Women as icons and targets

Revered by the public, reviled by the art establishment and eventually sold at auction for almost £1m, the Mona Lisa of kitsch was painted by a rather obscure Russian-born artist who had emigrated to South Africa. The sitter of this portrait is Monika Sing-Lee, 17 at the time, who was working at Tretchikoff's uncle’s launderette. This highly idealised icon of oriental beauty is said to be the most reproduced fine art prints in the world. Her bizarrely luminescent complexion and shimmering silk robe have adorned the living room walls of countless suburban homes in the 1950s and 1960s. With her lustrous black hair and sensuous red pout, and bar for that outlandish skin colour, she embodied the classic pin-up. So yes, to millions, she was an exotic object of desire, a fetish.

It's been an exhausting and alarming couple of weeks in terms of crimes against women in the media. Then again, I cannot remember the last time it wasn't.

Two days ago, a gunman killed 6 Asian-American women working at massage parlours in the Atlanta area. The suspect maintains his actions were not racially motivated. He allegedly targeted these women because they were a temptation for his sexual addiction. Sure, they were the problem.

Let me tell you what I see here. This killing spree smacks of racism, sexism and hatred towards sex workers (it is unclear whether the victims were in that line of business, but it's possible) all bundled up together. Crimes against the Asian community in general have gone up by 150% in the last 2 years and there is no question that the former president's racist rhetoric has fanned the flames. When it comes to these women, they are often trafficked and forced to work underground. Unless and until the industry is decriminalised, they will remain vulnerable and reluctant to report any crimes against them.

But what hope is there to unravel this systemic sexualised racism problem when law enforcement spokespeople think it's okay to say that the shooter was having 'a bad day'? Honestly, I despair.

#chinesegirl #tretchikoff #painting #portrait #kitsch #atlantashooting #violence #stopasianhate #blog #artblog #beyondthecanvasblog

Vladimir Griegorovich Tretchikoff

Chinese Girl, 1951

Kerry James Marshall IS the canon

“Who needs to NOT think of you as a Black artist to consider you a real artist?” - Kerry James Marshall

There are a handful of artists whose work I revere to the point that I don't dare write about them. Kerry James Marshall is one of them, and today I'm taking the plunge. I came across this video where he cites Langston Hughes' writings on how Black artists should not aspire to paint or write like white people, but rather should "express their individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame". It's all in there, the essence of his work.

For Alabama-born Marshall it all boils down to how well artists master their medium of choice - unburdened by the racial issue, they should just try to be the best they can. As an artists, he operates in that space where Western art has dominated for centuries, imposing aesthetic ideals that are not his own. And that's where he weaves in his unapologetically ebony-skinned subjects, which are however not to be seen as a criticism to the omission of black figure representation in the history of art. Marshall has declared he is not interested in the issue of exclusion, he wants to be part of art history and drive its expansion. So that is something else he and his art are not burdened with - he is a fundamentally free artist.

My first encounter with his work was in 2016, when this allegory of painting was on display at the Unfinished exhibition at the Met Breuer. This self-aware Black Artemisia is staring right at us, demanding we engage with the painting. What a statement this is from Marshall, what a celebration of Black identity. A Black female artist depicted with the tools of her trade in the act of painting her own portrait.

I've written enough, maybe even too much. Let's hear it from the master himself: "Blackness is non-negotiable. It’s also unequivocal — they are black — that’s the thing that I mean for people to identify immediately. They are black to demonstrate that blackness can have complexity. Depth. Richness.”

#kerryjamesmarshall #blackartist #blackhistorymonth #painting #contemporaryart #artblog #beyondthecanvasblog

Kerry James Marshall

Untitled, 2009

© Kerry James Marshall, courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

A legal killing spree

"When you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it really doesn’t have any effect."

— Andy Warhol

Warhol was an avid collector of newspapers, magazines and tabloids. He appropriated and manipulated the sometimes downright lurid news imagery to create his art, and this was the basis of his Death and Disasters series, which he started in 1962 (and which happens to be my favourite part of his oeuvre). Car crashes, people jumping to their deaths, race riots, as well as the sinister inside of the Sing Sing penitentiary execution chamber. Warhol extracted these images from their journalistic context and used them repeatedly to make his point about the desensitisation of the masses.

Although this work lacks any human presence or evidence of violence, I think it conveys all the cruelty and inhumanity of the death penalty. There is a haunting stillness to it, a chilling sense of unseen terror. A sign reads 'silence'. Why? So we can hear the agonising screams of the prisoners? Was this photo taken before or after the execution? Who was last? Who is next? As it's often the case, what we do not see suggests more than what we do.

Capital punishment is the great grandchild of slavery, that's where it has its ugly roots. And the Bible Belt is also the death belt, that is no coincidence - it matches the area of the former southern confederate states. As the use of the death penalty in the US is shrinking, the Trump administration decided to restart federal executions. Since July last year, 11 people have been put to their deaths, with 2 more on the list before Trump FINALLY leaves office. This means he has executed more federal inmates than the last 10 presidents combined. After a de facto moratorium of 17 years, this is a decision that smacks of desperation. In the dying days of his administration, the president has embarked on a killing spree of unprecedented proportions, pandering to the most extreme fringes of his own base, the same people we saw climb the Capitol last week.

#andywarhol #electricchair #deathpenalty #capitalpunishment #america #justice #blog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

Andy Warhol

Electric Chair, 1964

Photo credit The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society