“I like a long haired thick red bone” By Erin McKenna
Wow this is something eles! So many times we hear that phrase as black women but when you see it in a literal physical vernacular its so funny.
Black art wins all the awards for me.
Black Contemporary Art.
NO.
This is not black art. The maker of this piece is a white woman and that is VERY VERY important bit of context. I’m not at liberty to go into detail why, but right now, ill say it’s because reasons. Come on tumblr, please dont make me sad right now.
The creator of this piece (middle):
And some of her words on this series:
Ever since the 80’s hip hop has slowly been growing in popularity among Caucasians, middle class and upper class. Growing up in the 90’s and early 2000’s in a middle class suburban neighbor hood, I was exposed to hip-hop. It was ‘bad’ and therefore cool to listen to. I remember being a young teenager listening to it with friends, getting our drivers licenses and riding around with our radios blaring the popular hip hop songs of the week. Even then, my friends and I realized the irony of it; the fact that we knew nothing what it was like to be African American, growing up in a low-income neighborhood or having to deal with violence, gangs and drugs.They are using and showing off women as sex icons as a rung in a ladder to get to the top. Of course, as a woman, I don’t like this...With this said, I am celebrating, critiquing and taking lines from hip hop out of context.“Out of context” is an understatement.This isn’t black contemporary art, this is contemporary art about black people in the way the Kony campaign was about and not by black people.
*Note that this is NOT an attack on the artist as person, but her current practice. I think we may have America’s answer to Vanessa Beecroft on our hands if we aren’t careful. :(
Wow, I didn’t know this at all.
I was gonna research this picture later because I was considering on writing an article about it for my internship.
But wow.
Thank you for adding this, I knew I felt a certain way about this photo…
SIGH!!!
I reblogged this piece yesterday without checking sources and simply assumed it was an interesting piece of contemporary black art. I was wrong and can only shake my head and wonder why a white woman would think it was appropriate in any way for her to do this
(via icaruscalling)
