Conceptions of White

January 11—
March 25, 2023
Works by

Arthur Jafa, Barbara Meneley,

Deanna Bowen, Fred Wilson,
Hiram Powers, Howardena Pindell,
Jennifer Chan, Jeremy Bailey,
Ken Gonzales-Day, Michèle Lalonde,
Nell Painter, Nicholas Galanin,
Robert Morris, Ryan Kuo, and
Artist once known, after Leochares

Exhibition organized by the

MacKenzie Art Gallery

Curated by John G. Hampton and

Lillian O'Brien Davis
 Conceptions of White

Cover: Fred Wilson, Love

and Loss in the Milky Way
(detail), 2005. Table with 47
milk-glass elements, plaster
bust, plaster head, standing
woman, ceramic cookie jar.
Courtesy of the artist and
Pace Gallery.

Right: Ken Gonzales-Day,

The Wonder Gaze, St.
James Park (detail), from
the Erased Lynching series,
2006–2022. Print and vinyl
wall installation. Courtesy of
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.
An exhibition that Conceptions of White offers context and
nuanced perspectives that help viewers
Together, the diverse narratives, images,
and concepts presented in Conceptions of
examines the myths and grapple with contemporary configurations White examine the existential, experiential,
meanings behind the of White identity. The exhibition features
important historical reproductions alongside
and ethical dimensions of engaging in
classifications of Whiteness, while also drawing
idea of a “White race”—a the work of twelve contemporary artists from on the conceptual connections between
relatively recent invention across North America—offering nuanced
perspectives on concepts such as white guilt,
colonial Whiteness and the aesthetic, social,
and philosophical meaning we ascribe to the
that helped shape the supremacy, benevolence, fragility, and power. colour white.
modern world.

Left: Barbara Meneley, Middle: Howardena Pindell, Bottom Right: Jeremy Bailey,
White Land / Treaty 4?, Free, White and 21, 1980, Whitesimple, 2022, custom
2022, 21 ink drawings on video, 12 minutes and 15 augmented reality filters.
paper, assorted items on seconds. Collection of the Courtesy of the artist.
Plexiglass shelves (rocks, Museum of Contemporary
feather, tree bark, dried Art, Chicago. Gift of Garth
plant material, sand, vials Greenan and Bryan
of water, photographs, Davidson Blue.
small video monitors).
Collection of the artist, with Top Right: Deanna Bowen,
support from SK Arts. Photo White Man's Burden, 2022,
by Carey Shaw, courtesy of Installation of giclée prints
the MacKenzie Art Gallery. on paper and oil on canvas.
Courtesy of the artist.
Artworks

