Art museum reflection

Self I As Image

Prof. Doris Cacoilo

Spring 2019

Constructing identity in America

Mariana Metry

Constructing Identity in America.

     To construct identity is to construct self. Constructing identity is self exploration with the ability to represent it within the corresponding period and culture in which artists include beliefs, personalities, experiences, memories and looks that make a person or a group.  The exhibition of Montclair Art Museum contains about 90 portraits that hold the definition of identity throughout the American culture since 1766 to 2017. The artists who painted these portraits show the diversity of the American society in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, color and religion beside some personal characteristics.

    Inside the museum, I saw all these terms of constructing identity starting from color presentation as seen in Kehinde Wiley works who painted portrait in black body representing his ancestral origin to religious paintings as shown in Allan Rohan Crite paintings who presented Christ birth including the African American identity and gender and fashion presentation through Cindy Sherman portraits which describes the civic identity during 1950s. Also, the work there presented patriarchy through portraits of some other artists who focused on the body power through cultural stereotyping. Ethnic and cultural identity was presented by Barbara Kruger in her portraits “seeing through you” which focused on the ways of seeing women reflecting feminism and classicism with individual autonomy. All aspects of identity were nicely presented inside the museum.

•     The most five interesting works for me were;
• Untitled “Seeing through you” for Barbara Kruger which describes ethnic and cultural identity during 2004 and 2005. She focused on reflecting many aspects of identity such as feminism, classicism, consumerism, desire and individual autonomy in which she used black and white images that she obtained from magazines that harbor these definitions. Both the text and the woman eyes interpret the ways of being seen through asking questions like is the woman seeing or being seen? Is the viewer seeing or being seen? These ideas remind me with John Berger in his book when he wrote “seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak”. The connection between what we see and what we know is unclear. The way we see things is affected by what we know about these things. My interpretation is different from others’ interpretation depending on the way I see the surroundings and the way I see myself inside the surroundings. In her work “seeing through you” she is trying to solve this dilemma between what we see and what we know through leaving the answers for the viewers to give them the power and control over what they see.

• Silex Male, Ritual 2004 for Willie Cole which describes ethnic and cultural identity through using artifacts like iron, high heeled shoes and domestic objects. He includes himself in this portrait with front and back view with scorch marks that cover parts of his body. He reflects cultural stereotyping through transforming himself into exotic tribal specimen as if it is a cover of anthropology book. This portrait reminds me with understanding patriarchy for Bell Hook in which he claims that male dominance is cultural behavior when he describes it as “Patriarchy is a political- social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone, deemed weak especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain the dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence”. Also, parents sometimes force their children to follow patriarchy rules ignoring their feelings and pain. Society shapes children since their birth. Parents tell the girls that they should wear pinks and boys should wear blues. Girls should play with dolls and boys should play with cars and trucks. Sometimes they punish boys if they discovered them playing with dolls. I like this quote from Bell hook writing “ To indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings”

• Matar Mbaye(study 1), 2007 for Kehinde Wiley is another example for ethnic and cultural identity in which he used oil wash on paper to paint Matar Mbaye as a model for African youths from west Africa. He encountered the black body in this portrait trying to explore his roots and present the color identity in his painting. His father was born in Nigeria and his name was taken from Yoruba origin from west Africa. He painted roses and birds around Mbaye using African fabrics as a cultural background. He tries to make the connection between Africa as an origin or home and America as a current country for African American people describing Africa as the genetic home for those people. Kehinde Wiley painted president Obama in a similar way when he used colourful roses as a background around the body of the president trying to relate him to his ancestors. Kehinde tries to use black body to present African American people and defend against racism through claiming their presence in the community. I remember a quote from  The Oppositional Gaze for Bell Hook “As spectators, black men could repudiate the reproduction of racism in cinema and television, the negation of black presence, even that they could feel as though they were rebelling against white supremacy by daring to look, by engaging phallocentric politics of spectatorship”.

• Melrose Sunday Morning,1965 for Clementine Hunter is an example for religious identity. She used color paintings to present the importance of religion among her community. She painted a church in a landscape background because she valed the nature that was created by God. Hunter represented her culture in this portrait as she reflected the procession of people in their Sunday when everyone goes to church. I liked the green color that she used to paint the trees and church windows. It represents life and nature. I liked also painting people in order. For example, we see the mother is in the front and the kids are following her. It emphasizes the importance of the precious role of mother in deepening the culture and religion inside the kids. It describes the role of  being within a family in general.

• Juxtaposition #11, 1989 for Ben Jones illustrates the artistic identity in which prof. Jones painted panels including himself in one of them reflecting his own identity of being African American member. He was inspired by the meaning of humanity and the disparities when he saw the classic difference between people; one who is lying on the pavement and other woman who wears a mink coat. I liked the panel with words like “you need a power” “spiritual” “economic” “political” “peace”     “health” . These words describe the human nature. We all seek for all these things at some point of our life. I liked the arrows that he painted that are going forward and backward giving the meaning that all these things are connected to each other in a trial to understand the identity.