Daily Caller:

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) is auctioning prominent artwork by prolific modern artist Andy Warhol among other white male artists in order to create more diverse exhibits featuring African American and female artists, Dazed reported Monday. The museum is auctioning off seven paintings, including two Warhol paintings, which will go on auction in May. Museum director Christopher Bedford instead wants to replace these pieces with minority artists' work that better represents Baltimore's demographics. Baltimore is 63 percent African American as of 2016, according to the United States Census Bureau. Bedford calls the decision "transformative," noting "in that the most important artists working today, in my view, are black Americans," he told Artnet. The seven paintings are expected to go for a sum total of at least $12 million, which will be used to curate more contemporary [sic] pieces from female and minority artists. "The BMA, like any civic museum, must undergo a continuous process of reviewing its collection and identifying areas for growth and refinement with the goal of building a collection that is more relevant to the community it serves," Bedford said in an April 13 news release.

The museum can display artwork from anyone it chooses, so if it chooses to show artwork based not on its merit, but on the color of the artist's skin, that's its own business.

My problem is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with "art" as a medium of expression. No doubt, the black artists replacing the white artists have important things to say. The question is, why weight the expression by race? The black artists are no better than the white artists and vice versa (although I'd take a Rembrandt over a Tanner in a second). The point is, the color of the artist's skin should play no role in judging a piece for display. What ideas are being conveyed? What is the artist trying to express?

If you believe that skin color determines beauty in art, you don't believe in the universal power of artistic expression and have no business curating a museum.