Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu is a contemporary mixed-media collage whose work is rich in both concept and design. I chose this artist because Mutu is a contemporary women artist whose work I greatly admire. I was immediately drawn to her work in her first solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2006. Her exhibition showcased a series of mixed media collages of these “warrior-like” women. Mutu’s work reflects the bold spirit of many of the artists we are learning about in the African American Art history class. Her piece She’s Egungun Again, shown here is quite representative of her work.

I relate to the piece She’s Egungun Again, in particular, for the use of materials and subject matter. She’s Egungun Again was made in 2005 using ink, acrylic, collage and contact paper on mylar, 87" x 52 ½." The size of the piece is quite large for a collage piece, and gives the figure a sense of great stature. There is a combination of both neatly cut out collage pieces from magazines juxtaposed with painted areas.

Along the arms, head, feet and rear are feathery growths that resemble coarse fur or lichen growing on trees. These “feathers” shroud the face so all that is visible are the eyes and mouth. Upon closer inspection these “feathers” are thin slivers of magazine clippings glued to the surface of the mylar. The flesh-like colors in the collage appear to have been cut from photos of the human figure. Several of the larger “feathers” are distinct and perfect die cuts of women’s legs, most likely from advertisements in fashion magazines. The eyes and lips are the most obvious magazine cutouts with their blunt cut edges. It is obvious the artist wanted the viewer to notice that all these facial parts came from different sources. The eclectic look of the face gives the woman a universal appearance. Perhaps a woman to represent the world of today is one that is a blend of a variety of ethnicities or cultures. It is difficult to associate any one type of woman with the figure presented here. She is an amalgamation of a variety of women.

The composition lends itself to being viewed as a mirror. The person in the drawing is the powerful spirit that exists deep inside each person. One that is free of societal restraints, proprieties and pretenses. Mutu’s woman is the visceral representation of our true nature or animal being.

Without knowing very much about the story behind the work, I can theorize that it is Mutu’s representation of what today’s woman should be. Since much of the collage pieces appear to come from contemporary fashion or beauty magazines, the artist may be criticizing the way women have come to be represented in popular media. The long, curvy, flawless legs we have come to associate with pantyhose ads are instead the components for a head mask on this new woman.

It is possible Mutu is drawing a comparison between the nude model of today’s magazines with the unclothed African tribeswoman. Both women lack cover but for different reasons. The tribeswoman is largely undressed, by Western standards, for matters of tradition or ritual and practicality. The fashion model is undressed for purposes of sexualizing and objectifying themselves to sell products. The outcomes for both women are also very divergent. The outcome for the tribeswoman is that it is a natural part of her life and she may be taking part in a ritual. She is no different than the other women in her tribe. The nude model is part of an advertising and marketing industry that uses sex to glamorize a product. She is most often times unrepresentative of the average woman in both looks and size. She contributes to an unhealthy preoccupation in our society that all women, especially young women, should be thin, pretty and sexy.

There is most definitely an aspect of feminism in Mutu’s work. Her idea to cut up sexualized depictions of women in popular media and reuse them to create her idea of what a strong woman should be is ingenious and admirable. Personally, I find this to be one of the highest uses of beauty magazines. Without knowing whom the artist was, I could guess that it was a woman based on the content. She’s Egungun Again could also be read as a self-portrait. We can assume certain aspects of the artist’s life based on her success as an exhibiting artist and her training. This would be a fascinating theory to explore in the future. Are Mutu’s women, different facets of herself? What she aspires to be? What she believes her ancestors were like?

According to Wikipedia, the word “Egungun” refers to ancestor worship in traditional Africa often marked by ritual masquerade or custom within the family. I was glad to find my speculations confirmed by looking up the meaning of the title. Although, without knowing the meaning of Egungun, one can still appreciate the power and vigor of the figure. The energetic, eclectic mark making and bold use of color bring a fresh new branding of “woman” or “femininity.” The association of muted colors such as pink or lavender or ribbons with women’s issues or campaigns such as the breast cancer education efforts of today still draw upon Victorian notions of femininity. I hope that works such as Mutu’s would help to inject bolder colors and icons into representations of women of color’s issues. Mutu’s efforts to redefine the black woman through her representations are a badly needed counter balance to the negative images of the disenfranchised black woman that contemporary culture and media continues to feed society.

Frederick Douglass and Kerry J. Marshall

The readings on the life of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and contemporary artist Kerry J. Marshall showed many parallels in the way they both used their work to improve the status of African Americans in society. Douglass determined early on in his life that education was a means of bettering his own life as well as accomplishing his goals in becoming an abolitionist. Despite the traumas and difficulties he endured as a slave, he aimed to become not simply a freeman who would go about one's own life but a freeman with a clear purpose - to speak out against slavery and change as many minds as possible toward the cause of abolitionism. Douglass also wrote and published his own autobiography and a weekly periodical against the institution of slavery. His life's work is truly admirable because he was able to take the painful experiences of his previous life as a slave and use it as a case against slavery in his speeches around the country. It is clear that he wanted to make something useful and beneficial for the cause of abolitionism out of his own life.

When learning of the way that Douglass was able to transform his own life from a slave to an activist, orator and leader against slavery, I am reminded of what it takes to go from leading a passive life to one that is active and questioning the status quo. In this regard, there is a great deal of similarity between Douglass's activism as an abolitionist and the artwork of Kerry J. Marshall. Marshall, like Douglass, was shaped by his upbringing and exposure to the injustices of segregation and racism. Marshall says “You can’t be born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and grow up in South Central [Los Angeles] near the Black Panthers headquarters, and not feel like you’ve got some kind of social responsibility. You can’t move to Watts in 1963 and not speak about it. That determined a lot of where my work was going to go.” Marshall's work such as the murals at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, questions the "greatness" of the slave-owning founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. He also uses black skin tone in a many of his paintings causing one to see how absent black skin tone is from much of the Western canon of art. This "invisibility" of blacks is one of Kerry's major investigations and brings an activist approach to his artwork by making a critique of the status quo. By bringing awareness on the fact that blacks are often marginalized and made invisible in society as well as in art history, Kerry uses his art as his podium for speaking up for African- Americans in the same spirit as Frederick Douglass.