Robert Morris Jeremy Bailey Deanna Bowen Michèle Lalonde

Portal, 1964 Whitesimple, 2022 White Man’s Burden, 2022 Speak White, 1968
— — — —
latex on aluminum. custom augmented reality filters. installation of giclée prints on paper and excerpt from the film La Nuit de la poésie 27
Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Courtesy of the artist. oil on canvas. mars 1970 by Jean-Claude Labrecque et Jean-
Chicago. Gift of Mrs. Robert B. Mayer. — Courtesy of the artist. Pierre Masse, 1971. Video, 5 minutes.
— Toronto-based artist Jeremy Bailey’s — Video from the collection of the National Film
Robert Morris’s Portal is a formative piece of work offers tongue-in-cheek parodies of In this new installation, Montreal-based artist Board, courtesy of the Michèle Lalonde estate.
Minimalist art history, and the entry point for technological attempts to solve complex social Deanna Bowen uses historical and archival Poem © Michèle Lalonde, 1968. All rights
Conceptions of White. It acknowledges that this problems. The artist’s persona inhabits the materials to articulate relationships among reserved in all countries and in all languages.
exhibition’s exploration of Whiteness is firmly awkward space between the White saviour, the authors of Canada’s cultural identity, the —
situated within the context of the “white cube,” ally, and opportunist. Bailey devised their founders of the three institutions hosting Michèle Lalonde’s celebrated poem responds
as contemporary art galleries are known. speculative company using the design this very exhibition, the representation and to the statement “speak White,” a command
language of tech start-ups. Whitesimple offers appropriation of Indigenous identity, and formerly used by overseers on American
Portal is a simple post-and-lintel construction software-as-a-service that claims to improve Canadian White supremacist ideologies and plantations, but subsequently used by Anglo-
of a doorframe. Passing through its open void race relations while capitalizing on the organizations in the first half of the 20th nationalists against French Canadians. The
is meant to be an embodiment of shifting momentum built by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, century. Bowen’s work maps the tight network phrase ostensibly means to “speak English,” yet
perception. Portal follows the Minimalist and people of colour) activists. The resulting of actors who established the blueprint for it reveals the relationship between assimilation
principle of reducing sculpture to its most software address progressive White audiences Canadian culture—a blueprint that continues to and the construction of White identity by
essential elements. Its construction erases as a potential market segment. It strives to influence our institutions, policies, and national directly equating the language of the dominant
traces of the human hand, suspending a rigid disrupt anxiety about their White privilege by identity—in order to examine the context in colonizer with Whiteness. Anglophones used
yet hollow form in space, while the absence of offering surface-level changes that still leave which this exhibition is held. By repositioning the phrase against French Canadians in the
nonessential content sparks the imagination. underlying structures intact. images from national and international 1960–70s to remind them of their inferiority,
This Minimalist reduction of form emphasizes archives alongside original works from the and that they are not fully White. Its usage
the relationship between the body and space, MacKenzie Art Gallery’s permanent collection, demonstrates that tiered racial hierarchies are
between the act of perception and imagination. Bowen invites viewers to make their own way built on more than just skin colour.
The implied doorframe is both familiar through the relationships between the people,
and alien, while referencing architectural events, and concepts within the material. The Lalonde’s poem decries Anglo-Saxon
standards and presumptions of a “standard close-knit nature of Canada’s cultural elite colonialism, but Speak White does not
body.” It inspires shifting comparisons to allows for continual revelations and shifting champion Quebec nationalism. Rather, the
the many structures that it resembles, while understandings of the mythologies that uphold poem examines the experiences of Quebecers
foregrounding the neutral forms that surround the idea (and ideal) of Canada that many take within the larger project of imperialism.
us, which have been so naturalized that they for granted today. It condemns both French and English
have become invisible. colonialism as much as it denounces any
group of people oppressing another through
The “white cube” operates under similar forced cultural and linguistic assimilation.
psychological assumptions as Minimalist Therefore, to “speak White” is not exclusively
art. White cubes are designed to function to speak English. To “speak White” is also to
