Author: Rob Perrée
New York Diary
Like other black artists – Robert Colescott is an early example – he tries to put black people into the overly white, male, Western art history. He starts from known ‘masterpieces’ in which saints, kings, generals or dandies are portrayed. He replaces the ‘models’ and puts young, beautiful, trendy black guys in it. His paintings are often big, always painted in an almost painfully realistic style, but they don’t have anything to do with reality. They portray an ideal reality, a lavishly decorated reality, a golden reality, a kitschy reality, the reality of a gay man who likes to go over the top, who likes to pose as the creator of a dream.