‘ Sometimes i don’t feel like im really here’
ARTIST CONFRONTS BLACKFACE IMAGERY TO ‘ ADDRESS AND EDUCATE’
Claude Desir Jr. knows something about history. But, he’s had to work for it.
“I never learned too much about African history or African American history in school. I did that on my own. But it always made me wonder why I was always learning about other pieces of history but ( not) my own history,” Desir says.
“Then when I did my own research and was
getting into other stuff, it made more sense: There’s a lot of bad times.”
Today, the Bridgeport artist is confronting those bad times with “Sometimes i don’t feel like im really here,” a solo exhibit at City Lights Gallery in Bridgeport on view through Feb. 24.
Desir’s artwork, inspired by the work of Black artists Kerry James Marshall, Jean- Michel Basquiat and Michael Ray Charles, evokes the history of Jim Crow imagery and stereotypes of blackface characters, while challenging the viewer to confront the past.
“I’m tired of seeing the negative moments of history being hidden away, so this is my platform to both address and educate, to those who don’t know and don’t want to know there are Jim Crowlike characters,” Desir says, in reference to the 1830s Jim Crow minstrel character portrayed by a man in blackface, and the subsequent derogatory portrayals of Black characters in advertising and media through the 1900s.
Desir’s characters are eyecatching, vibrant, bright and almost cartoonish — but also intentionally unsettling.
“The era of Jim Crow and its characters would over- exaggerate facial features, over- sexualize the women and body structures. … This is the way ( white) Americans portrayed Black Americans, the imagery was a form of ignorance. ( But) instead of being upset over how my people were being depicted, I embraced it,” he said.
The 24- year- old artist says there’s a conflict between not knowing one’s history, wanting to forget the past and confronting it, as he does in his paintings.
He says the “younger crowd” is still being affected by the Jim Crow- era portrayal and treatment of Black Americans, yet they’re unaware of the context and “string of things” in history that fed into current problems.
“The new generation is completely unaware of the blackface character, so it drives me more to put the artwork out. It opens a new conversation for the new generation that aren’t educated on the piece of American history and Black history, especially children of color. So my purpose, I feel like, is to have people need to know these things.”
On the other hand, he says, older generations who lived through those times and personally experienced segregation and degrading imagery — or took part in it — want to move beyond the past without fully resolving it.
Erasing history, or changing branding in the case of Uncle Ben’s or Aunt Jemima, for instance, just makes it “hidden away but hidden in plain sight,” Desir says.
“I’m tired of things being dumbed down and sugar- coated,” he says. “We need the truth and the whole truth — good, bad, ugly. We need to be the ones to keep the future aware.”
The older generations often tell only part of the story and may resent him for bringing up these images again, Desir says, but he’s willing to take the risk in order to continue dialogue.
“It’s a fine line between perpetuating something and questioning something, so I’m just trying to get as close to it as possible,” he says.
Though his artwork has reflected on the past, Desir said he’s hesitant to speculate on the future. He hopes his art will educate, and continue a conversation, especially with youth, but beyond that he said the legacy of Jim Crow is difficult to unravel.
“It’s really tough to even — I don’t even want to say I have no hope, but there’s just so many things that we’re still not past,” he says.
“You can’t really move past something unless it’s resolved, so that’s why I would say I keep something like this around. It’s not just me having this imagery, it’s more than that, and it’s the history, and years of these groups of people being degrading and degraded. So it’s a lot of undoing.”
To view “Sometimes i don’t feel like im really here,” visit City Lights at 265 Golden Hill St. in Bridgeport. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday, noon to 5 p. m., and Saturday, noon to 4 p. m. See more of his artwork at https:// www. viiseviin. com/.