Robert Colescott ~ Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder and Carrie Mae Weems

Recently I watched a group stand in front of Robert Colescott's Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder. It's huge, probably five by six - perhaps the height of the woman we're all beholding. Who is she? One said a model undressing for the artist. Another commented that's usually something that takes place before the painting session starts. Others took a look at her clothing – the garter belt and stockings, the bare buttocks. And then another person said. What if she's really putting her clothes back on? What is she doing there? Is she a model, is she a prostitute? Questions that Robert Colescott most assuredly wants us to ask and then answer them ourselves. How do we view the female model? Have we objectified the female body? What happens when the model is male? Do we have the same thoughts? What if the male is nude? Is that why men are usually so uncomfortable around paintings like the Portland Art Museum's Gary by Ann Gale. There he is sitting slumped in his chair, the chair where he sat for hours, full frontal. How is that different from paintings of women, either naked or half dressed? The woman in Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder is certainly more provocative. How would she be considered really more different than the women who were Matisse's models? All questions that bring me back to the post about Carrie Mae Weems' portrait of Robert Colescott during Week 9.


It's almost impossible for me to look at the blond in Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder and not think of Weems' portrait of Colescott. What has he done? Why is he standing with his face covered? How is that different than the blond? What role does the artist play? Why is Weems naked in her portrait of Colescott? Is she the artist or is she the model or is she both? What role do we the viewers play in this? Both Colescott and Weems challenge us to think about the female body. Colescott does it with more satire, more humor. But we are expected to think.

Framed By Modernism - Carrie Mae Weems and Robert Colescott

Carrie Mae Weems and Robert Colescott are two African-American artists who a) have links to the Northwest (Weems was born here in Portland and Colescott taught at Portland State in the late 1950's and 60's) and b) create politically charged art. The Boston Globe also indicated that in 1997, Weems and Colescott became the first African-American artists to appear at the Venice Biennale.

So it was no surprise that right around the 20 minute mark in Saturday's on-line video posting, Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection, Weems speaks of her 1999 collaboration with Colescott. Colescott had approached her to take photographs of him. As she tells the story the images ended up being somewhat different than what he had originally expected. Thematically, Weems had chosen to explore the attitude of women that at times leave them complicit in their victimhood. During the course of the lecture she spoke of how she thinks it's important as a woman to claim more responsibility for her own actions. Starting with the act of painting and the interaction of the artist and the model but extending it to other aspects of life, she questions how she can relinquish authority and power to men or any other entity in her life that then orchestrates it, that bends it and reflects it to meet its own needs. In a series of three photographs she stands naked in a corner of Colescott's room. He is in the center and in two of them his head is in his hand and in the last he looks out at the viewer while she continues to scrutinize him and his work. The titles of the photographs (one of which is part of today's post) carry the words from her lecture in Brooklyn...

Seduced by one another but bound by certain social conventions./You framed me and I framed you./ And even though we knew better, we continued that time honored tradition of the artist and his model but we ultimately knew we were being "Framed by Modernism"...

Twenty Six Weeks

This week marks the halfway point in our year long project writing about art from the Portland Art Museum. Nearly 8,000 visitors have been to our site. Here's a recap of what you've seen. Each line links back to the posts for that week. We're looking forward to another twenty-six weeks with more art and you.
Amy and LaValle
01 John de Andrea – Dying Gaul

02 William Adolph Bouguereau – Nature’s Fan

03 Ann Gale – Gary

04 Mark Rothko – View of Portland

05 N. C. Wyeth – The Great Train Robbery

06 Franz Kline – Rue

07 Alfred Maurer – George Washington

08 Josef Sudek – Garden

09 Carrie Mae Weems – Jim, Mission Impossible

10 Childe Hassam – New England Country Road

11 Sol Lewitt – Incomplete Open Cube

12 Albert Pinkham Ryder – Equestrian, Mother and Child

13 The Shrines of Itsukushima and Wakanoura

14 William Sartain – The Aqueduct

15 Karl Hofer – Early Hour

16 Gregory Grenon – Moth Girl

17 Dzunuk'wa

18 John Buck – The Keeper

19 John McCracken – Black Box

20 Robert Colescott – Beauty Is in the Eyes of the Beholder

21 Anna B. Crocker – Self-Portrait

22 Ernst Kirchner – Fir Trees

23 Lee Kelly – Arlie

24 Louise Nevelson – End of Day Nightscape II

25 Kiki Smith – Banshee Pearls

26 Jean Michelin