Interesting examination, Jonathan. Sounds like a great show, actually. I have always placed Sherald's work in my art brain as one of a number of contemporary Black painters who are actively decolonizing portraiture as a form. Perhaps the most obvious, Titus Kaphar and Kehinde Wiley. I would also include Jordan Casteel, Deborah Roberts, and Daisy Patton in that group, among others. It is what made the choices of Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald so monumentally appropriate for the portraits of the first Black American President and First Lady. And I think what you say about costume and fashion is very much part of that process. To me, and I think in these works, clothing is not just drape. It is identity, agency, and humanity. Especially in the long history of Black experience in this country. In colonial and early American depictions, painters of Black people typically portrayed them in traditional dress of white people (assimilative), or as poorly clad property (objectified). Fabric itself is a part of Black historical identity, as exemplified in Bisa Butler's portraiture, or the African textile-inspired backgrounds and draping in Kehinde Wiley's works. They are the opposite of traditional Western portraiture, which is often very somber and dark, while largely being the purview of an elite class. The details you mention about the dress in Sherald's portraits seem subtle, but as important as facial expression in conveying interiority of these subjects. Even the piece in which the tractor dominates the field, the tractor and the overalls, and the title of the work itself, speak to agency and identity of that particular Black farmer in America, an often overlooked group in the annals of American farming. As for Michelle, she is stunning as always in Sherald's depiction. I have a print of that work on my office wall. The pattern of the fabric is a contemporary homage to African roots, while the style and posture represent her as a contemporary scion of powerful grace. Verisimilitude is perhaps the least important part of that work. Think of how many different likenesses there are of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and we still recognize them on site, never knowing which one is most accurate.
Thanks for the fun brain exercise. I love hearing your takes on the art world!
Thanks for reading and thinking about it here. I guess I just don't see the Empire of Dirt picture has saying anything about agency or identity, except for superficially. Again, perhaps that's the point. So much of what one sees in Sherald's work is the aggrandizement of a kind of style photography that shows up in the fashion magazines and sites. All evidence of a kind of "personal style" as a stand in for persona or subjectivity. Everyone's pretty blank for me, which is why the clothes come across as primary. Again, this could be a thing. Maybe it's what the work is about in some sense. But that's just not how people take it. All of the discourse is about the subjects "at ease" and "composed" and "themselves". I just don't see this.
Interesting examination, Jonathan. Sounds like a great show, actually. I have always placed Sherald's work in my art brain as one of a number of contemporary Black painters who are actively decolonizing portraiture as a form. Perhaps the most obvious, Titus Kaphar and Kehinde Wiley. I would also include Jordan Casteel, Deborah Roberts, and Daisy Patton in that group, among others. It is what made the choices of Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald so monumentally appropriate for the portraits of the first Black American President and First Lady. And I think what you say about costume and fashion is very much part of that process. To me, and I think in these works, clothing is not just drape. It is identity, agency, and humanity. Especially in the long history of Black experience in this country. In colonial and early American depictions, painters of Black people typically portrayed them in traditional dress of white people (assimilative), or as poorly clad property (objectified). Fabric itself is a part of Black historical identity, as exemplified in Bisa Butler's portraiture, or the African textile-inspired backgrounds and draping in Kehinde Wiley's works. They are the opposite of traditional Western portraiture, which is often very somber and dark, while largely being the purview of an elite class. The details you mention about the dress in Sherald's portraits seem subtle, but as important as facial expression in conveying interiority of these subjects. Even the piece in which the tractor dominates the field, the tractor and the overalls, and the title of the work itself, speak to agency and identity of that particular Black farmer in America, an often overlooked group in the annals of American farming. As for Michelle, she is stunning as always in Sherald's depiction. I have a print of that work on my office wall. The pattern of the fabric is a contemporary homage to African roots, while the style and posture represent her as a contemporary scion of powerful grace. Verisimilitude is perhaps the least important part of that work. Think of how many different likenesses there are of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and we still recognize them on site, never knowing which one is most accurate.
Thanks for the fun brain exercise. I love hearing your takes on the art world!
Thanks for reading and thinking about it here. I guess I just don't see the Empire of Dirt picture has saying anything about agency or identity, except for superficially. Again, perhaps that's the point. So much of what one sees in Sherald's work is the aggrandizement of a kind of style photography that shows up in the fashion magazines and sites. All evidence of a kind of "personal style" as a stand in for persona or subjectivity. Everyone's pretty blank for me, which is why the clothes come across as primary. Again, this could be a thing. Maybe it's what the work is about in some sense. But that's just not how people take it. All of the discourse is about the subjects "at ease" and "composed" and "themselves". I just don't see this.