On Race and Art
In the 1970s the African-American artist Adrian Piper donned an Afro wig and a fake mustache and prowled the streets in the guise of the Mythic Being, a performance-art version of a stereotype of the black male as a threatening mugger.She was turning fear into farce, punching a hole into such stereotypes while acknowledging their power.
“The Mythic Being: Getting Back #3” (1975) by Adrian Piper
“The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club (Emmett)” by Rashid Johnson
In a recent solo debut at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery in Chelsea, the artist Rashid Johnson created a fictional secret society of African-American intellectuals. At first uplift seemed to be the theme, but the installation was framed by a sculpture resembling giant cross hairs. The interpretive choice was yours.
Robert Colescott’s “Ode to Joy” (European Anthem) (1997)
Since the 1970s, artists have steadily challenged prevailing constructs about race. Among them is the artist Robert Colescott, who became the first African-American artist to represent the United States in a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1997.
Lorraine O’Grady’s “Mlle Bourgeoise Noire Costume” (1980)
““Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution” currently at the P.S 1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens,” is a good place to trace a postracial impulse in art going back decades. Among the artists featured is Lorraine O’Grady. who began her career with abstract work but went on to address race aggressively. In 1980 she introduced an alter ego named “Mlle Bourgeoise Noire” who, dressed in a beauty-queen gown sewn from white formal gloves, crashed museum openings to protest all-white shows.
“Separate but Equal: Genocide AIDS,” by Howardena Pindell, at the G. R. N’Namdi Gallery in Chelsea.
Also featured in “Wack!’’ at the Brooklyn Museum is Howardena Pindell, who treats race — whiteness as well as blackness — as a creative medium. Race is treated as an identity that could, within limits, be worn or put aside; and as a diagnostic tool to investigate social values and pathologies.
“Kicking Ass” (2000) by Eric Wesley at The Studio Museum in Harlem, part of the “Freestyle” show
The use of race as a form of creative nonfiction has had a powerful influence on two generations of African-Americans who did not experience the civil rights movement firsthand and who share a cosmopolitan attitude toward race. In 2001 that attitude found corner-turning expression in “Freestyle,” an exhibition organized at the Studio Museum in Harlem by its director, Thelma Golden. When Ms. Golden and her friend the artist Glenn Ligon called the 28 young American artists “postblack,” it made news.
“All Over” (2001) by Kori Newkirk at “Freestyle”
Among the works in the 2001 “Freestyle’’ show at the Studio Museum were mural-size images of police helicopters painted with hair pomade by Kori Newkirk, who lives in Los Angeles.
Nayland Blake’s “Coat’’ (2001)
Like blackness, whiteness has become a complicated subject for artists. In 2001 the artist Nayland Mr. Blake appeared in a video with another artist, AA Bronson. Each had his face slathered with cake frosting, chocolate in Mr. Blake’s case, vanilla in Mr. Bronson’s. When then two men exchanged a long kiss, the colors, and presumably the flavors, began to blend.
Installation view of Kara Walker’s “My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love” at the Whitney Museum of Art (2007)
When Kara Walker cut out paper silhouettes of fantasy slave narratives, with characters — black and white alike — inflicting mutual violence, she attracted censure from some black artists. At least some of those objecting had personal roots in the civil rights years and an investment in art as a vehicle for racial pride and spiritual solace.
Fashion accessories belonging to the rappers Run-DMC, part of the 2000 “Hip-Hop Nation” show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art
A 2000 show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art called “Hip-Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes and Rage” offered an array of fashion images, videos and artifacts associated with stars like the Notorious B.I.G., Missy Elliott and Tupac Shakur. Its appearance coincided with the general massive marketing of hip-hop culture to middle-class whites.
An image used to promote William Pope.L’s ‘eRacism’ show (2002-04)
For a retrospective at the Maine College of Art in Portland in 2003, William . Pope.L presented a performance piece titled “eRacism.” In a photograph in the show’s catalog, he has the word written in white on his bare black chest. Were he pale-skinned, it might have been all but invisible.
“Untitled (BLCK-We wear the mask)” (2007-08) by Adler Guerrier
Whereas some artists shape themselves into a distinctive racial presence, certain others are literally built from scratch. A Miami artists collective called BLCK, in the current Whitney Biennial, doesn’t really exist. The archival materials attributed to it documenting African American life in the 1960s are actually the creation of single artist: Adler Guerrier, who was born in Haiti in 1975. N.Y. Times
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