Word: colescott
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...vast majority of Colescott's work is incredibly varied and can only be linked in small groups. He is probably best known for his series of appropriations of other painters' works, including a Courbet, a Van Eyck, a Vermeer and a Van Gogh. In these he often changed the race of the figures or added captions and altered the size of the piece. He produced a few works in the Abstract Expressionist vein, which focused on the significance of color and gesture. He employed a cartoon style to address political issues. Among other politically-motivated works, Colescott discussed a painting...
...Colescott's presentation was altogether jovial and comical, so much so that it was misleading. His discussion was so entertaining and his personality so appealing that his friendly manner often served to obscure some incredibly disturbing and offensive ideas he related. He remarked that his goal in art was to "make things which are both beautiful and have a message. Those things are often seen to be contradictory but that's what I like to do." But prior to making that statement, Colescott had defended his controversial George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware by saying, "People thought I was some...
...your own work, especially when it espouses the kind of socially unacceptable and questionable perspectives his does. White Boy shows a oversized white boy, who he compared to the excessively large pharaohs in Egyptian art. In his version of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, the hunchback is black and Colescott pointedly asked the audience, "What happens when you make a freak black? Does he become more of a freak?" These works would have been easier to appreciate had Colescott simply articulated the implied irony. But he did not. Instead he proceeded with his provocative comments. Emergency Room symbolizes the United...
...ended with a half-finished panel concerned with the ever-pressing question, "When is a Latino an African?" I would actually love to know when a Latino is ever an African. I have no idea when that is ever the case. I would have been intrigued to hear Colescott's own perspective on the question, but, of course, he did not share...
...Robert Colescott's work expressed the themes of the lecture series--metaphor, allegory, illustration and narrative--well and was stylistically diverse and interesting to look at; but by far the most intriguing aspect of his lecture was the enigmatic unjustified political statements he made. I left both furious and curious. His attitude is like his art: ambivalent and multipurpose. Just as Colescott stimulated unsettling questions without proposing definitive answers, his artwork leaves both political ideas and the themes of the lecture series as undefined, ambiguous and potentially exciting as they were before he engaged with them. Robert Colescott's lecture...