1
10
2
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Dublin Core
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Description
An account of the resource
* Black stare
* Environment and black man -- trope
* Glower -- physicality
* Black man society spring from him
Title
A name given to the resource
Strange Fruit [Cover]
Contributor
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<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Format
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18.3 x 1.5 cm
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Dublin Core
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Description
An account of the resource
* Woman's face -- racist caricature
Contributor
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<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Strange Fruit </em>[Page 10 (bottommost panel)]
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Dublin Core
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Contributor
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<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Title
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<em>Strange Fruit </em>[Pages 21 and 22]
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Dublin Core
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Description
An account of the resource
* Stunning image 00 confed flag on black body
* Meant to be a standout image (reviews of comic); spreadout of image
* Victor or conqueror -- manhood covered by confederate flag
* coloring - dark sky
* Sonny on background
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Strange Fruit </em>[Page 25 (full page)]
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Strange Fruit </em>[Page 33 (bottommost panel)]
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96c3ea1553687a3e73909d708d6487cc
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Strange Fruit </em>[Page 65 (full page)]
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Comics
Description
An account of the resource
Being my medium of academic interest, the comics used for this exhibit outnumber any other media in this exhibit. As such, they warrant their own collection. More than just the quantity of the presence, comics are an important medium when discussing black male representation. Comics use of both images and text for a mass consumer culture makes them accessible to all people: young and old, native speakers and foreigners, rich and poor. It does not cost much to make a comic -- a person just needs paper and a pen, not necessarily computers and crews. From there, a creator can create within the confines of the page and beyond, with only their imagination as their limit. The American Underground Comix and 80s and 90s West Coast Zine movements, as well as today's webcomic and crowdfunding comics, are a testament to the accessibility comic creators and readers have. Their mass consumer price and portability make them easily shared among the masses. Comics are the most democratic of mediums. As such, analyzing how black male bodies are created, consumed, and reproduced in comics is vital to understand black masculinity in culture. <br /><br />My selection criteria (in no particular order) for this collection is as followed: <br /><br /><ol><li>Does the comic offer unique insights to these questions: (a) How are these bodies represented and framed? (b) What are the intentions and effects of these bodies? (c) How can these bodies be received? (d) What are the semiotics of the black male body in this work?</li>
<li>Each comic differs in genre, tone, and art style from the other three.</li>
</ol>
Contributor
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<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Dublin Core
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Title
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<em>Strange Fruit</em>
Creator
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Writer: Jones, J.G. and Mark Waid.
Penciler and Inker: Jones, J.G.
Contributor
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<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/"><span>Rachel Davis</span></a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
9 May 2017
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Los Angeles: BOOM! Studios.
Format
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18.3 x 1.5 x 28.4 cm
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Author (15 Dec 2017)
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
(Exterior) Ink, plastic, cardboard; (Interior) Ink on paper
Description
An account of the resource
<p dir="ltr">Out of all of the items in this exhibit, <em>Strange Fruit </em>has the most body diversity. The main black male humans of the comic are Sonny and Mr. McCoy. As seen in <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/bda9add0992f89dd5cb9a4efc7f9625a.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515323486&Signature=wJd%2BhiAlRHUf9ig9OmlHG8L6yb4%3D">Fig. 4</a>, Sonny is lean but with some muscle definition, as befitting a physical laborer on a plantation farm. His hair is free and goes in many directions and his beard is full. His clothes are too large for him, as seen from the blue shirt spilling over from his pants and how he pulls at his trousers and excess fabric stretches across his leg. Mr. McCoy, the Northern engineer sent to Chatterlee from D.C. to help save the town, is noticeably different from Sonny.<a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/f77644a8cf9a3ca3e474fd08a1371cdd.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515323687&Signature=ql9RdQBspMq5VIXqmcj1i3JkHQU%3D"> </a><span><a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/f77644a8cf9a3ca3e474fd08a1371cdd.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515323687&Signature=ql9RdQBspMq5VIXqmcj1i3JkHQU%3D">Fig. 6</a> </span>shows him to be shorter, rounder in body, with neck fat. He wears glasses, a visual shorthand signifying his higher intelligence to that of the other recurring characters who lack glasses and the knowledge to save the town from the flood. Furthermore, his pencil moustache and formal attire of a bow-tie, white shirt, plaid brown suit, and hat, put him in stark contrast to Sonny and most of the residents of poor Chatterlee.