Jesse Jackson Responds to Portrait of Him as White

Jesse Jackson, viewing for the first time the controversial painting that depicts him as a blond, blue-eyed white man, said, “It’s not the picture that’s the insult. It’s the reality behind the picture: That’s the insult.”

The portrait, entitled “How Ya Like Me Now?” by artist David Hammons and part of the Washington Project for the Arts “The Blues Aesthetic” exhibition, was placed on a street corner Wednesday evening. Just as three white WPA employees completed the installation, a group of about 10 black men took a sledgehammer to the work, knocking a major portion down.

Sunday afternoon, when he toured the exhibition, Jackson saw the bottom section of the work, which shows his face from eyebrows to chin. He made the visit, he said, to encourage the gallery, to encourage artistic expression and to put both the portrait and the reaction to it “in context.”

The “reaction is an extension of the art,” he said. “You drop a big rock in the water--the issue is not just the rock. It’s also the ripples. This is a big rock.”

Jackson said he did not personally find the work insulting “because I understand it. My response was interpretation and intent. But I understand those that reacted violently. We must appreciate the source of their pain. They must not be painted out of the equation.”

The work, he speculated, provoked a release of anger that sat just beneath the surface. The men who attacked the portrait reacted “without inhibitions, without reserve. They said, ‘This is an insult.’

“Those that responded without asking ‘What does it mean?’--that was artistic too. Reducing the street saying ‘If he were white . . .’ to art, to a picture, is one thing. It’s people feeling a sense of indignity. Suppose their insult level was so low that this did not provoke them?

“Last year I heard, ‘Man if you were not black, you’d be a cinch,’ or ‘If you were white, you’d be President.’ Well, that is a sinful suggestion because one can only be what God has allowed one to be. In some sense, the artist captured what really is a common saying but a rather humiliating predicament. . . . One should not have to be anything but what one is.”

WPA Board President Jim Fitzpatrick said the work had been displayed inside the gallery for three months while the WPA awaited permission from the city for the outdoor installation, which is on city property. While inside, he said, the work provoked comments but no violence or controversy. Permission to display the work outside was granted early last week.

“Anytime you have a work of art out on the street,” Fitzpatrick said, “you can touch a very raw nerve.

“The piece poses two questions,” he said. “It poses to whites: Can you look past race to an individual? And it poses to blacks: Can you deal with one of the most revered individuals and symbols depicted other than as an icon?”

WPA commissioned “How Ya Like Me Now?” and works by six other artists for the exhibition, which explores the effect of black culture on contemporary art. Four of the works were intended for public display outdoors.