Montclair Art Musesum Paper

Montclair Art Museum work

What does it mean to construct an identity? It’s to build or erect an identity of your work. In the five art pieces I picked, I feel all the works are powerful and they have spectacle individuality, but with Willey, Bey, and Pecou they are more deeply rooted in the urban community. I see in their work in the three words for the African Americans in America meanings such as race, class, and identity. For Kruger and Kagan, they have manners and spectacle in a way in which their work is done like a particular art style they showcase in their work. They all have messages to say from the artist like from Kehinde Wiley, Dawoud Bey, Barbara Kruger, Larry Kagan, and finally Fahamu Pecou.

What is the spectacle for Willey, Bey, and Pecou’s work that they show? Willey is an American artist best known for portraits that feature African Americans in the traditional settings of Old Master paintings. Bey is an American photographer and educator renowned for his large-scale art photography and street photography portraits including American adolescents in relation to their community, and other often marginalized subjects. Pecou is an American visual artist and scholar known for producing works that combine aspects of Fine art and Hip-hop as commentary on Popular culture. Most of his works engage representations of black masculinity and identity. These three gentlemen show the beauty and struggles for being African American in America.

Kruger in her work explores society and gender roles, among other themes. She is also known for her typical use of a red frame or border around black and white images.  Kagan shows the art I call as “shadow art” with the title impossible shadows he uses light and steel wire to create striking images on a wall to make an image using the shadows. But being a photographer and a painter are different, but the same, and here’s why.  “The photographer’s way of seeing is reflected in his choice of subject. The painter’s way of seeing is reconstituted by the marks he makes on the canvas or paper. Yet, although every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or apperception of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing” (Ways of See Pg10).

 Artist: Kehinde Wiley/ Title: Matar Mbaye (Study 1) /Date: 2007

Matar Mbaye was one of the colorfully garbed youths whom Wiley encountered in 2007 in Dakar, Senegal and whom he engaged as a model as part of his street casting process. Furthermore, this work is part of Wiley’s personal exploration of his own ancestral roots. Wiley’s father, whom he never knew, was born in Nigeria. Kehinde’s name is of Yoruba origin from West Africa, meaning second born of a set of twins. Weaving behind and around Mbaye are birds and vines, colorful elements from Africa fabrics associated with a complex colonial past.

Artist: Dawoud Bey / Title: Smokey /Date: 2001

Bey wishes to explore “how young people see themselves through the lens of race, gender, class, and culture” because “a continuing set of social clichés and stereotypes cling to this population. Rather than viewing them through a lens of social problematics that generalizes the individual, which is often the case, I intend to make a rich and complex description of these subjects”.

Artist: Fahamu Pecou / Title: Rock. Well: Radiant, Pop, Champ /Date: 2010

Rock.Well: Radiant, Pop, Champ references Norman Rockwell’s Triple Self-Portrait. The work was created along with a broader collection of paintings that reimagined famous artist self-portraits. The idea being the that by challenging the understanding and appreciation of the referenced artworks and juxtaposing my own ideas within the context of the dialogue of the original source material, I hope to build upon the ideas of these artists and create a brand new dialogue.

Artist: Larry Kagan / Title: Andy /Date: 2016

This work is based on one of the many iconic photographs of Pop art master Andy Warhol (1928-1987) in his last years. Kagan believes that “we are living in a Warholian world where reality gives way to pop culture. This makes Andy a kind of artist prophet who defined my generation’s concept of art content and of the role of media in shaping what we think.”

Artist: Barbara Kruger / Title: Untitled (Seeing through you) /Date: 2004-05

Kruger’s work questions the viewer in interrogations about feminism, classicism, consumerism, desire and individual autonomy, contrasting with the black and white images she culls from mainstream magazines that monetize these very ideas. The enigmatic text and expression in the woman’s eyes allow for multiple interpretations. Is the woman seeing or being seen? Is the viewer seeing and being seen through at the same time? The act of seeing is one imbued with power, and Kruger’s ultimate goal is to intercept the stereotype, code, or convention by which power is arbitrarily imposed.