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span>In comics, body diversity speaks to psychological diversity. Sonny is the rough-and-tough rebelling sharecropper with dreams of fighting Jim Crow and white people, and McCoy is the Northern, educated black man among uneducated, bigoted Southerners, offer a variety of possibilities for who a can be a Black man. Most of the items in this exhibit present a black male for all black males. </span><em>Strange Fruit </em><span>gives the reader two black men to show a multitude of black male expressions. Two black men do this -- and </span><span>only </span><span>two black men. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr">The central black male figure of this comic -- its main character and the strange fruit of the title -- is not a black male. He is an alien who reads as a black male to the Jim Crow characters and the comic reader. And the only way the alien can be read as Black is from his physical appearance. The character never learns a human language -- only the physics and mathematical equations necessary for him to save Chatterlee (see <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/d5cb601655afeb514a7177569340b9a9.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515323811&Signature=8hJdeLzrFHjZU8BoxTb9belfZVE%3D">Fig. 5</a> and <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/f77644a8cf9a3ca3e474fd08a1371cdd.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515323862&Signature=3zZ7vEnML4bDr0W143mp9Gc9xoo%3D"><span>Fig. 6</span></a>). We know not what he calls himself or what he wants beside a few scattered flashbacks that equate the guns of Chatterlee to space guns. We know not who he is or how he sees himself. Only how others see him (see <em><a href="http://wst198.omeka.net/items/show/1">Green Lantern: Mosaic</a></em>). And what they see is a black body of colossal proportions. His body is always made to appear large to other characters and sometimes the dimensions of the comic, as seen in <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/ccfdc5457d477b47e35049dc36c71133.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515323896&Signature=DsECgDMb%2BDxn968DQBBtr498pBA%3D"><span>Fig. 3</span></a> when the alien’s body surpasses the confines of the panels and gutters. The alien takes up space, whether dominating a skyline with his muscled torso and veiny arms as in <span><a href="https://wst198.omeka.net/items/show/7">Fig. 4</a> </span>or with his long legs reaching the edge of the bound page as in <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/d5cb601655afeb514a7177569340b9a9.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515323966&Signature=Lpl2YfXYXT2yOZ0NDo1FkPVIP10%3D"><span>Fig. 5</span>. </a></p>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-434cc422-73fc-181a-e9d7-6e16c79a8bf8"><span>The alien is a black body. That is its purpose; Jones has said that “The appearance of The Colossus [</span><span>sic.</span><span>] acts as [</span><span>sic.</span><span>] a mirror on their [the other characters’] motives” (qtd. in Dietsch). The authorial intent was to have the alien’s black body be a metaphor, yet Jones and Waid ended up relying on visual stereotypes that make the black body inhuman to the reader. One cannot relate to the alien because one does not know who or what the alien is. He is only his appearance -- an appearance that is stereotypical -- the unintelligible black muscular man. Sonny, as the Nat Turner uncouth with a heart of gold, and McCoy, the portly intellectual of diminutive stature and authority, are equally stereotypical. Even a non-character perpetuate visual stereotypes, as seen in the </span><a href="https://ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/antiblack/picaninny/homepage.htm"><span>picaninny</span></a><span> character in </span><a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/d08ff08f68422217b6843629ca68f8b7.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515324005&Signature=4WYXDi0vX2V3Couy7C8sRhOpLjE%3D"><span>Fig. 2</span></a><span>. Jones and Waid use various types of visual and narrative stereotypes of black bodies in a story about black oppression. The black bodies are diverse but the type of diversity is reductive rather than inclusive. </span><em>Strange Fruit </em><span>serves as a reminder that quantity and breadth of bodies does not equate to qualitative and deep representations of oppressed identities. </span></span>
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<ol><li><span id="docs-internal-guid-434cc422-73fd-c7ab-d421-4c49014bb130"><span>Dietsch, TJ. “EXCLUSIVE: Jones & Waid on Examining Racism, Cultural Legacy in 'Strange Fruit'.” </span><span>CBR</span><span>, Valnet Inc., 24 Feb. 2015, </span><a href="http://www.cbr.com/exclusive-jones-waid-on-examining-racism-cultural-legacy-in-strange-fruit/"><span>www.cbr.com/exclusive-jones-waid-on-examining-racism-cultural-legacy-in-strange-fruit/</span></a><span>. </span></span></li>
</ol>
appropriation
black bodies
black bodies in comics
black comics
black masculinity
black masculinity in comics
blackness and environment
blackness and nature
comics
environment
nature
stereotypes
strange fruit
white artists
-
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46b93ea7b52a99470d0d6b2d6e98b273
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
<em>Rythm Mastr: Tower of Power</em> (from "Rythm Mastr" series)
Contributor
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<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Creator
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Marshall, Kerry James
Publisher
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Marshall, Kerry James. “Rythm Mastr: Tower of Power.” MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/collection/works/215348?locale=en. Accessed 15 Nov 2017.