as supposedly neutral voids that remove all submit to colonial assimilation, to abandon the
distractions and context so that the art they specificity of one’s own culture while aspiring
exhibit can speak for itself. This “neutral” to be absorbed into the dominant power of an
framing, however, is still laden with history, expanding White majority.
expectations, power, and class dynamics, as
well as a tradition of equating the colour white —Adapted from French text by Alexandra
to purity, neutrality, morality, civility, and Duchastel for the Michèle Lalonde estate.
godliness. Within this Western framework,
white is not a colour, but the absence of colour.
According to this logic, whiteness is the neutral
backdrop we do not see, but within which
everything else is framed.
Michèle Lalonde Depuis, Speak White, n’a rien perdu de sa force Barbara Meneley Artist once known, after Leochares
Speak White, 1968 et continue de marquer l’imaginaire québécois. White Land / Treaty For?, 2022 Apollo Belvedere
— Malheureusement, il est trop souvent utilisé de — —
extrait du film La Nuit de la poésie 27 mars manière abusive (pastiches, parodies, plagiat), 21 ink drawings on paper, assorted items on plaster replica of Roman copy (c. 120–140 AD)
1970 par Jean-Claude Labrecque et Jean-Pierre publié, diffusé ou associé à différentes causes Plexiglass shelves (rocks, feather, tree bark, of Greek Bronze (c. 330–320 BCE).
Masse, 1971. Vidéo, 5 minutes. politiques sans l’autorisation de l’auteure qui en dried plant material, sand, vials of water, Produced by the RMN Grand Palais Workshop
Vidéo de la collection de l’Office national du a beaucoup souffert tout au long de sa carrière. photographs, small video monitors). in Paris, from a cast of Apollo Belvedere
film du Canada, gracieuseté de la succession Courtesy of the artist. Created with support commissioned by King Francis I shortly after it
Michèle Lalonde. Poème © Michèle Lalonde, —Alexandra Duchastel from SK Arts. was put on display in the Vatican in 1511.
1968. Tous droits réservés dans tous pays et dans Pour la SUCCESSION MICHÈLE LALONDE — —
toutes langues. Saskatchewan-based artist Barbara Meneley’s Apollo Belvedere is one of the most celebrated
— installation explores the concept of “white sculptures in the Western art canon and has
Le célèbre poème de Michèle Lalonde prend la land,” which is a legal term used by developers played an important role in the development
forme d’une riposte dramatique directe au mot to delineate land that is not slated for of White origin myths. German intellectual
d’ordre notoire « Speak White », jadis en usage development. Like “crown land,” it marks limits Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768),
dans les plantations nord-américaines pour on development, while also building off the known as the “father of Art History,” first
commander aux esclaves de s’exprimer en tout legal tradition of the “Doctrine of Discovery,” encountered the white marble sculpture in
temps dans la langue de leurs maîtres blancs. used by colonial powers to claim sovereignty the Vatican. He celebrated Apollo Belvedere
L’expression en vint par la suite à être adressée over Indigenous lands. Meneley’s exploration as “the highest ideal of art” and as the finest
couramment aux Canadiens français pour leur of white land is connected to her interest in representation of human beauty and spirit.
enjoindre de parler anglais et leur rappeler leur Euro-settler relationships to treaty land, with
infériorité ou position subalterne. a focus on Treaty 4.* For this project, Meneley The white marble sculpture Winckelmann
traveled the perimeter of Treaty 4 as it has been saw in the Vatican was a Roman recreation of
En dépit de sa charge contre le colonialisme mapped to explore how Treaty is understood a dark bronze Greek original. Unaware of the
anglo-saxon, le poème « Speak White » ne se by the institutions and settlers who exist within difference in material (or the likelihood that the
veut pas nationaliste. Dans ce texte, Michèle its perimeter. The installation includes video, original was painted), he equated the Greco-
Lalonde lie le sort des Québécois à celui de tous photographs, and found objects that Meneley Roman sculpture’s whiteness with white skin,
les peuples exploités et s’insurge contre toute collected during her trip, alongside drawings and proximity to perfection.
forme d’impérialisme. D’une portée universelle, that document the margins of Treaty 4.
« Speak White » dénonce l’oppression de tout As white is the colour which reflects the greatest
peuple par un autre par le biais de sa langue et Through this journey, Meneley reflects on number of rays of light, and consequently the
de culture. Speak White a été composé en 1968 her own position as a White settler who is most easily perceived, a beautiful body will,
à l’occasion d’un spectacle intitulé Poèmes et able to travel with impunity. Meneley’s work accordingly, be the more beautiful the whiter it is.
