The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

BreakerBaker — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:22:28 -0000

Yeah, the little bit that you quote from me is directly preceded by the word “necessarily.” Mind you, I am not saying these depictions existed in a vacuum. I am simply saying that the depictions themselves are not necessarily motivated by racist philosophy. This depiction is not about rejecting the idea that Christ was a Middle Eastern Jew, and probably looked like a Middle Eastern Jew. A lot of what happens in art happens out of necessity. Durer made Christ look German. Velazquez made him Spanish. Van Eyck made him Dutch. Leonardo made him Florentine. Now, were these guys racists? Perhaps. Probably? But did their racism have anything to do with why Christ ended up European? Or was Christ European because the artists themselves were European and they were surrounded by Europeans whom they were trying to reach?

I’m not arguing about whether or not it’s racist or stupid to only be willing to accept a Christ that looks like you. I’m talking only about the original depiction.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:19:10 -0000

Fair enough.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

Jeremy Hilary Boob, Ph.D. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:13:27 -0000

First, thanks for your thoughtful remarks on art and colonialism. I hope I didn't come across as too dismissive, above.

But I'm afraid I must strongly disagree with you about Picasso and the Demoiselles d'Avignon. I've studied this painting a bit--and I studied under someone who's an expert on Picasso. So I'm more than a little biased.

Picasso did look at African sculpture. But also at Oceanic sculpture and Medieval Iberian sculpture. That is, we can't really tell what the source of those distorted faces is. Picasso put too many things together in his mind. So it's not just about Africa, nor is it about appropriation.

I'm troubled by the notion of appropriation in this context. Picasso seems to have wanted to smash the imperial culture of Europe (especially the ossified Greco-Roman tradition). He put its supposed opposite up against it in a radical gesture that his friend Apollinaire characterized with one word: Revolution.

What other choices did he have? How could he not have left himself open to the charge of appropriation by people 100 years later? What African artists were showing in European galleries back then? What African artists could he have learned from? Should he have gone to Africa and tried to fit in--the way Gauguin tried do? (See how well that worked out!)

In short, I wonder if the claim that Picasso appropriated African art is actually a conflation of Picasso with the larger history of the collection and display of non-Western art in 20th-century art galleries (a practice that has many problems; c.f. Chris Steiner and James Clifford).

Let me be clear that I'm not indicting you in all of this. I took askance to the echoes that I heard in your original comments, rather than taking askance to you.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

Jeremy Hilary Boob, Ph.D. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:57:32 -0000

I'm sure you're right about the Audre Lorde line. I'm using it out of context, myself.

And I only meant to be a bit condescending in my last line (I'm an academic who specializes in High Art; it's practically a job requirement).

More seriously, though, I'm hearing a lot of echoes of Edward Said's Orientalism (and seeing several references to it). It was a pioneering work, but that was a long time ago (1970s). We've come a long way since. And I'm just trying to follow in the footsteps of scholars who are much smarter than me. Historians and Anthropologists, especially, have been far in advance of us art historians in rethinking race, colonialism, and culture.

TNC is right that I am responding in large part to a different conversation--one among art historians in specialist journals where I am still trying to convince people that my position (that I put forward above) is worth paying attention to.

Invisman52: That sounds a lot like a Saidian formulation that you're putting forward. Said brought our attention to the ways that colonialism (i.e. real power relations and their representation in language in culture) penetrate deeply into the culture of the colonial metropole, but the Foucauldian frame that he used (i.e. the notion of discourse, of gazes, etc) doesn't fit with his humanism. That is, for us to critique the (very real and widespread) racism of a historical period, we have to leave Foucault behind because otherwise we'll rapidly end up condemning vast number of historical artists for being linked to colonial culture.

Instead, I'm interested in what people choose to do with the culture that they inherit. You may grow up in a racist and colonial culture (and thus absorb it), but how do you position your art in relation to it? There is no way to step outside your own place and time, so your art will still use the racist terms or ideas around you. That's why I say that primitivism has its own original sin. Primitivizing or Oriental art is still racist.

But it's not only racist.

I want to see the bigger picture and the contradictions of the (flawed) humans who lived in it.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

CK — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:14:57 -0000

Jeremy Hilary Boob, Ph.d is a character from Yellow Submarine (the Beatles animated movie).

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

Hugo Pottisch — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:56:53 -0000

I don't think the depiction of Christ as a white dude is necessarily any more indicative of racism than the depiction of him as a black dude.

