Betye Saar's "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima"

The Black Lives Matter movement is having an extraordinary impact on the way brands communicate and behave. Whether it's just 'woke washing' or genuine corporate activism, a growing number of consumers expects brands to become credible advocates of the black community and address long-standing racist and discriminatory stances. Some of the world's biggest names are scrambling to engage in the conversation and put things rights.

As a case in point, after 131 years Quaker Oats, owners of the Aunt Jemima breakfast food range, announced they would drop the name and packaging imagery as they committed “to make progress toward racial equality.” Sure took them a while. And let's be 100% clear here, when the brand was created in 1893, the founders hired a former slave to portray Aunt Jemima at the World's Fair in Chicago. In the mid-1950s, print ads showed the black maid superimposed over an image of a plantation and a riverboat. So yes, she was still and always slave.

In 1972 American artist Betye Saar (b.1926) started working on a series of sculptural assemblages, a choice of medium inspired by the work of Joseph Cornell. The most iconic is The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, where Saar appropriated a derogatory image and empowered it by equipping the mammy, a well-established stereotype of domestic servitude, with a rifle. The maid, who holds a broom in the other hand and a child in her arms, becomes a revolutionary symbol of the fight for Black liberation and female rights.

Speaking to the LA Times in 2016, Saar said: “It’s like they abolished slavery, but they kept Black people in the kitchen as mammy jars. I had this Aunt Jemima, and I wanted to put a rifle and a grenade under her skirts. I wanted to empower her. I wanted to make her a warrior. I wanted people to know that Black people wouldn’t be enslaved by that.” Saar welcomed the news that the brand was finally being retired on her Instagram account: "She’s liberated! Finally at long last! And it’s about time!"

Uncle Ben's has got to be next, surely?

#auntjemima #betyesaar #racialstereotypes #blackart #blackartist #blm #femaleartist #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

Betye Saar (b. 1926)

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

The original Aunt Jemima and the 'updated' version from 1989.

An urgent appeal: Save the arts. Save our theatres.

An unusual post this week, but the cause is one that's very close to my heart. I grew up going to the theatre with my mother. Every week for many years we'd walk to Teatro Duse, named after a famous Italian thespian, in my hometown of Bologna to watch the classics: Pirandello, Ibsen, Shakespeare, Goldoni, Brecht, Chekhov, Pinter, Ionesco, Strindberg, Fo, Moliere, they have all contributed to my personal and intellectual education.

Theatre-going in London has proven a lot more sporadic than I would have wanted, but just as rich in memorable experiences. Jeremy Iron's magnetic performance in the adaptation of Sandor Marai's Embers back in 2006 was certainly one of them. More recently, my dear friend Allen and I enthusiastically endured the epic near 8-hour marathon that was Angels in America.

Our theatres are still closed and, with no emergency government funding, they may never open again. Please consider supporting the Custodians for Covid project, which sells beautiful photos of some of London's most iconic venues to raise funds trying to secure their future and that of their staff. I have chosen a picture of the Roundhouse, a place where I have spent many happy moments, hoping there will be many, many more to come.

#savethearts #saveourtheatres #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

The Roundhouse

Denise Stracey – member of Showsec Security Team London 2020

Celebrating the female black queer gaze: Mickalene Thomas

The growing momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement and the increased media focus on black culture have brought a multitude of extraordinary black artists to my attention. My latest and hugely exciting discovery is Mickalene Thomas (b.1971).

Thomas uses a unique combination of paint, fabrics, rhinestones and glitter to create dazzling mixed-media works that draw on western art history and popular culture. Her vision of female beauty and sexuality challenges and subverts stereotypes and is represented by striking black women oozing confidence in their identity and in their own bodies.

In this work, Thomas takes on none other than Manet. I am in love with the boldness of the sitters and the way they defiantly look into the camera. This is a 'double whammy' where the appropriation of an iconic work of art succeeds in both readdressing the marginalisation of black people and the objectification of women in art history. Thomas delivers a seductive and uncompromising restaging of the western canon through the 'gaze of a black woman unapologetically loving other black women’.

In support of Gay Pride Month, for every view of this post and for every like to my instagram post, I will donate £2 to Mind Out, a mental health service run by and for lesbians, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer people in the UK.

#mickalenethomas #blackart #blackartist #blm #femaleartist #feministart #queerart #globalpride #pride #gaypridemonth #gaypride #loveislove #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires #5, 2017

© Mickalene Thomas https://www.mickalenethomas.com/

Édouard Manet

Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, 1863

Musée d'Orsay, Paris