ names, visitors have some idea of what’s on display and can make a relatively informed decision whether to go based on their personal histories and emotional threshold. But in the case of the Makeup Museum, people may be caught off guard and possibly upset. I’m assuming visitors would not be thrilled to view, say, a whimsical lipstick case shaped like the Leaning Tower of Pisa next to a 1960s Halloween makeup kit featuring a range of racist stereotypes. It would incur a bit of whiplash, I would think. One way to handle this is to offer content warnings. I’ve put up a blanket statement on the Museum’s main collection page and will add warnings for exhibitions and blog posts that warrant them moving forward. And I would have to speak with the Museum’s web designer, but I bet there’s a way to blur certain photos and people can choose whether to view them. In terms of a physical space, the object would be on display but not quite so prominently (so as not seem as though the museum is honoring it), and there could be a warning posted before one enters the gallery.
But I don’t know whether all of these efforts are enough, or even which objects or topics deserve these protocols. Because of my own bias, something I perceive as fairly innocuous and not requiring a content warning might be devastating to another viewer. The issues of individual relationships to art, personal histories and subjective reactions are again raised. Also, there is a pitfall of showing problematic objects by themselves: even if a curator adds historical information and tries to recontextualize them by displaying alongside other objects, they inadvertently may be portraying the entire history of a certain group as nothing more than trauma. In her book The Whole Picture, art historian Alice Procter brings up the example of a sculpture carved by a member of the Haida people in the British Museum (I know, I know, not again – but it’s a good example). It is the only work by a Haida artist in the museum’s collection, and depicts a violent physical assault on a Haida woman. Not much else is known about the sculpture. Having this on display by itself and with no other context, Procter says, may actually reduce the tribe’s history to the violence they experienced. “[If] there is no commentary around how unique this object is, or context for the attack as part of the colonial history of Canada, the focus is exclusively on the act of the attack. The danger is that Haida culture ends up being presented as characterized by sexual violence.” People are more than their experiences of genocide and other horrors. So going back to our example of vintage blackface and Youthforia’s disastrous foundation, even though additional context would be provided for both and a dialogue opened between both the objects themselves and the audience, is that the best way to present these objects? Would it be less harmful to show these alongside something more positive, such as objects by Fenty?
The bottom line is that object interpretation and display will always pose a conundrum for the Makeup Museum. Many beauty standards are entrenched in white supremacy, and makeup, in part, still serves to meet those standards. As noted earlier, the modern industry was founded on many systemic injustices and continues contributing significantly to climate change and other harmful things. Even makeup that was not created by the industry, i.e. cosmetic objects made by Indigenous peoples, present a problem in that there is debate over whether these belong in white-founded and operated organizations. There are also varying degrees of “badness” and those are fairly subjective. What is off-limits to me to acquire or discuss may not be to another and vice versa. But none of this means the Makeup Museum shouldn’t exist, that it should stop collecting, or that what has been and currently being collected isn’t important. What it does mean is that it’s important to educate people about makeup’s toxic past and present without causing trauma, or at least, as little as possible, and center the perspective of marginalized groups as much as possible. It also means getting feedback on the Museum’s collection and display practices, developing a collections plan and code of values, and revisiting this post on ethics.
Have you ever been offended by or upset at something you viewed in a museum? How do you think the Makeup Museum can present objects that are particularly problematic?
*The removal of problematic statues and monuments in public spaces seems to be an exception to this approach. I think a rather genius solution lies in the Museum of Toxic Statues in Berlin.
Sources
“How can Museum Labels be Antiracist?” Exhibition at Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, September 9, 2020-September 10, 2021.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, “What Are a Museum’s Obligations When It Shows a ‘Problematic’ Artist?” New York Times, May 10, 2024.
Lydia Bunt, “Museums Are Right to Keep Artefacts on Display That Point to Britain’s Shameful Past,” The Independent, October 4, 2020.
Sophie Cox, “What Should We Do With the Work of ‘Immoral’ Artists?” Duke Research Blog, Duke University, February 14, 2023.
Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. New York: Knopf, 2023.
Leah Huff, “Museum Decolonization: Moving Away from Narratives Told by the Oppressors,” Currents: A Student Blog. School of Marine and Environmental Affairs (SMEA), University of Washington, May 31, 2022.
Katy Kelleher, The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023.
Erich Hatala Matthes, Drawing the Line: What to Do with the Work of Immortal Artists from Museums to the Movies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.
Alice Procter, The Whole Picture: The Colonial Story of the Art in Our Museums and Why We Need to Talk About It. London: Cassell, 2020.
Nadja Sayej, “’The Art World Tolerates Abuse’ – the Fight to Change Museum Wall Labels,” The Guardian, November 28, 2018.