Date
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1999-2000
Format
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43.1 × 57.8 cm (unfolded sheet)
Type
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Artist's Newspaper
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New York City: Museum of Modern Art
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024808022b9cda831ec515c9a8843aa4
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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<em>Rythm Mastr: Every Beat of My Heart </em>(from "Rythm Mastr" series)
Creator
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Marshall, Kerry James
Publisher
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Marshall, Kerry James. “Rythm Mastr: Every Beat of My Heart.” MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/215346?artist_id=8285&locale=en&sov_referrer=artist. Accessed 18 Dec 2017.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1999-2000
Contributor
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<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Format
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43.1 × 57.8 cm (unfolded sheet)
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
New York City: Museum of Modern Art
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Artist's Newspaper
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aedb94f61d717ff0955dfd65dc583147
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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<p class="balance-text center object-title"><em>Rythm Mastr: Bulletin! </em>(from "Rythm Mastr" series)</p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Marshall, Kerry James
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Marshall, Kerry James. “Rythm Mastr: Bulletin!" MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/215347?artist_id=8285&locale=en&sov_referrer=artist. Accessed 18 Dec 2017.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1999-2000
Contributor
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<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Format
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43.1 × 57.8 cm (unfolded sheet)
Type
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Artist's Newspaper
Coverage
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New York City: Museum of Modern Art
Dublin Core
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Title
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Fine Art
Description
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"Fine Art" is a contentious term with its history of excluding media, expressions, artists, and ideologies. Personally, I am not fond of the term. However, in order to explore the representation of black males in comics, it is necessary to look at the history of black males in visual cultures. Comics do not exist in the vacuum; no art form does. Art is a dialogue between a creator or creators and some other, whether that other be a person, society, history, or something else altogether. The best way to show this continuum is to curate the selected comics for this exhibit in contrast to older artworks and art forms. The similarities and differences between these media in meaning and representation black male bodies have yielded insights. <br /><br />My selection criteria (in no particular order) for this collection is as followed: <br /><ol><li>Does the fine artwork offer unique insights to these questions: (a) How are these bodies represented and framed? (b) What are the intentions and effects of these bodies? (c) How can these bodies be received? (d) What are the semiotics of the black male body in this work?</li>
<li>Each piece has its own medium.</li>
</ol>
Contributor
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<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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From the<em> Rythm</em> <em>Mastr </em>series<br /><br />Fig. 1: "Rythm Mastr: Tower of Power"<br />Fig. 2: "Rythm Mastr: Every Beat of My Heart"<br />Fig. 3: "Rythm Mastr: Bulletin!"
Creator
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Marshall, Kerry James
Date
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1999-2000
Contributor
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<a href="https://comicsverse.com/author/o0rayday0o/">Rachel Davis</a>
Type
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Artist's Newspaper
Coverage
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New York City: Museum of Modern Art
Format
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43.1 × 57.8 cm (unfolded sheets)
Publisher
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Fig. 1: Marshall, Kerry James. “Rythm Mastr: Tower of Power.” MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/collection/works/215348?locale=en. Accessed 15 Nov 2017.
Fig. 2: Marshall, Kerry James. “Rythm Mastr: Every Beat of My Heart.” MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/215346?artist_id=8285&locale=en&sov_referrer=artist. Accessed 18 Dec 2017.
Fig. 3: Marshall, Kerry James. “Rythm Mastr: Bulletin!" MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, https://www.moma.org/collection/works/215347?artist_id=8285&locale=en&sov_referrer=artist. Accessed 18 Dec 2017.