chants de la résistance, qui visait à soutenir la plays with the language of “white land” to —Johann Joachim Winckelmann, The History
cause de Pierre Vallières et Charles Gagnon, tous consider how colonial institutions shelter of the Art of Antiquity, 1764
deux emprisonnés pour leurs activités au sein White-settler identity, while they push
du FLQ. Il a ensuite été récité au Gesù, lors de la Indigenous peoples towards Whiteness through Winckelmann’s hugely influential work inspired
mémorable Nuit de la poésie du 27 mars 1970. forced assimilation, education systems, and Neoclassicists and race theorists to propose a
displacement from the land. new concept of racial superiority theorizing that
À la grande surprise des organisateurs, la foule, European features like light skin are indicative
sans doute excitée par le contexte politique, *Treaty 4 is a treaty established between Queen of more highly evolved humans. Such theories
est venue en très grand nombre assister à cet Victoria and some Cree and Saulteaux First evolved to suggest racial lineage from the
événement regroupant une cinquantaine Nation governments in 1874. The area covered Ancient Greeks and Romans, to the German/
de poètes québécois. Les gens font la queue by Treaty 4 represents most of current-day French/English, to American/Canadian. This
devant le théâtre, mais la salle est comble et southern Saskatchewan, plus small portions of mythical lineage was articulated variously as
plusieurs personnes doivent repartir manque what are today known as western Manitoba and Aryan, Caucasian, White, or European. The
de place. Durant des heures, le public est attisé southeastern Alberta. discipline of art history helped spread and
par les performances des artistes. Lorsque naturalize these neoclassical ideals of a superior
Michèle Lalonde remonte sur scène, vers la fin White race, which came to be at the core of the
de l’événement, pour réciter Speak White, son Western concept of “civilization.”
interprétation dramatique galvanise la salle
qui se soulève d’un seul mouvement pour une
ovation mémorable.
Nell Painter Jennifer Chan Ryan Kuo Nicholas Galanin
Ancient Hair, 2019 Aryan Recognition Tool, 2022 File: A Primer, 2018 White Noise, American Prayer Rug,
— — — 2018
mixed-media installation. artificial intelligence–driven web application, keynote animation, 6 minutes and 20 seconds. —
Courtesy of the artist. https://aryan.tools. Collection of the artist. wool, cotton.
— AI development supported by Andrew Matte; — Courtesy of the artist and Peter Blum Gallery,
This installation reproduces one iteration user experience design by Anu Kuga. Courtesy File: A Primer is a slideshow presentation New York.
of an evolving installation from a wall in of the artist. about file management protocols that act as —
Nell Painter’s studio at the MacDowell artist — an allegory for larger systems of standards, White Noise refers to the steady droning tones
residency in New Hampshire. While there in Aryan Recognition Tool uses machine-learning classification, and control. The presentation used to mask or obliterate unwanted sounds,
2019, Painter had been reflecting on her 2010 trained facial recognition to superficially sells the concept of an organized, neutral, white an active dissociation occurring when a
book The History of White People (which heavily determine how “Aryan” a viewer is. Toronto- file that can overcome blackout and disorder. signal is gone or lost. The work’s title refers
influenced this exhibition) and was considering based artist Jennifer Chan addresses the The animations become increasingly chaotic as to the sources of American political power
how White identity was changing in an era of Western obsession with visual difference—from the file struggles to maintain order, until it loops and media who produce constant noise in
Trump. In this new wave of White nationalism, racial classification to augmented-reality back to the original blank file. By perpetually support of xenophobia. The work points to
Painter observed that White supremacists filters. Aryan Recognition Tool offers a playful returning to this baseline of White erasure, New Whiteness as a construct used throughout the
were once again attempting to appropriate yet uncomfortable window into the continuity York–based artist Ryan Kuo’s File stands in for world to obliterate the voices and rights of
the imagery and identity of ancient Greece of thought in facial typologies, moving from systems that evade accountability or connection cultures regardless of complexion. The work
and Rome by claiming that the ancients were neoclassical thinkers like Winckelmann and the to their direct history. It is a system designed calls attention to white noise as a source of
“White.” Whiteness as a racial classification, influential writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to replicate and self-preserve, absorbing or increasing intolerance and hate in the United
