The ‘Black Male’ Debate : Controversy Over the Whitney Show Has Arrived Ahead of Its L.A. Outing--Alternative Exhibitions Are Planned

Seldom in Los Angeles has an art show generated so much debate months before it’s arrival in town.

But a sweep of emotional criticism is already brewing locally over “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary Art,” a show that originated at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art last fall.

Although the show won’t open at the UCLA/Hammer Museum and Cultural Center until late April, already a newly formed local group is organizing a series of alternative exhibitions.

The Whitney’s multimedia exhibition, curated by Thelma Golden, looks at the black male as an icon. Showcasing work by 29 artists of varying race, ethnicity and gender (including David Hammons, Lorna Simpson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Pat Ward Williams, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lyle Ashton Harris and Andres Serrano, among others), the show, through installation pieces, photography, sculpture, film and video, presents a range of representation--images that “challenge and transform the ‘negative’ stereotypes,” “real and imagined,” writes Golden in the exhibition catalogue.

The works range from Gary Simmons’ installation piece, “Lineup,” which positions eight pairs of gold-plated sneakers in a police lineup, to photographs, such as Robert Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic images of black male sexuality and Dawn Ader DeDeaux’s explorations of black male machismo, to a well-known Pop-style revisionist history painting by Robert Colescott.

The exhibition opened in New York to a wide range of reviews and commentary--from pointedly critical to glowing--and its most volatile reaction has come from some African American viewers. Those concerns and protestations have already begun to ripple West. Critics believe that the artists Golden selected don’t always succeed in turning stereotypes inside-out, that the imagery is at once reductionist and offensive and that it’s scope is far too limited.

The reasons that people take issue with the show are complex, notes Herb Boyd, a New York-based journalist and co-editor of “Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America” (Ballentine). “It’s a noble and genuine effort to do something about stereotypes,” says Boyd, “but it falls short and sometimes confuses the issue. A lot of people now are trying to figure out what the hell it was about.”

In an attempt to alleviate similar confusion on the West Coast, the show was first formally introduced here at a reception for Golden held last November at the home of contemporary art collectors Peter and Eileen Norton. It was the first of three advance meetings organized by the Hammer staff. The show’s content was presented through slides, video and brief commentary given by Hopkins, Golden and Peter Norton.

The Nortons have also put up a challenge grant of $50,000 toward Hammer exhibition costs for the show (to be matched equally by other donations), plus $25,000 toward additional programming (such as lectures and other related events).

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Conceived as community round-tables, the meetings have been charged from the outset, a mine-field of clashing ideologies. The same images that have been interpreted by some as positive or uplifting are viewed by others as negative or stereotypical glimpses at black masculinity. And at the same time, just beneath the surface, simmers a debate over who should represent whom.

“It was a chance to get an idea of attitudes about the show,” says Hopkins, whose staff was responsible for inviting approximately 100 artists, filmmakers, activists, writers, academics and politicians to the preshow event. Hopkins says that because of the show’s content, he anticipated tensions. “I was pleased in some ways, confounded in others. But the input is important.”

In direct response to the presentation, a group called the Coalition for the Cultural Survival of Community Arts established itself to “expand the vision” by mounting three shows to run concurrent with “Black Male” in venues within black neighborhoods. The group is being careful, however, not to classify their response as a “reaction” but “pro-action.”

Made up of local artists, curators and activists including Miriam Fergerson, Patois De Sandies, Willie Middlebrook, Roland Charles, Greg Pitts and Pat Ward Williams (whose work is also part of the Whitney show), the coalition is currently canvassing for volunteers and donations to “exhibit images from a black male perspective” that they hope will help to “establish a new black aesthetic.”

Their goal is multi-pronged. The coalition’s core group of 12 also hopes to establish itself as an integral community arts institution. A mission statement promises “to promote, embellish and bombard the media with a field of images that reinforce and build on the naturally constructive and creative side of black masculinity.”

Led by Cecil Fergerson, the coalition’s first meeting took place the day after the Norton gathering.

“When they showed (a slide of) the (Robert) Colescott’s ‘George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page From American History,’ Cecil felt it was a shame that people were laughing,” says De Sandies of a parody of Emanuel Leutze’s painting in which Carver, in the George Washington role, commands a ship of crudely drawn stereotyped characters.

“Nobody said anything,” De Sandies recalls, “That’s when we realized that we needed to do something.”

It wasn’t the Colescott image as much as the unquestioned and instantaneous reaction to it that ruffled Fergerson, an art historian, activist and curator. Many of Fergerson’s reservations about the Whitney show lie in what he sees as innate historical problems with the limited imagery of African Americans, and the control those images have had--especially on males.

“We don’t oppose the exhibit at UCLA. It’s just badly timed, “ says Fergerson, pointing to the succession of black males--from O.J. Simpson to Michael Jackson--whom he’s seen as the target of what he feels is media excoriation. “All of these things came to pass at the same time. Just another way for the mainstream to try to destroy the black man.”

De Sandies, who is an artist and educator, saw “Black Male” in New York late last year and he, too, argues that largely because of an already charged racial climate “it is not a show in isolation. All we want to do is get people to think about these images. We talked about it in terms of filling in gaps, understanding point of view. . . . People get desensitized, bombarded by certain images, they don’t react,” says De Sandies. “And these images do not uplift or uphold. Nothing that helps redeem lives.”

Curator Golden says that was not what she set out to do.

“People think this show is about black men. This show is about representation,” explains Golden, who is black. “This exhibit started from a specific place. A look at black masculinity from the ‘60s to the present through a conceptual lens.”

Golden says she didn’t impose a set theme but, rather, allowed motifs to form organically, as interpreted by a broad range of artists of varying age, gender and sexual preferences. “I was looking at their work and how the work spoke to black masculinity, and that was the core from which I worked.”

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Still, there are those, like artist-photographer Middlebrook, who have grown weary and wary of being defined. Middlebrook has yet to see many images familiar to his experience on gallery walls: “It’s 1995 and we’re still being treated and judged the same way.” Stereotypes, loaded racial imagery, ironic or not, are still shackles--time has done little to smooth the edges. And because of that, says Middlebrook, “we just felt that what was needed was our point of view. Work that represents a true value of what’s going on.”

Golden, who sees herself as mediating voice, doesn’t claim to present a definitive take. “As a curator, I could not really strive for that. No one could ever do that.”

She said she applauds the coalition’s efforts, while still baffled that her show is being used as a lightening rod and force to rally against. “I think the criticism is about something much larger,” says Golden.

“I agree there needs to be more , I think my critics and I are on the same side on that. But even if we all did a show every year, there still wouldn’t be enough. Everyone is suffering from the same issues right now. Funding is difficult to secure, there is the question of broad appeal. I understand where their frustration comes from. But there is a more effective way to address it. Hopefully just the dialogue around this alone will bring change.”

* “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art,” continues through March 5 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Ave., New York, (212) 570-3600. It opens April 25 at the UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., (310) 443-7000. Through June 18.