From the jump, Off the Record refuses claims of neutrality. Foregrounding the tradition of artists speaking truth to institutional power, the Guggenheim exhibition confronts the so-called âobjectiveâ nature of cultural and governmental systems by unearthing their deeply biased natures. Works by contemporary artists from the museumâs collection form an assemblage of radical, visual strategies, remixing and blurring photographs, newspapers, FBI files, childrenâs coloring books, and other media.Â

The politics and poetics of these works are organized into three curatorial groupings: âUndermining Objectivity,â âShaping Culture and History,â and âScribbling Against the State.â Apropos to the speculative framing of the exhibition, these are porous categories that stimulate further exploration, as opposed to rigid barriers. Fittingly, the open-walled gallery design features dispersed interpretive texts, which introduce these themes while refraining from designating strict separations.Â
âUndermining Objectivityâ opens with Sarah Charlesworthâs âHerald Tribune: November 1977â (1977, printed 2008), in which the artist white-outs the newspaperâs text en masse, ultimately spotlighting its photographic focus on white masculinity, war, and devastation. (Charlesworth emerged among the Pictures Generation of the 1970s, as part of a cluster of artists who investigated and exposed the implications of mass media strategies.)Â
âShaping Culture and Historyâ frames Lorna Simpsonâs black-and-white diptych, âFlipsideâ (1991). Images of a Black woman and an African mask sit side by side above the following text: âthe neighbors were suspicious of her hairstyle.â Both photographic subjects, objectified in some way by Western art, face away from the camera, and with that, refusing the white gaze.Â

Three collages from Leslie Hewittâs 10-part series, âRiffs on Real Timeâ (2006 â 2009) are spread across a free-floating wall at the center of the gallery. Collaging personal documents and photographs with widely circulated images from Ebony and Jet magazines, Hewitt merges the individual with the collective. Meanwhile, the use of domestic flooring as a background underscores the everyday intricacy of record-keeping, reminding us archives can be both institutional and mundane.Â
âScribbling Against the Stateâ frames annotating and coloring as an aesthetic and political gesture. Sable Elyse Smithâs âColoring Bookâ (2018), for example, reveals how something as seemingly innocuous as childrenâs coloring books can become a medium for normalizing carceral logics through benign imagery of the criminal justice system. Likewise, Sadie Barnetteâs embellishments on her Black Panther fatherâs FBI files, in bright pink and inky black spray paint, focus our attention on state surveillance practices that have long aimed to quell liberation movements.Â

In our (post)Trump era, combating âfake newsâ and âalternative factsâ remains essential to resisting state surveillance and media propaganda. As the works on display remind us, there is no such thing as neutrality under the white gaze.Â
Off the Record continues through September 27 at the Guggenheim Museum (1071 5th Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan). The exhibition was curated by Ashley James.