however, was not invented until somewhere to Nazi eugenicists, to emerging technologies rejecting whatever does not reinforce its States while politicians, media, and citizens
around the end of the 17th century (depending like facial recognition and machine learning— understanding of truth and order. attempt to mask and obliterate the reality of
on where you are looking); the ancients can’t be which often replicate and perpetuate existing America’s genocidal past and racist present.
White by their own account. Painter was curious biases. Chan directly confronts the use of The white noise referenced is produced by
to see if the racial category of Whiteness, as we race science as a justification for the genocide a kind of Whiteness based on more than
understand it now, could apply retroactively to of Jewish peoples, and presents a thorough complexion. This White noise is based on
the “ancients” who lived between the Middle mapping of Aryan history and mythology in a capital, blind belief, and faith in itself, and fear
East and Northern Africa regions. Over the tool that would otherwise be expected to be a of everything outside the lines it uses to enforce
course of her time at MacDowell, she posted light-hearted and superficial novelty. inclusion or exclusion. The American Prayer
surveys with questions such as, “Were the rug hangs on the wall in place of flat screen
ancients white people?” She then examined The reflection on the troubling history televisions, as the image accompanying the
representations of the ancients through the embedded within new technologies reminds droning sound we use to distract us from our
lens of hair as a racial signifier. In an email us of the lasting impacts of racist ideologies own suffering, from love, from land, from water,
correspondence with the curators, Painter says and invites the audience to question their own from connection; there is no space for prayer,
that she “played on the differences in the actual position within arbitrary—yet deathly serious— only noise.
bodies of the ancients who became revered as systems of racial classification.
White-people ancestors, especially Greeks and —Artist statement written by Nicholas Galanin,
Romans, those people with famously fluffy, To view this work on your phone, scan here: Lingit, and Unangax
curly hair, so different from the lank locks of
scholars of Whiteness such as Winckelmann
and Goethe.”
Hiram Powers slavery, and direct enslavement of White hand upon a skin that is white . . . but that, under Ken Gonzales-Day
Model of the Greek Slave, 1843 people was almost eliminated. In the years the benignant sway of Christianity, this doom “The Wonder Gaze,” St. James Park,
— preceding American Independence, the myth shall be confined to black people. 2006–2022
painted PLA printed replica from 3D scan of of race science allowed a moral and scientific —Anonymous abolitionist satirizing an —
plaster sculpture. justification for the abhorrent practice of American response to Powers’s sculpture, vinyl wall installation.
File courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art slavery as long as it was constrained to “other The National Era, 1851 Courtesy of Luis de Jesus Los Angeles.
Museum, original purchased in memory of races.” This helped create a unifying identity —
Ralph Cross Johnson. for the American majority. Certain lower-class Powers intended for this work to be seen widely Los Angeles–based artist Ken Gonzales-
— people of European descent were granted by the American public. He sculpted a clay Day created his Erased Lynchings series by
Greek Slave is widely considered one of the first minor privileges and a promise of equal access model in 1843, from which plaster casts were photographing lynching postcards—popular
great pieces of American art, and presents a to opportunity. In 1776 America declared its produced to act as a guide for master carvers to souvenirs within the United States during
telling portrait of the racial dynamics at play independence in a revolution that ended in create five copies that would travel the country the early 20th century—and then digitally
during the early formation of American identity. 1783. In the 1780s, the new racial concept of and enter different collections. The replica on removing the victims.
The subject is a young, Christian woman in the different types of humans was articulated under view here is a modernization of this original
nude, typically bound in chains (although the three categories of Caucasoid, Mongoloid, intent. It was 3D-printed by Carvel Creative The horrific nature of lynching can easily
chains were absent from the original model and Negroid. In 1790 America legally became from a 3D scan—produced by the Smithsonian obscure the apparatus surrounding the
replicated here), who has been taken captive a White ethno-state with the adoption of the Institution’s Digitization Program—of Powers’s spectacle of the dead body on display. By
