There has been a great deal of press, largely negative, on the decision of four major museums to postpone this Philip Guston retrospective. They don't say it's because of his Klan images, but that's what it's about. Though Jerry Saltz comes down on a less hostile note, saying that the underlying institutions need to address a systemic bias along with this postponement, I'm afraid-after reading a great deal-- I land on the side of those who regret the momentous decision.

Often referenced in the stories has been what many regard as the first global incidence of turbulence in the Whitney Museum's decision to display Dana Schutz's Open Casket painting of Emmett Till. There too, I felt keenly the artist's intentions which were all to the good. Some say that is no longer enough.

Guston is not alive, and can't be canvassed, but his corpus and his history in Los Angeles as a young, committed political activist suggest that he would have been very disturbed by this decision; his daughter Musa says so and she would know. I love Guston--so does Schutz and so many artists who have derived both stylistic and narrative lessons from this bold artist who eventually went against the prevailing AbEx winds.