Really? You do not see difference in quantity, quality and timing either? There might be similarities but "not any more indicative" - come on Baker, you are smarter and better educated than that? How would a white Christian slave owner justify what he was doing if his own Master were black? Why did Malcolm become a Muslim?

In this context - Picasso is just an artist. But the "art" hanging in almost every Western Church... the image hanging in almost every Western mind due to the Jesus depictions and the corresponding justifications... wow. Grand grand scale. So big that one cannot even...

PS: What strikes me as interesting is that by now there are more white and black Jesuses than brown ones. Why have the small fringe groups, that look nothing like our saviour, taken over that department? 2/3+ of the world were and are brown and yet...

PS II: I really liked Laura's unique interpretation of our Lord. Never have I seen anything like it.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

BreakerBaker — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:37:09 -0000

Not to lessen Picasso's impact, but Modernism began long before Picasso was born. The people given the most credit for its birth tend to be people like Courbet, Manet, and, of course, Cezanne.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

BreakerBaker — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:26:47 -0000

There's a good chance that many of them were, but I don't think the depiction of Christ as a white dude is necessarily any more indicative of racism than the depiction of him as a black dude. Since my post was the one the used the racism line, I think it's important to view that in context, and in contrast to the Christ example.

The Picasso painting which I am quoted above calling 'culturally insensitive' and only 'borderline racist' is a distorted composition of five nude European women, two of which are wearing African tribal mask, one of whom is squatting near the edge of the picture plane with legs spread.

Picasso collected African artifacts, appropriated their imagery for quite a bit of his own work. Now, is there anything wrong with this? In the context of colonialism, when the general Parisan concessus view of Africans were of cannabals, maybe, maybe not. Some will argue that he's the fine art equivalent to Joseph Conrad. I'm dubious.

On the topic of the Jesuses linked, I know the sculptor who did those silly Buddy Jesus figures for that Kevin Smith movie. I wonder if she knows she's number six in the google image file for Jesus. Six out of 42 million. Not bad Laura.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

BreakerBaker — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:05:20 -0000

While I am, generally speaking, no fan of Picasso's, the flatness wasn't because he couldn't paint depth. The man was a child prodigy and an accomplished illusory realist when he was a student.

Here's a painting he did when he was something like 16 or 17 years old.

http://www.abcgallery.com/P/picasso/picasso3.html

The man knew quite well how to move paint. Even if his paintings kind of suck. There, I said it!

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

Hugo Pottisch — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 19:37:45 -0000

But of course the whole thing started much much earlier. With the anthropomorphic representation of the Buddha due to Alexander the Great. Whenever you see a human buddha statue - you see the end of Greece and the beginning of the West and East. Ironically, I can understand Alexander's motives and to an extend even agree with them. There is so much more behind all this than can meet the eye? I therefore like it.

Here we are, in my opinion, dealing with Western speciesm (Plato and Aristotle - the first Westerners and not Socrates and Expicurus - the last Greeks). It is one of many examples of why speciesm came before racism and why it is its seed. It was after we started enslaving non-human nature that we commenced with humans as well. That is why Pythagorus and later Gandhi used the "working at the roots" argument for why they were vegetarians. We have to de-velop, meaning entangle. In order to go forward we first have to go backwards? It has been like that ever since we tasted the Tree of Knowledge?

On a racial pride note - whenever I travel through Asia and see Alexander's statue admired as Buddha - I feel slight unease. I really dig Buddha's fat or sometimes elegant grin but... stop me now or I will waste precious party time!

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

brucds — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:14:58 -0000

I get nothing looking at a Picasso purely as a painting compared to, say, van Gogh. I don't know much about painting compared to people who are deep into this, but to me in an awful lot of Picasso's stuff the paint just looks flat. I was especially struck by this when I saw the "Picasso as Engraver" show at the met about a dozen years ago and they had some paintings up in the show as well. I'd never really thought about it before, but his paintings weren't impressive and kind of sucked in that context. Maybe it's just a question of the kind of work with paint that I'm partial to...

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

brucds — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:00:18 -0000

Fair enough. And I thought your origiinal comment was an excellent thoughtful one - set off what I thought was an interesting discussion that made me check out my own notions about this stuff.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

Hugo Pottisch — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 08:48:11 -0000

What about this. Were these artists all racist?

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

Miwome — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:22:06 -0000

I really think an essential resource for swimming in these waters is Edward Said's Orientalism. It deals with more than just visual arts, but once you've read it questions like this just open up as clear as day.