Description
An account of the resource
<p dir="ltr"><span><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span></span><span>No work in this exhibit takes up space like Kerry James Marshall’s </span><em>Rythm Mastr</em><span> series. These works occupy multiple spaces at the same time. This is a fine artwork (each artwork is owned by the Museum of Modern Art) whose medium is a comic newspaper strip </span><span>(Art21, “Rythm Mastr”: Kerry James Marshall). These works also address multiple types of spaces. Black bodies warp space. </span><span>Black body warps space in a way a white body does not -- the choice of Jeremy Grey as the hero of </span><em><a href="http://wst198.omeka.net/items/show/2">Captain Confederacy</a></em><span> </span><span>over a black male lead and the alien lead of </span><em><a href="http://wst198.omeka.net/exhibits/show/black-bodies-black-ink/item/7">Strange Fruit</a> </em><span>are proof of that. This is psychological space, though. The interaction between blackness and physical space within a narrative is not as pronounced. </span><em>Rythm Mastr</em><span> offers insights into both types of spaces. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The three title pages here show three different spaces in three different lights. <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/6ea2904fd9af4cc889dbf3f5694509cc.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515324570&Signature=XDUTIBBpKy6DS%2FalDYFovYbpNlM%3D">Fig. 1</a> shows a black figure aiming and loading a bazooka weapon at an urban water tower. Without the following panels providing context for this page, the reader is to assume this black male is conducting urban warfare on the communal water supply. For all intents and purposes, this person is conducting warfare on a source the community is dependent on -- a source the community does not control, but the bureaucracy does. Water is essential for life, but the distribution and management of such vital necessities in urban communities is relegated to the hands of a few (historically and still often white) politicians. Black people have and still do not (if Flint, Michigan’s water epidemic is any indication) live in areas where they have access or control to safe life necessities like water, organic fresh food, clean air, and so on. The water tower is not an animate threat to the black man aiming a military weapon at it, but what the tower represents -- a lack of control, racial equity, and autonomy -- is threatening.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>With <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/db374e873fce45dc5854bfc81f773446.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515324627&Signature=u8OT59oR2sZy%2FFGtSEFIIEjWuqw%3D">Fig. 2</a>, a more traditional American comics scene is shown: a group of black figures are in motion, from the drum player in the foreground to the swinging mass to the viewer’s left to the flying figure to the right. Once again, the scene takes place in an urban environment. This time, the viewer is not only the street, but looking upwards. We are behind the action and cannot directly see the faces of the figures. Much like with <a href="http://wst198.omeka.net/items/show/6"><span>Warhol</span></a>, we are meant to see these figures as bodies in action and to see the scene. We see debris from the ground and the central building is partially demolished, showing a figure on the inside. The scene is chaotic, filled with movement and bodies that the viewer is a part of. There is an inclusion the viewer feels here that is absent in <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/omeka-net/34789/archive/files/1a0b0682a8946f18267b634d8c433434.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAI3ATG3OSQLO5HGKA&Expires=1515324649&Signature=XuXT6zjHkfFdKwttWRwtszZKSa0%3D">Fig. 3</a>. There, the viewer looks down from the lighting equipment of a TV news set. The black female anchor sits behind her desk, reporting, as other bodies crowd the bottom of the page. There is plenty of empty space and no movement. The lights and TV equipment dwarf the human figures. There is a great contrast between the two images. In the former, black people are in abundance, taking up space and performing actions, but out on the dark, urban streets near a less-than-pristine neighborhood. In the latter, only one black figure sits still, her body contained, and is dwarfed by the machinery and professional environment. The social capital of the space -- the dark dirty urban streets versus the white-collar newsroom -- decreases with the presence of black bodies. Conversely, black bodies respond to the prestige and lightness (see: whiteness) of the space they occupy (also seen in <a href="http://wst198.omeka.net/items/show/5"><span>Michael Ray Charles</span></a>). From these images in R<em>ythm Mastr</em>, it can be surmised that black bodies and physical space affect one another.</p>
Source
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<ol><li>Art21. “‘Rythm Mastr’: Kerry Marshall James.” Art21, PBS, <a href="https://art21.org/read/kerry-james-marshall-rythm-mastr/">https://art21.org/read/kerry-james-marshall-rythm-mastr/</a>.</li>
</ol>
black art
black artists
blackness and environment
environment
fine art