Aesthetic Interventions

8/14/2019 Aesthetic Interventions

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A e s th e ti cLn r e r v e n t i o n s

It. l W" YSEN G It G ED with the issue of represenration as a means bywhich the self is conseruceed and made visible. in her new work Emma.... mos makes the canvas, the blank sbeeeof paper, a cu ltural site for critical explo ration ofart practices. Interrogating the way in which aesrhericsensibility is shaped by [ parr icula riry ofartistic vision. as well as show.Ing how that vision is informed by conscrainrs imposed by a concrete politi es of representarioo th at maintains and pe rpetuates the SU t US q uo.Amos di srup ts rhe esse nrialisr assumption tha t a pu re imag inat ionshapes arti stic work. Showing us that all art is SitU3U.'d in history, that eheindividual choice of subject matt er refleces tha t siruaredness, in her newwork Amos articulates a vision of universality that coexists in a d ialecticalrelat ionship to the particu lar.

rarring from the standpoin t rbar rhe polit ics of racism and sexism create a culrural conrexc wherein whir e male arti sts work with in an art worldthat is predi sposed to acco rd them recogn it ion and visibi lity. Amosbegins her new work by calling attention to rhe consrrainrs rhar lim it andcon fi ne all those "ochers" who are not in the privileged category. Wi thinwhue-supremacisecapital ist pat riarchy, images of power and freedom aresymbolica lly personified b)' the wh it e male "subject ." in relation towhom all other beings art: cons tr ucted as unfree "objects. " At ebe outerlimi ts ofotherness , then . one finds the image of black femaleness, personif}'ing within the existing cultu re of domination. powerlessness. a lack ofagenq', no capacity for transcendent vision. These t rain rema in the prop.enies c f the powerful. Any black female who dares ro clnim them is oucofplace. t ransg ressing bou ndarie s, a menace eo sociecy,

Few Afriam .American women areisu would understand this bet ter thanAmos. Meking a commitment to art in the 1 ~ 0 a n moving from rhe sbel(era! comfort ofprivileged-c lassSouthern black li(e to the Central SchoolofArt in London, and finally to New York City, where she hoped to come into


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164 "I lTON MY N IND

ElRmaAN1OJ . The Overseer . 1992. Arrylidli"tn i l 1 m ~ s wish Ajriran jabruand bordtrS. 84 " x 68." C ( ) l i r t ~ J rJj tINarUJ/.her own as an art isr, Amos knows firsthand dle barriers that keep art a dosedworld on ly the cbcsen can enrer, Like ma ny black an ises. fema le and male.she can look back and ide:m ify the segregated world of black cult ure as thelocat ion rhar first inspired her eo choose to make art . In that world it wasasnatu ral fo r a black female eod erm an: as a terrain for cultu FolI exploration asfor the sun eo sluoe. g reg;lt ion meant that oo ooe q uesriooed Amos 's t ighrrn cla im urt . Since she was raised in a home where an and black intellectua lwork were valued , writers and arti sts wert: fam iliars in her world . The b arriers and checks 0 11creariviry began when she left t hat proeeceed space on themargin to t ry and m ake it as an an ise 10 t he mainstream an world.

Being t!le only woman membe rofSpiral, a g roup formed by black anistSin th e 1960s t hat included Romaee Bearden . o rman Lewis, and H ale\VorxJru fT. Amos learned early to ....rork around the sexism of men , black andwhite, who did not rake ....tomen art ists seriously. Trying to show pe.nri ngsthat featured whne figures, AmosC'aJT1(' faa- to face with t he racism of the artwodd , which felt it could best package her work, or that ofany black artis t,by pro jecting it as always and on ly abou t t he represen rarion of block images.Despite insnnn ionahzed systems of do mi nation th at di scou rage fema lesfmm making a lifelong commirmem to an, Amos cont inues to work . Afteryears of b eing si len r about th e ways in which th e po lit ics of dom inationshape an prscnces. Amos began to spea k ou t in the 19705. Her speakingwas info rmed by fem in ist cultural politics , co llabo l"J rive rebell ion wit h her .....omen artis ts, end engagemem w ith feminist publicenons.


