Fight To Save Your Life Analysis

Gender:

Two prominent artists that engage in issues of gender and race are Faith Ringgold and Murray DePillars. When looking at Faith Ringgold’s work, specifically her Slave Rape Series one can see that she does not shy away from the painful history of black womanhood. When looking specifically at Slave Rape Series: Fight: To Save Your Life, 1972 we see Ringgold’s use of the female nude to confront stereotypes of black women. She paints a pregnant black woman with a surprised look on her face holding her pregnant stomach with one hand and a hatchet in the other. She also paints her surrounded by plants, thus further suggesting that she is a slave running away to save her own life and the life of her unborn child. This painting (done on a quilt) acknowledges the vulnerability of this woman but it also acknowledges her struggle and her resistance to her oppressor (an assumed slave owner). Because such a horrific subject like slave rape is painted on an object usually associated with comfort and safety, Ringgold forces her audience to consider the

total lack of safety these women had to endure. She also dignifies these subjects by depicting them ‘fighting back’ in some way. In this specific piece she is show with a hatchet.
Ringgold was involved in many feminist movements during the 1970s. She was a founding member of the Black Feminist Organization (which was founded in the same year the Slave Rape series was made). She was also a founding member of the Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation. The feminist movement helped inspire and showcase her Slave Rape series. She engages with the issue of gender and race by discussing the extreme hardships that African American women had to face by specifically approaching the topic of slave rape. She approaches this painful history through painting on quilts, a typically feminine craft. She explores the painful history of slave rape through aspects of black femininity. She does all of this so that this topic (one that is rarely discussed and even more rarely shown) can be tackled. Many African American women wanted to move past the painful topic at the time, however, Ringgold acknowledges the importance of confronting and discussing the topic in order to heal and move on.
Ringgold is obviously not the only Black artist that tried to tackle the complex issue of gender and race- Murry DePillars joined the popular artistic liberation of Aunt Jemima in the late 60s and 70s. In his piece Aunt Jemima, 1968 he draws Aunt Jemima bursting out of the pancake box that she has been trapped in for decades. He uses his detailed rendering to recreate Aunt Jemima as a very strong and muscular figure that is bare breasted and powerful. She wields the spatula like a club, and both literally and figuratively breaks out of the ‘box’ she has been kept in.
DePillars’ goal was to liberate Aunt Jemima form the degrading mammy stereotype that black women had to face. The liberation of Aunt Jemima was meant to break through racial oppression, yet it remained locked into dominant ideologies about white and black gender roles. The muscular arms and manly hands that DePillars renders, in combination with the fact that her breast are conveniently showing, show that while racial stereotypes were being broken, sexual stereotypes were often being ignored. The article “Contesting the Aunt Jemima Trademark Through Feminist Art: Why is She Still Smiling?” by Cheryl Thompson examines Aunt Jemima’s history through a feminist lens and argues that “the image of an Afro-wearing African American man, which sits atop Aunt Jemma’s right shoulder in DePillars’ rendering, [all] point to the symbolic return to the make domain” (Thompson, 5).
Appropriation:
The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972) by Betye Saar is a very loaded piece of art.

It uses found objects and images from white America’s past. She uses three different Aunt Jemima images: the mammie image from the box repeated in the background of the piece, the grotesque cookie jar Jemima, and an image of Aunt Jemima holding an upset mixed-race child. She uses theses found objects to remind her viewers that these racist images do exist and in many cases live on. The cookie jar is a particularly shocking reminder that America’s blatantly racist past is indisputably there and not very distant. There are many allusions in this piece of art- the cotton at Aunt Jemima’s feet recalls slavery, the mammy image at the bottom is covered with a black-power fist, and of course Aunt Jemima is given a gun! All of these allusions and Saar’s appropriation of found objects and old recycled images help Saar create a renewed Aunt

