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Carl Swanson: "My Vulture post on artists in Detroit didn't reflect the diversity of that city, for which I apologize," he tweets.
(Photo by Jill Krementz)
In an editorial note on its site and a tweet by writer Carl Swanson on Monday afternoon, the Vulture news site expresses regret for racial narrowness in profiles of nine Detroit artists last Friday
The apology below Swanson's report says:
As many commenters have pointed out, this story, which focuses on artists who have chosen to make Detroit their home, missed an opportunity to highlight artists of color. The list does not fully reflect the diversity of voices and experiences in the city, for which we apologize.
Forty-five comments, many critical, are posted at Vulture. Dozens of others were tweeted from Detroit and beyond, as Deadline reported Saturday and below.
Separately, Richard Horgan of Mediabistro -- another New York website -- posts four paragraphs on the flap Monday afternoon and suggests sensibly:
Perhaps Vulture and Swanson should consider some sort of follow-up.
Earlier article, 11 p.m. Sunday:
Blaming a wrong turn on bad directions doesn't always work, particularly when finger-pointing is done by a writer who steered his own coverage off-course.
Manhattan journalist Carl Swanson responds on Twitter to two critics of his article profiling nine Detroit artists, which bypasses black and Latino members of the large creative community.
"Not all artists in Detroit are white. You're doing our diverse community a disservice," Serena Donadoni of Detroit tweets to Swanson, as well as to the Vulture site where he's an editor-at-large and to New York magazine, its owner.
Here's his reply, which refers to Elysia Borowy-Reeder, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit (MOCAD):
@TheCinemaGirl Of course not. This list of artists, which Elysia was kind enough to put together for me, wasn't intended to be comprehensive
— carl swanson (@carlstwitt) January 2, 2015
Kelly Guillory, a Detroit artist who's half of the Ashur Collective graphic novel publishing enterprise, sees that response as disingenuous:
.@carlstwitt @TheCinemaGirl "the list was put together for me" --Sorry excuse. You're a reporter. Think about representation when you write.
— K. Guillory (@kgpaints) January 3, 2015
.@carlstwitt @vulture Do not come to our city, cover only a group of white people, and then present them in an article representing Detroit.
— K. Guillory (@kgpaints) January 4, 2015
.@carlstwitt @vulture Also, your response is a pretty bad apology. I don't think you realize how many people here you offended.
— K. Guillory (@kgpaints) January 4, 2015
Swanson tries again to dig out of the deepening hole:
@kgpaints @vulture hi k. I respect your important points. Certainly this little story wasn't meant to be definitive. And it's not.
— carl swanson (@carlstwitt) January 4, 2015
Guillory responds Sunday afternoon: "This is not a 'little article' when your site is read by millions." Later in the day, Guillory says Borowy-Reeder of MOCAD told her by phone that "she named a LOT of artists, including Tylonn Sawyer, Carl didn't visit them."
Sawyer, a College for Creative Studies (CCS) instructor, exhibited at the Red Bull Gallery of Art in Eastern Market early last year. He earned a master of fine arts in painting from the New York Academy of Art and a bachelor of fine arts in drawing and painting from Eastern Michigan University.
In an additional bit of frankness unlikely to help his defense, the New York writer discloses that his local visit for "a couple of days," as he originally wrote Friday at Vulture, had a dual purpose:
@TheCinemaGirl my partner's from there; i did this visiting his family w/him for the holidays; next time im there lets meet up?
— carl swanson (@carlstwitt) January 2, 2015
Amanda Levitt joined one of the Twitter threads Sunday afternoon, commenting:
@carlstwitt @kgpaints @vulture Hold up. You came into a city and allowed for a white person to put a list together of all white folks?
— Amanda Levitt (@FatBodyPolitics) January 4, 2015
Deadline reader Thaddeus Kaczor of Sterling Heights, tweets: "We need a coherent voice for #Detroit's art community. Not defined by outsiders."
Stay tuned for more on this saga, which seems unlikely to fade soon. "Let's fix this," artist and CCS instructor Elizabeth A. Youngblood posts on her Facebook page with the link below.
Saturday coverage:
Psst, Vulture Editors: Detroit Also Has Black Artists (Lots of Them), Jan. 3