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While women an isesare cfren encouraged to talk in interviews ebou rIhe impact of racism and sexism on thei r live s and work , it is commonknowledge that an arrisr risks having her work taken less seriously in thean world if the subject marrer is overtly polit ical. Yel aga in and againartists from marg inalized groups. who continuallyst rugg le eo crearea culrura l conrexr where their work can be recognized , find they must placeartistic practice in a polit ical CO!Ht'X not only to idt'lHify the issues but toovercome limitat ions, (0 create the space where boundaries Can be rranscended . where the work and the artiSI can g row. Clarifying the reasonsthis resistance is necessary in Whtn IIxMoon U'1I.\'lt Rid,Trinh T. Minh-Haexplains: "I c challenge the reg imes of representation that 8m'em a societyis to conceive of how a polit ics can tra nsform rea lity rather than merelyideologize it . As the strugg le moves onwa rd and assumes new. d ifferentforms. it is bound to recompose subjectivity and praxis whi le displacingrhe weydiversecc lcural strategies relate eo ooe aooeber in the consrinuiooof social and potincsllife."Charting in her early work the social consrrucrion of the artist's ident ity in relarion to the private world of kin and family.of loved ones chosen outside the realm of the familiar, in her new workAmos int errogat es from the space of the unknown , the unfamiliar. thedangerous. Placing her own image in paintings and prin ts that depict aworld where she could never "belong ," Amos resists objecti fication andsubordination, Subversively announcing her subject ivity via the imaginative appropriation of the space of power occupied by white males, sheemerges from the shadows to call anennon to subjugated knowledge. Inthe painting ThtOtmttr she links repressive whitesupremacy to attemptsro comrol and define images ofwhitenessand blackness.

Exposing in her work the way racism depicts black folks as objectsmrher than sub jects of represen tat ion, Amos prcblernntizes whit eness.Borh in u ta l ) DrtaNl and in AIrs. GaNg" III 's Shirt she-callsanenr ion to thet'dcialize


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1t.6 AltT 0 .... MY N IN O

E"I1M ,b 'DJ. Mrs. Geugin 's Shi rt . J994. Silk collpgraph, 1m" plxJtograph.t T" x 9" x 2#2/14. # , CfUlrttJl o! llNarwl.Interrogates the sexism and racism thoU has shaped the arnsnc vision ofmllnywhite amscs. determini ng the ways they represent imagesof d iffer-ence. her intent is ncr to censure but to illuminate through exposure. Pre-sent ing us with representations of white supremacy via her man)' imagesof the Ku Klux KJan in works such asChow and Caplllnd.she arricularesthe link berween rhar whiteness which seeks to ehm inar e and erase allmemory of darkness and that whiteness which cla ims the black body in


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A[ j,TtIETIC ~ ( liP

represeruarion only to hold it capt ive'. To resist that claiming, Amos chal-lens es the use of blackness as the space where whitenesscan be redefined .To make that challenge she must lay arti st ic hands on l white body.

By laying claim to the white body through a processofob jectificat ion.visually represented in the painting lf ltwk Sll fI , and the prim WorkSlIil Try'On,Amos imegi naeively appropriates tilt. naked white: mall' figure to gainarristic visib ility. Subverti ng the parad igm to seize power, rath er t handeifying white male power, she pokes fun at it . Her white male body suitis not impre ssive. It looks ridiculous. A sati ric comment on the stupidi tyof categories. thi s playful mockery illust rates the realit y of dominat ion.In \Vtt)' ( 0 Go, Carl Bttby and A. R. Pink Dimilwl BItteRwe are asked to reoexamine race and gende r in relat ion to conrrol over the image. Byreclaiming a site of image making Inclusive of her subject ivity. and usingit to crit ique and sig nify. Amos imag inatively dismantles the structu resof race and gende r privilege. This is rhe art of insurrection .

