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ROBERT COLESCOTT |
Robert Colescott was the first African-American artist to represent the United States in a solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1997. Born in 1925 in Oakland, California, he is of a generation of American artists who largely rejected figurative and expressionist art. Yet, after receiving his BA and MFA degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and studying with Fernand Leger in Paris, he devoted his career to painting expressionist figuration. As he describes it: “I was brought up to make paintings that were important visually, with an internal structure and rhythm that grabs people, surprises them, and moves them, like Duke Ellington.”
Feeling His Oats from 1988 is characteristic of Colescott's work with its loud colors, juicy paint surfaces, and teeming but tight compositional structure. However, it is his abilities as an incisive social commentator taking on taboos in art, sex, politics, race, money, and power for which he is best known. In this work, a well-dressed African-American man seems to be on top of the world enjoying money, power, and the luxuries of life. He is surrounded by his material possessions (car, money, computer, cell phone) and the mass media heroes are black – the Quaker Oats man on the table and Superman in the background. Yet, at the same time, the old stereotypes such as the black athlete and the figure of a black “Mammy” appear in the lower part of the picture, still haunting him. Both humorous and provocative, this work makes us think about racial stereotypes and tensions in contemporary society.
- Jennifer Bayles, Educator for Special Projects