by Ottoman Turks during the Greek War of Naturalization Act, which restricted citizenship original model. removing the victim, Gonzales-Day shows
Independence (1821–1829). to “White persons.” From their earliest us what is hiding in plain sight: the identity-
moments, the concepts of “White persons” and For an audio recording of this label, scan here: building of White herd mentality, and the
The fetishization of “Turkish sex slaves” played American identity were inextricably linked. participatory logic of a lynching as a form of
an important role in the invention of the torture designed for an audience. The people in
concept of a “White race.” The term “Caucasian” As European-aligned Greeks fought Ottoman the audience may not be actively tying a noose,
is derived from literary and artistic depictions rule in the Greek War of Independence, but they are complicit participants nonetheless.
of slaves from the Caucasus region (around the image of White slaves held by Turks Their mere presence and inaction created an
present-day Azerbaijan and Georgia). Tales of re-emerged as a symbol for the fortitude of atmosphere that normalized and perpetuated
beautiful Circassian/Caucasian slaves in the the White spirit. Drawing influence from the such violence.
odalk, Turkish for “harem room,” feature in the Greco-Roman tradition, Powers’s Neoclassical
prominent artistic tradition of the Odalisque sculpture promotes a myth of racial and The Erased Lynchings series often depicts
painting, including Jean-Auguste Dominique cultural continuity from Ancient Greece to Asian and Latinx victims in addition to the
Ingres’s Grande Odalisque, one of the most well- Rome, to Europeans and then Americans. more common practice of lynching African
known examples. Americans, but this particular image depicts a
Powers’s work, however, expresses the 1933 lynching of two White men, John Holmes
Like most painters who depicted Turkish complicated racial moral debates of his era. and Thomas Thurmond. The race of the victims
harems, Ingres never actually travelled to The sculpture was a source of inspiration for is notable because the subjugation of poor rural
the region, and instead painted European abolitionists, but through a lens of White unity Whites is a key factor in the development of
models and transposed them into scenes and moral responsibility. The image of a White White identity. Early American race scholarship
with imaginary Turkish captors. This Christian woman in slavery helped inspire a suggested that southern, rural Whites were
misrepresentation of Caucasian features paternalistic empathy—and a conception of intellectually and physically inferior to
perseveres to this day, and historically created the injustice of slavery—for some viewers who northern Whites, and thus unworthy of the
significant confusion when used as a legal could not see slavery’s harm. As such, the work same rights and protections. This stereotype
definition in the United States—such as when became an important source of inspiration became politically useful in policy-making.
Bhagat Singh Thind, a Brahmin immigrant within social justice movements that still Many aspects of the “redneck” stereotype
from India, successfully argued that he was reinforced narratives of White superiority and persist today—although that particular term is
Caucasian. Instead of granting him the right to moral authority above the uncivilized other. historically rooted in the condemnation of poor
citizenship, the Supreme Court chose to remove The sentiment of “we are supposed to be the rural White people who allied with Black people
objective terminology from their definition of civilized ones” can be seen in the reception to in solidarity for workers’ rights.
White in favour of “common sense,” which did this work by abolitionists, such as this satire of
not include brown-skinned people. Christian reactions to Greek Slave: Within the legacy of lynching as a hate crime
against Black people and people of colour,
During the first half of the 18th century, the We are in thy presence reminded that no divine the act was not only directed towards the
demographics of slavery in America shifted image of humanity wrought as thou hast been in victim; but it also served to remind gathered
substantially in tandem with the rise of race white can here be chained and worked like mere community members of what happened to
science. Colonists dramatically increased the animals. By thee we are reminded that in our outsiders who transgress their position in life.
abduction of Africans into American chattel Christian land no Turk can lay his trafficking The crowd is both reinforced as a social group
but also reminded of their own place in the Howardena Pindell Fred Wilson Arthur Jafa
community. The less frequent instances of Free, White and 21, 1980 Love and Loss in the Milky Way, The White Album, 2018