Linking her arti stic practi ce with militant resistance to whi tt'supremacy traditionally personified by the revolutionary leader MalcolmX, in X Flag and Alalro/Ill X . AI(Jf'It'].Ma(mea"J Me, Amos interrogatesapolitics of the visual wherein whitt' male artists are Irequenely acclaimedwhen they usc black figures in their work while African. AmNican arristsreceive a message from the established art world that their use of wh iteimages will not be embraced. that even in the world ofimaginati\'e arns-t ic pract ice no one willaccept and condone black artist s toyi ng with, con-(foiling , shaping images of whiteness.Amos asse rts her right to work with the white image. Rather thanregardi ng rhar image as "crher," she urSt's recogni tion of the cu lturalmixi ng that calls into question an emphasis on racial purity. Cri t ical ofthis type of narrow nationalism, Amos highlights what the black Brit ishculrura l critic Paul Gi lroy in Tbe Black Atlanlie lif10rld ident ifies as "therheorisaoon of creolisanon. mensssge. mestiza je. and hybndi ry," rermsthat allow us to nam e Mhe processes of cult ural mutat ion and restl ess(disjconrin uiry that exceed racial d iscou rse and avoid capture by itsagents," Against the backd rop of white supremacy, rep resented in paint-ing and print by images of the Confederate Rag and the Ku Klux Klan .Amos places imagesof tha t cultural mixing that occursdespite racism.She Juxtaposes the reali ty of this cult ural miscegenation with the (anw)'of pur it y. Her work is in sharp cont rast to tha r of art ists who have used


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l t i8 ART O N M Y MIN D

En/NUl Amos. X Flag. 1993. Acrylicpaiming, AjrfcIIR j"bric. Co"jtdtratejlag,laYrphMIJ lraRJlw. ' 8" x 40." COJIrttS) allJNartlSl.black and white figures in ways chat romant icize ot herness , present italways and only as chat which cannor be assrmila red. Aga lOs( those his-


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AL5 T IIC T IC IN T EIIV r


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appears as the chosen space of marginaliry where th e oppressed andexp loited exit from a hin ory that den ies them subjectivity. refusing to beOOten , rejecting association wit h thi s dyna mic. Th is refusal is high lightedin the prim SIal/ding 0111. where the black male thi nker is ser apart. watchingthe silhouet ted white male and female app ropriate space. It is this chosenposit ion of "ouuider" that Iiberares the black male figure. Fret' of rhe esrabIisbeddomina riog orde r. a freedom gained by d islocat ion and di$lSSOCiation,by cbe dyrwmcs ofseruggle. black artists are empowered to be self-defining,critically reflective. able to challenge. revise, and rework history.An is revolunonized in the pms s . Freedom of expression is made more inclusive.

The rejection of domi nation as the only point ofcontact between thosewho are d ifferen t tha t takes place in these pr int s and pai ntings does ncrlead to a reversal wherein black power substitutes irself for white power.Instead . it allows for radically different libe rarory visions of freedom toemerge. In Ihis fret' wor ld . identities are not static but always changing.C risscrossing and crossb reeding become mutual pracnces. and the power10 explore and journey is extended to all. Wriring about the need for aninsurrection that does not simply mirror the dominant culture in Whtn Iht1 1001/ \flpxu Red . Trinh T. Minh-ha rem inds us that "To disrupt the exist ing systems of domi nant values and 10 challenge the very foundation of asocia l and cu ltu ral orde r is not merel y to destroy a few prejud ices or toreverse power relarions within the terms of an economy of the sam e- . . .Aware rbar opp re-ss ion can be- loca ted bo th in th e sto ry told and in th etel ling of the Story, an art cr it ica l of soci al reality neither relies on mereconsensus no r doe s it ask permission from ideo logy." De fi antl y, Amosplaces her image among the repressive fascist forces of white supremacy inBlmdfoltb and Tilt OttrJlff10 counter a cu ltural politics of exclusion anddenial char would sepa roa te- the practice of artistic freedom from concretestruggles for liberation. O ne struggle makes th e ocher possible, not justfor African American art ists but for any art ist . TIle convergence of possibiliry that is hinted at in the pa inting i\ lalro/mX. I\1",.lty. i\! al;SJt, pnd M t isan example of how Amos 's work rejects a binary approach to the polit ics ofdiffercnt"e t hat would have everyone's identity be fixed. stat ic, and alwaysseparatt'. She replaces this parad igm wit h one where mixing is celebrated,where rhe cultural interchanges rhar d isrupt patterns of do mination ared ismantled so that an ethic of reciprociry and mutual engagement formscbe aesthetic g rounds where the subject can be constantly changing.

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Aesthetic Interventions