Welcome to the Wadsworth
2001-2003
Video, 00:25:00.
Materials: dvd
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. BK7581_M369).
The video Welcome to the Wadsworth: A Museum Tour documents a tour Fraser gave in April 1991 on behalf of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, the capital of Connecticut. Rather than offering a typical guided tour through the galleries of one of the oldest museums in the United States, Fraser takes the audience outside, to discuss the history of the museum, the city, and the state. In doing so, she draws attention to the relationship of Wadsworth with Hartford’s colonial past, exposing the conditions that have made Connecticut one of the us’s most segregated states. Although the tour seems to skip from one subject to another, Fraser follows a fixed script based on her extensive research into the way in which museums present themselves in annual reports, educational brochures and flyers, and on material from the municipal archives. The performance’s absurdity and humour only enhance the effect of the crystal-clear, critical mirror that Fraser holds up to the museum.