lynching poorer Whites extended this form of — 2005 —
coercive control, punishing more vulnerable, video, 12 minutes and 15 seconds. — video, 30 minutes.
lower-class White people who supposedly Collection of the Museum of Contemporary table with 47 milk-glass elements, plaster Collection of Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
transgressed against the higher-class White Art, Chicago. Gift of Garth Greenan and Bryan bust, plaster head, standing woman, ceramic —
elite. Gonzales-Day brings the conflicted nature Davidson Blue. cookie jar. Los Angeles–based artist Arthur Jafa’s film
of White identity into focus as a category in — Courtesy of Pace Gallery, New York. reflects the current state of White identity
constant flux: expanding and contracting its Free, White and 21 is a deadpan account of the — in America through a collage of found and
own perimeters at the will of the most powerful; everyday racism that artist Howardena Pindell New York–based artist Fred Wilson is known original video. Moments of joy, love, and beauty
the tacit consent of the crowd; and the arbitrary experienced while coming of age as a Black for creating meaning by bringing various clash against scenes depicting fear, hatred,
parameters for White identity—including its woman in America. Racial classification is an objects into proximity to one another. His and anger. Jafa captures intimate and tender
own internal hierarchies. arbitrary construction, but its effects are very work challenges dominant narratives by relationships—for example, of the trust between
real, and although Whiteness is designed to be reconfiguring them through an African the artist and his gallerist—and contrasts
invisible from the inside, it can often be made American lens. In his arrangements, each object them against appalling, heart-wrenching
very apparent when one is on the outside. becomes charged through its own historical scenes—like when a Black police officer must
context in addition to its relationship to the stand dispassionately as a White man she has
Born in Philadelphia in 1943, Pindell was 21 other objects. Love and Loss in the Milky Way just arrested repeatedly shouts a racist slur at
when the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964. features an arrangement of ceramics, milk- her. Jafa’s snapshot of contemporary White
Pindell grew up in an era when the southern glass elements, and found sculptures that were identity is painful, honest, delicate, and brutal;
United States were still lawfully segregated. collected by the artist. A broken Greco-Roman it presents a complex picture of a category of
This was a period of flux, when the end of the male bust lies in close proximity to the bust of a racial identity that tends to evade a direct
Second World War began to shift the country’s a young African woman, under the watchful gaze—even though it’s right in the open, ready
social strata. The US sought to distinguish itself eyes of Hebe (the cup-bearer and goddess to be seen.
from Nazi Germany’s xenophobia, to assert of youth) and a common “Mammy” cookie
itself as a country strengthened by the diversity jar. All of these assemble in a milky White
of its people at a time when the increasing and jet-black constellation in which kitsch
momentum of the civil rights movement brushes against the tropes of art history. The
empowered Black and other racialized people arrangement provokes audiences to question
to demand equal rights. Despite this movement their socially conditioned assumptions and
towards an image of a more unified nation, a biases by suggesting differing modes of agency,
growing White backlash reacted against their consumption, and relation.
perceived diminishing power and resisted these
changes.

The phrase “free, White and 21” originated

around 1828 to refer to individuals who should
have a right to vote. Its definition expanded
in the 1930s to refer to America’s broader
promise of the freedom of choice. Occasionally
throughout her video, Pindell adopts a White
persona whose role is to mimic a casual
dismissal of her experience. While the phrase’s
original usage excluded women, since they
were barred from voting at the time, its later
usages included women as full humans with
free agency. The artist’s first-hand accounts
of being “othered” portray the insidious
subtleties of White power pervasive through
everyday interactions. Her account of her lived
experience reveals how those who are protected
under the mantle of Whiteness are unable to see
outside their own experience.
Public Programs Art Museum Staff Visiting the Art Museum

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an Ontario government agency

un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario
Art Museum
University of Toronto
—
Justina M. Barnicke Gallery
University of Toronto Art Centre

7 Hart House Circle

Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H3
artmuseum.utoronto.ca