The Stedelijk Museum is awash in white, from its bathtub-like exterior to its gallery walls to its expansive conference rooms. But the Dutch documentary White Balls on Walls deals with a different kind of whiteness (and masculinity) that is unique to one of the Dutch cultural institutions. The film’s cheeky title comes from a 1995 protest outside a museum by the art activist group Guerrilla Girls (or a derivative group).
In 2019, filmmaker Sarah Voss began following the museum’s director Rein Wolfs and his staff’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. The museum’s slogan, “Meet the Icons of Contemporary Art,” has come under scrutiny as to who decides what is iconic. Voss tracks these efforts in the midst of a pandemic and the demands for social justice brought about by the murder of George Floyd. Some nasty social distancing will add to Wolfs’ sense that museums should host more artists, welcome more diverse demographics, and at the same time employ more people of color.
With access to behind-the-scenes processes, this documentary is both informative about the effort to transform traditional institutions and frighteningly alarming as Wolfs, its administrators and curators become entangled in numbers and nomenclature. It’s also heart-warming. (“‘Gender balance,’ it sounds really diverse,” the woman said at an early meeting.) Internal conversations about colonialism, gender, and Dutch identity become more nuanced when people of color arrive. become. The museum’s head of research and curatorial affairs, Charles Landvreuth, and curators Vincent van Fersen and Yvette Mutumba provide the nuances and context to the museum’s difficult situation. But even those don’t always stick to the documentary’s hermetic atmosphere.
white ball on the wall
Unrated. English and Dutch with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. at the theater.
