In undergraduate I had a professor, Michale Ray Charles, who painted about his experiences with racism and the historical and contemporary effects of racism on the portrayal of African Americans in art and popular culture. I have included some paintings here for reference.While he was not the only African American professor in the art department of the University of Texas, he was certainly one of a very small number. Because of his visibility, artistic talent, and potentially controversial subject matter, he became somewhat of a mentor to several minority students I knew.
The part about rea
ding Elizabeth and Hazel so far that most inspires me is its testament to the raw power of images. Whether you are offended or uplifted by them, images have a very strong pull in our culture, and sometimes they can incite us to rally around a cause more passionately than words.Some images and the ideas they represent do a lot of damage and encourage a culture of fear and hatred towards people of different skin colors, socio-economic levels, and lifestyles. Fortunately for us, we can also use image-making to help create a visual world that expresses our hurt, anger, and triumph over injustices, thereby doing some sort of healing within ourselves and within our communities.
I agree with Chance, that images can be very powerful. They can be powerful in a positive or negative way. I can't help but to think about Will Counts famous photo of Elizabeth and Hazel. Photography is such a powerful tool but it can also hide the truth. It is a snapshot of a moment, an event or of a person's life. Throughout the book, Elizabeth is a sign of change in desegregation. The photographs capture her at school, at conferences, and other public events, these images are used in newspapers and other public media. What the photographs do not capture, is how much suffering Elizabeth went through in her life. She was a casualty of the desegregation movement in her own individual life.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of questions being brought up here about the camera, the photograph, even the difference between image and photograph, the truth and untruth of the photograph and of course the power an image conjures, incites, and how meaning is inscribed. I couldn't help thinking of this book, which I had to read in grad school, I loved Susan Sontags writing, in On photograpy and Roland Barthes, but photography at the dock is amazing because it looks at interesectionality thru the lens of photography, or wait looking at the photograph through the lens of intersectionality? http://x-128-101-90-43.upress.umn.edu/Books/S/solomon-godeau_photography.html
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