The opening of “Kelley Walker: Direct Drive” at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis on Sept. 16 and the associated artist talk the following evening have prompted a complex and troubling controversy over the racially and sexually charged exhibition and the responses of the artist and the museum since.

Walker’s one-man exhibition at the museum is filled with painted-on images that are silk-screened and enlarged. The concepts of appropriation and obscuring are a common theme in all the work, which spans throughout many years. Walker, who is white, has been criticized for appropriating black images without a justifiable reason.

The two main works in question are “Black Star Press” and “schema; Aquafresh plus Crest with Whitening Expressions,” both of which appropriate images of black culture that Georgia-born Walker “vandalizes” with materials such as whitening toothpaste and melted white, milk and dark chocolate.

“Black Star Press” uses an image of police brutality from a 1963 protest in Birmingham, Ala., rotated at 90-degree intervals and slathered with chocolate. The museum notes that the manipulations “mask and partially censor the act of police brutality with a perishable material as well as alter the power dynamic between the image’s subjects.” In “schema,” toothpaste streaks the body of rapper Trina on the floor-to-ceiling enlargement of KING Magazine covers, through which Walker “creates gestural abstractions and alludes to consumption, objectification and impermanence.”

Members of the St. Louis community raised questions about the sources and intentions of these works at Walker’s artist talk at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM) on Sept. 17. In a widely circulated Facebook post, St. Louis artist Damon Davis wrote that he “went to this talk to specifically ask Walker why he chose these images to use and what this art means.” He continued, “When confronted with an actual black person, Walker became flustered and angry and had no actual answer for why he was using these images.” Davis called for a boycott of the museum until the pieces are taken down.

The video footage of the artist talk, generally available online, was removed from the internet following the comments on social media.

An open letter by three black museum staffers, De Andrea Nichols, Lyndon Barrois Jr. and Victoria Donaldson, published on Sept. 22, also raised concerns with the show. In the letter, they ask the museum to act on a number of requests, including the removal of the pieces in question and the resignation of chief curator Jeffrey Uslip. They wrote that, during the three-year process leading to this exhibition, the museum did not take into consideration concerns raised on numerous occasions by the staffers, including that such works are “untimely and insensitive in the context of the St. Louis community and the current nature of race relations within the United States.”

On the Monday following the open letter, Uslip resigned from his position. The museum announced, however, that it would not be taking the show down and would instead add an additional wall blocking off the controversial pieces, “so that visitors who wish to avoid particularly difficult works may do so.” Now viewers walking into the museum have the option to step beyond the wall and into the gallery, instead of being immediately confronted. Signage around the museum and the entrances to the gallery also warn viewers of the potentially difficult content.

“Taking down the show would violate the museum’s core principles and end the productive dialogue that this work has initiated. CAM has a history of showing controversial artists,” the museum’s statement reads. “Despite the debates and discomfort these exhibitions generated, we never removed them.” They note that the modifications are “designed to welcome dialogue and dissent.”

Both Walker and the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York, which represents him, have also responded.

“I deeply regret that a great deal of anger, frustration and resentment have developed in the St. Louis community as a result of my failure to engage certain questions,” a statement from Walker reads. “I have always hoped that these works, and the exhibition as a whole, would provide a forum for a conversation about the way American society gets represented in the media.” Here, Walker misses yet another opportunity to actually engage those questions that he admits he failed to answer.

The statement from the Paula Cooper Gallery makes a controversial claim itself in defense of Walker and his work: “The role of the artist, it has been said, is to ask questions, not answer them.”

Yes, art has a history of causing controversy and shock, and there is weight to the power and role of the artist to ask questions. At the same time, art is not required to be social commentary, but if it is, the artist is not exempt from accountability.

Davis said it best: “If you are an artist and you are making work that is specifically racially and sexually charged—if you use black people for props in your works—then at least be ready to explain yourself.”

Even if one argues that Walker is not responsible for explaining his work, Uslip, as curator, is absolutely responsible. It is a curator’s job to interpret and present art to the public. His inability to respond to the questions posed at the artist talk reveals that, perhaps, there is nothing productive to be said about Walker’s work within a socially critical context.

The erecting of a wall carries a very particular symbolism. It is a physical barrier that is meant to protect but also has the connotation of keeping people out, of a refusal to listen and respond. In some ways, the addition of a divider mirrors the socioeconomic and racial divides of St. Louis—a very revealing irony.

If Walker is ignorant of the impact that his images have on a particular community, then his work is just plain appropriation, commodified for the benefit of a privileged, primarily white art market; and if he doesn’t, then he and the museum should be prepared to discuss the work openly and critically, as well as to give necessary context for the images before an entire community feels the justified need to request it.