Serrano is represented not by “Piss Christ” but by a large color photograph of the hooded head of a Ku Klux Klansman — an actual Klan member stupid enough to pose for a photograph that provides evidence writ large that the civil rights movement has some way to go.
Racism underlies also the black-and-white photographs by Carrie Mae Weems. One shows a young woman sitting at a diner booth and staring at the camera with a look of defiance and mild disgust as she holds up a chicken leg. The caption reads, “Colored Woman With Fried Chicken.” Other portraits are captioned with descriptions of skin color — “Golden Yella Girl,” “Honey Colored Boy” — and tinged accordingly, calling attention to the color-coded mores within the African American community.
I’m not sure why Zoe Leonard is here. She belonged to AIDS activist and feminist groups, but her photographs are William Eggleston-style catalogues of bleak ephemera — a woman’s scarred belly, a ratty wig, love-themed graffiti in dreary cityscapes — unsettling in mood, but more quotidian than provocative.
Barbara Kruger’s red-framed gritty black-and-white images, overlaid with blaring advertising-style lettering, always have the feel of protest. A billboard-size photo of a starlet’s face reflected in mirror shards is emblazoned with the legend “We Are Your Circumstantial Evidence,” a comment perhaps on violence against women, possibly self-inflicted, but as often her message is unclear.
With protest art, the issues tend to be more interesting than the artworks. And like the culture wars themselves, the issues addressed by the works in this exhibition have been ameliorated but remain unresolved. Racism, sexism and homophobia linger, and skirmishes in the culture wars still flare up here and abroad.
The weekend before last, Serrano’s “Piss Christ” — which perennially scandalizes audiences around the world — was attacked by zealots in Avignon, France, where the archbishop had labeled it “trash.” Hundreds marched on the museum and the next day extremists smashed the photograph’s plexiglass covering. The museum chose to leave the damaged work on view, a reminder to visitors of the intolerance and barbarity that roils beneath the veneer of civility in an enlightened Western democracy.
Kaufman is a freelance writer.
Unsettled: Photography and Politics in Contemporary Art
at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Aug. 21.
Loading...
Comments