Race, Whiteness, and Absence in Studio Practice

Abstract

My work as a visual artist and scholar frequently engages with issues associated with racialized violence, lynching, queer identity, and post-colonial responses to historic displays of racial difference in museums. This paper grew out of a CAA panel, entitled “The Color of Joy,” in which I used my practice as a conceptual lens from which to revisit the events surrounding the deadly insurrection on January 6, 2021 in our nation’s capital. This provided an entry point from which to consider the parallels between the photographic depictions of pleasure or joy found in lynching postcards and the media images of the events of January 6th. I then sought to reposition “joy” as a generative response to art because of its potential to reconfigure and reimagine complex historical and cultural narratives, even as they continue to unfold around us. In discussing my work, I laid out my own artistic practice as both a critical and generative response to historic events which can be seen as part of a movement towards decolonizing art history.