Jemima.
In the article “Contesting the Aunt Jemima Trademark Through Feminist Art: Why is She Still Smiling?” by Cheryl Thompson, Saar “began collecting derogatory black memorabilia (i.e. salt and pepper shakers, cookie jars, ashtrays, and notepads) in the 1960s, becoming ‘among the first of a now overwhelming group of African American antique collectors who reclaimed these objects’” (Thompson, 6). Thompson also says that Saar’s use of the cookie jar “appears as an overt critique of white America’s love affair with mammy” (Thompson, 6). Saar barrows racist images through using found objects to make her audiences think of Aunt Jemima is a different way. The time period that this piece was made in and the details such as the black-power fist and the gun in Aunt Jemima’s hand turn her into a revolutionary! Saar’s Aunt Jemima stands not only for black power but black Feminism.
Another artist that successfully appropriated a famous image into her work is Barbara Chase-Riboud. In her piece The Last Supper (1958) she appropriates the iconic painting by Leonardo Da Vinci and recreates the images through and African lens. The piece is a bronze sculpture that recreates the last supper and turns Jesus and his disciples into symbols, abstract forms, and mask-like figures. The figures seem delicate and almost like they are decomposing, it is almost iconoclastic. One could argue it is just honoring Jesus in a new, more historically accurate light. Jesus still remains in the middle of the piece- he is represented by the Egyptian Ankh symbol! This suggests that Jesus, like the Ankh symbol, is both African and the key of life. This piece was made during the late 50s, Black Nationalism was just beginning to increase in popularity and Black-Power was also emerging. When talking the time period into account, one could argue that Riboud wanted her audience to really consider the fact that Jesus was a Middle Eastern man, a person of color, and someone who historically lived in Africa for a period of his life. She barrows the iconic composition from De Vinci’s piece by comping the line-up of the figures and by using the same title. She did this to suggest a new way of seeing Jesus. Riboud barrows a familiar image associated with Jesus to recreate him in an African way and suggest that this holy figure, that has been totally white-washed, is very similar to the people that white America was deeming inferior at that time.
Historicization:
Understanding the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Arts Movement from a historical perspective can be a challenging task to accomplish. However, when looking at a few specific artist that response to these movement understanding where we are now becomes clearer. When we looking specifically at the artist Ava DuVernay, even more specifically at her film Selma, we are able to better understand the Civil Rights movement as we see it today. Selma (2014) is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches led by James Bevel, Hosea Williams, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John Lewis. The film showed Martin Luther King Jr. in a complex light. He was not made out to be a martyr nor a horrible adulterer. DuVernay explored Kings life during the year of 1965. She portrays King in a way he has never been portrayed before. He is shown as strong yet vulnerable, passionate yet sometimes cold, loving yet distant. DuVernay shines a light on the woman behind the iconic marches, she reminds her audience that the movement was made up of many complex individuals. She responds to the Civil Rights period by showing us a new and more complex and realistic take on who King was and how certain events came to be.
The artist and designer Lei Yixin also responded to this period. He was the designer that was chosen to create the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in the Park in Washington (which opened to the public October 16th, 2011). Yixin is a prominent Chinese sculptor that tackled the challenge of memorializing King. The memorial he designed and that was created is a large sculpture of King emerging from white granite slabs. His arms are crossed and he emits a serious and almost untouchable air. While the statue was meant to portray King in a strong and perhaps thoughtful manner, many have criticized the design for portraying King in a strange ill-fitting manner. In 2011 the New York Times article “A Mirror of Greatness, Blurred,” by Edward Rothstein, the monument is harshly criticized, Rothstein writes, “Dr. King’s posture all conspire to make him seem an authoritarian figure, emerging full-grown from the rock’s chiseled surface, at one with the ancient forces of nature, seeming to claim their authority as his.” It is hard not to understand where Rothstein is coming from when looking up at the sculpture of King. However, whether you think the monument accurately portrays King or not, it is still a prominent response to the Civil Rights movement. Because Yixin is a forging artist his interpretation of the Civil Rights movement and more specifically of King feels distant and perhaps more “globalized.” Instead of portraying King as a man who nonviolently fought for Black rights he is portrayed as a more generalized humanitarian and peacemaker. Yixin historicizes Civil Rights with his own lens, because he is not American he did not necessarily have the same personal and complex understanding of what the movement was or who King was.
When looking at how both DuVernay and Yixin interpreted and historicized the Civil Rights movement one can see that the artist’s own personal perspective and background influence their work. Selma is a film directed by a prominent black female director. She brings her own personal experiences and her own Blackness into the creative process. Yixin does the same in that he brings his own international perspective and interpretations of king and the movement into his memorial design. Both perspectives show how we all understand the movement differently. The amount of education given on the Civil Rights movement varies vastly within the U.S. (and outside of the country). Our interpretations, like the movement itself, are complex and multifaceted.