Exhibition - "Colin Quashie: Linked"

Event Details

Colin Quashie creates images that comment on contemporary racial stereotypes. Combining historical relics and artifacts with icons from past and present popular culture, Quashie sharply critiques the way people of color are portrayed in modern visual culture. Using his signature caustic wit, he blends images to allow viewers to more fully explore how images of African Americans and Black culture are constructed today.

In his latest series, called Linked, Quashie juxtaposes images of well-known Black figures with other representations of artifacts to comment on stereotypes as they exist today. In Gabriel, Quashie tweaks an image of Louie Armstrong, updating his signature trumpet with a set of slave shackles. Similarly, in Rose Colored, he creates an image of Harriet Tubman donning a pair of rose-colored glasses, referencing the abolitionist's view of slaveholders, for whom she still held a level of empathy. With these works, Quashie teases out underlying stereotypes, exposing them for all to see more plainly.

Using witty, scathing sarcasm intended to spark popular debate and discussion among his viewing audience, Quashie's art faces off against hard issues of culture, politics, and race with a self-conscious awareness that often offends (or disturbs) black, white and other; he discriminates with equality and equanimity. Quashie is equal to the hard questions he raises, but often the issues are camouflaged in pop-culture imagery that confounds as well as derides the spectator. Quashie uses media-based methods to dissect and deconstruct stereotypical views of cultural relationships. This is precisely what makes his work so challenging not only to the average viewer but to many art insiders as well. The imagery is very accessible, luring the viewer into a dialogue that then turns their preconceptions upside down.

Operating in the tradition of the French avant-garde artists, Quashie challenges the status quo mentality and functioning on frustration with the vision of the masses; a vision that he hopes to help shape and determine by raising questions that the audience might prefer to avoid. His work encompasses a conceptual element which shapes its meaning and underscores the use of art as didactic tools for society. Through the use of 'positive' social anger, Quashie uses his art to scrutinize the power bases of our social system, forcing us to examine our collective political perceptions. His point of view makes its mark by challenging us to be more thoughtful, expressive and more aware. With a fearless and blatant disregard for compromise, he confronts our favorite beliefs and forces us to think about the roles we occupy in society. Recurrently controversial, his art, "...is as current as yesterday's headlines, bold and brash like rap music...the equivalent of a three-second sound byte; quick, easy and to the point." (Dr. Leo Twiggs)

The Halsey Institute's galleries are open 11:00AM-4:00PM Monday-Saturday, until 7:00PM on Thursdays. Closed on Sundays and federal holidays. Admission to the galleries is free.

Image:
Colin Quashie, "Rose Colored" digital collage, 2018-19