I have been struggling with how to reckon with and condemn white supremacy in my work for a long time. I made Lincoln Wipes his Eyes during my residency at the Vinegar Project. The title is from a placard in the silent film Birth of a Nation. I have been working with images from this painful and fraught film that inspired the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. My grandfather’s first cousin played the role of Ben Cameron, the little Colonel, who is pictured here. I had grown up with stories of our family’s movie star and how he would bring Hollywood guests to the family house, only later learning the terrible legacy of the film. The man who founded the modern Klan on Stone Mountain, Georgia created white hooded uniforms and burning crosses based on the film’s imagery. He grew up in Harpersville, Alabama near our family place. (Klein Arts & Culture now owns and operates this historic house, a former plantation, as a venue for arts, culture and education that fosters social justice.)
I matched the image from Birth of a Nation with one of contemporary white supremacy, which is focused around a convertible rather than a horse. Red drops of blood-tears are layered atop both racist images. This work is a digital print from two reductive monotypes, made through erasure. My plan is to photograph monotypes, create polymer plates of the images, and print an edition from each etching plate. I will then add layers to contextualize the images, such as the red drops in the digital print here.
Should one bring up this racist symbology, the klan, at this moment in time? White supremacy/violence has reared its ugly head, with the police murders of Black Americans and the dog whistles by the US president to the far right, and our country’s systemic racism has been revealed. Have I contextualized these images clearly and appropriately? This was part of the discussion in my small group in the residency. Should these images be surfaced into consciousness? Or must they be in order to be reckoned with. And if so, can a white artist make the statement.
This has left me wondering whether my work meets the challenge posed by our current moment. Is it clear enough? Is it well-contextualized? Am I the right person to create it? I must confess that I don’t know.