by Jerome du Bois
It may have seemed a crude and unfair generalization for me to write, in a recent post, that the current art world has no standards, but November (American) Vogue -- of all venues -- has come to my rescue with a vivid and distasteful specific example.
Eve MacSweeney profiles art dealer Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, the major mover behind the Crewdson Crew of female photographers -- Katy Grannan, Malerie Marder, Justine Kurland (Google 'em yourselves) -- who practice what you might call (who cares, anyway?) the New Vapidity.
In her new home she has
. . . a slightly edited mural by Kara Walker depicting the indignities visited on African-Americans in the antebellum period. "I feel it's important for me to show my generation, and that this is really what I choose to live with," she says. "When people see that this work is challenging but it also looks great and is very livable, they start becoming interested, too."
Before you read on about what was and was not "slightly edited," you should check out some of Ms. Walker's other silhouette work, the online representations of which are truly tame.
The mural in question is pictured on pages 480 and 481, and this is the caption:
SHADOW PLAYERS
For her children's sake, Greenberg censored the scatological content of Kara Walker's mural, Worlds Exposition, 1997, in the dining room, furnished with [my boldface] . . .
Without the shit, one is left with only two really interesting scenes in this six-scene tableau: in the upper right we see a tree branch bearing strange fruit indeed: a woman hanging upside down, her features covered by her fallen gown, as Leonard Cohen sang. Kneeling on the branch is what appears to be her newborn infant, because it is pulling its umbilical cord out from between her legs.
(Pass the gumbo, would you? Aaand that sausage. . . Thanks!)
The second scene shows a black woman -- I would say African-American but . . . have you noticed every one of Ms. Walker's profiles, male or female, child or adult, shows cartoonish exaggerations of what used to be called "negroid" features? -- who has been chopping at what appears to be a wooden statue -- wood chips fly -- of someone with the Abe Lincoln penny profile for a head; and who could blame her? since this guy is apparently sodomizing a little black boy, mouth open, tiny pee-pee sticking up, whom he holds against his thigh.
. . . furnished with Maxime Old tables reworked by Diana Vinoly and mid-century orchestra chairs.
Sorry about the interruption. You may return to your meals. (Say, Jeanne, this is good gumbo; did your new girl make it?)
Posted by Jerome at October 31, 2003 10:48 AM | TrackBack