This is a beautiful painting, and as TNC said, it's entirely possible to understand the virtues and the deficiencies of an object simultaneously. As Orientalst/colonialist-infused art goes, this one's pretty innocuous, I think--or at least not unusual. It's not unlike the vogue that gripped France for a while of having oneself painted in "Oriental" dress and surrounded by exotic objects. Turcmania, they called it.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

BreakerBaker — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:34:23 -0000

Nobody's asking the dead to be anything they weren't. All I am saying is that it's a good and helpful thing to make the attempt to understand who they were.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

BreakerBaker — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:32:14 -0000

I don't personally go in for that kind of definition. I'm not big at all on old the art vs. illustration debate. Personally, I think it's art if you want it to be. And sometimes, even if you don't.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

BreakerBaker — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:29:45 -0000

Well, there's no reason to apologize at all. I wish I had more time today to devote to offering a better contribution to this thread. I did not.

And I wasn't offended by Boob/dmf, either. I didn't mean to leave that impression.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

BreakerBaker — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:20:21 -0000

He was not an unskilled painter, either.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

BreakerBaker — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:18:55 -0000

I'm not sure that I made the claim that understanding the historical implications (in the context of the discussion we're having) is going to provide the least amount of insight into your visceral reaction to the piece. I don't think we try to find out more about a work of art so that we can better understand our own responses, but to inform them.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:12:40 -0000

I've always found that quote to be maddening. It doesn't really mean anything.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

brucds — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:08:09 -0000

So was that entire comment a put-on, or just the name (and tone.)

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

brucds — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:02:18 -0000

I guess my biggest question is how, say, the contextual discussion about Salome helps me understand why the picture is riveting and people still stop and stare, hundreds of years after it was painted. I doubt the historical or cultural context has anything at all to do with that.

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

brucds — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:49:48 -0000

Picasso couldn't paint very well, but he could sure as hell draw (which is what carries most of his best paintings) and his engravings are wonderful.

I was referring to "Picasso", not that Picasso guy...

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

Invisman52 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:44:30 -0000

This is a good conversation. I appreciate it much.

There is a way that what BreakerBaker was alerting us to is not so much individual artists and their personal tastes in terms of inspiration, appropriation, subject, composition, and so forth. But I think what he is alerting us to is a kind of wider context, that is, the ways in which a piece of art serves as historical and historiographic material. It is less, perhaps, what the pieces tell us about Picasso et. all-the basis of J.H. Boob, PhD's comment; it more about an epistemological field--a way of thinking and technologies of knowledge about the Other that manifest in high art such as Picasso or low art such as in soap ads in British East Africa.

I mean, really, Dr. Boob these individuals may have seen themselves as good guys--so, too, did some slave owners who thought they were saving blacks from modernity and technology (see George Fitzhugh of the 1850s). Just because you see yourself as a "good guy" doesn't mean you don't participate in the same kind of vitriol, oppression, and exploitation of the Other of those you critique.

I think BreakerBaker is also altering us to how the kind of Orientalism practiced by Picasso et. al trickled down and away from the realm of high art. Dr. Boob critiqued the scholarship of the 1990s for its desire to call out historical figures for racism, sexism, etc. Yet, after the 1990s there was a kind of "conservative" backlash that sought to exonerate certain figures from the charges of the 1990s as much as to push back against the scholarship of the 1990s.

And while I do not find the final line of Boob, Ph.D.'s comment as condescending as TNC, to suggest that there are much better ways of thinking about race and art than BreakerBaker's original comment is specious because, really, you two are after different things. Boob, PhD is after biography (and perhaps hagiography) of artists; BreakerBaker seems to be after the insidious aftereffect, the kinds of racial and racist unconscious that under which certain approaches and gazes operate. And frankly, I find the latter more compelling.

(Also, I think that Lourde quote, which is often taken out of context, has been disproven. Ask Martin King, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells Barnett, and A. Phillip Randolph about the master's tools. They used the quite effectively.)

Re: Portraiture, Colonialism and Racism

dmf — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:56:14 -0000

sorry bb, my comment wasn't directed at you, I was anticipating the usual identity-politics replies to your posting and was trying to get a word in for seeing a painting as a painting, but it seems that I just opened Pandora's box. I have appreciated your insights on these matters, as on other things, and will try and be more specific in future replies. I hope that the name Hilary Boob Ph.D is a sign of a monty-pythonish tomfoolery but I always had a thing for the absurdists, at least the intentional ones, peace.