Cutthroat Contemporary: April 2014

Recompense

               In classical artwork, it is rare to see people of color represented outside of servants or other subordinate roles. But contemporary artists are rectifying this, by representing black bodies as beautiful and important. By imbuing their works with the kind of gravitas and grace that was usually reserved for white figures, these artists are giving the world models of beauty from other races.

               In our world, it is important to be critical of the past, and to learn from it. These artists are very clever to create a contemporary history that incorporates the past, in a way that the past never really incorporated them. They give people of color the representation they deserve, in a beautiful, sensitive way.

               Kehinde Wiley uses art historical poses and compositions to inform his portraits of urban, black, and brown men from around the world. Elizabeth Colomba attempts to un-bleach a history that has been largely whitewashed. She reinterprets historical and mythological scenes that are usually populated by whites, to include the black people that were doubtless also historically present. Jamea Richmond-Edwards creates mixed-media portraits of black women, and is inspired by the complex lives of women from her childhood. Toyin Odutola uses the art historical precedent of representing “Moorish” peoples in black bronze with gilt detail, and updates it in his ink drawings from his series “Of Another Kind”. They all strive to equate the black body with beauty and importance, in an attempt to rectify the homogeneous nature of the art of the past.