Devin Troy Strother, Installation View: “They should’ve never given you niggas money”, 2015.
Devin Troy Strother plays with familiar racist American stereotypes of Black people, repeating these signs and symbols until they start to feel meaningless. But systemic racism is still very much a part of everyones’ everyday lives — one can’t even turn on the radio without experiencing it. So what does Strother mean when he uses it repeatedly in his recent solo exhibition at Richard Heller Gallery, entitled, They Should Have Never Given You Niggas Money (closed December 22, 2015)?
In this show, he takes pleasure in capitalizing off of histories of racism, attempting to veil it through the lens of visual humor. It’s somewhat shocking to see a neon sign with the finely cursive “n-word” repeated over and over again, or a carpet covered with black face lips, but it leaves any viewer asking the simple question of: So what? Stare at any of these pieces long enough, however, and they start to feel “funny” in a dis-associative kind of way — just another reminder of racism or, in internet humor terms, it’s funny “because racism.”
Each piece comes off as an example of extreme shock value, but not necessarily for the sake of delivering a message. Instead, in the press release for the show, the artist says he is investigating more mainstream routes that many young Black creatives take, becoming rappers, athletes or entertainers, and what happens when they are successful and get rich. But the show offers more questions than answers. Instead, one would guess from the work itself that such an artist just spends it without any afterthought or foresight, or asking anyone for help with how to manage this money. This is reminiscent of depressing stories about working-class people winning the lottery and quickly ending up bankrupt, rather than aiming toward prosperity or sustainable wealth. That said, the two Dave Chapelle sketches about Rick James that inspired the show’s title, however, are really funny (watch here and here). So it’s worth watching those two.
Strother capitalizes off of histories of racism by playing into them, but without providing any real social critique or even opinion. The visually overstimulating environment of Strother’s reminds of a fun house of mirrors or a carnival rife with lurking clowns and carnies, ghosts of racism’s past that linger today.
It’s also strange that Strother uses terminology in his artist statement that is very similar to artist Michael Ray Charles, an artist who started working with histories of racist imagery in the mid-to-late 90s, yet does not acknowledge Charles as an influence. Here is text from Strother’s artist statement:
“I feel that this show talks about a trope that’s quite common within the world of black youth today. Sometimes, young African Americans go the stereotypical route of becoming a rapper, an athlete, or some type of entertainer. Basically going the traditional route of being a performer in some capacity.”
In this PBS/Art21 summarization of Charles’ work, we see that his mission statement and Strother’s idea for the show are rather similar:
“Charles draws comparisons between Sambo, Mammy, and minstrel images of an earlier era and contemporary mass-media portrayals of black youths, celebrities, and athletes—images he sees as a constant in the American subconscious.”
But Charles had a message and actual social critique, whereas Strother does not. In the PrintMag.com article, “Michael Ray Charles: When Racist Art Was Commercial Art,” Steven Heller writes:
“Critics have attacked the artist for resurrecting images that were long ago hidden from view, ignored by historians as a sad chapter in the continuum of a burgeoning nation. But Charles argues that the issues raised by these images continue to haunt society albeit through different, contemporary stereotypes of gangstas, rappers, even characters on black-oriented TV sitcoms. Subjugation through imagery is something that is never totally expunged, and Charles wants to make certain that people understand the power that these had over peoples’ perceptions.”
When I talked to Strother, however, he seemed to feel that his use of the n-word and blackface were almost irrelevant. It could be that, due to the pop culture prevalence of the “n-word,” it seems like it’s been shelled of its racism, indicative of the silencing of systemic racism that’s become so prevalent today.
“I am using the blackface image as a charged signage point that’s attention-grabbing,” says Strother. “For some reason it means nothing. Some people see it abstractly as a person, not necessarily a Black person. ‘Nigga’ is the verbal counterpoint to blackface.”
Devin Troy Strother, Installation View: “They should’ve never given you niggas money” 2015.
This is how the show played out. Strother transformed the gallery into an immersive environment that’s as visually assaulting as a day spent glued to television, Twitter and Facebook all at the same time, just sitting there passively absorbing systemic racism. In one room, the floor is carpeted with hundreds of bulbous blackface lips and wide-eyed eyes — blue in this case, not brown. This raises additional questions, implying that these faces could be white people in blackface — a nod to racist histories of that practice — or Black people wearing “white people” eye color contact lenses. Some seem to be more “smiley” while others are “frowny,” an over-the-top way to represent historically racist imagery of Black entertainers. In another room, the walls are covered in hologram-like mirrors, and neon signs line the walls.
This imagery foregrounds some of the broader questions that Strother could have investigated in this show, particularly about why this type of imagery is still being investigated by a young Black artist today, and what it means for the past, present and future of Black creativity?
Strother’s use of blackface imagery is a running theme in his art practice, much of which seems to hinge on recycling stereotypes in order to shock but not scare audiences that are already very familiar with it, whether it’s the Afro-toting woman of Blaxploitation films and TV shows, or some other hypersexualized Black woman stereotype — and with blackface on her face, too.
Devin Troy Strother, “That’s my gurrrl Quiesha”, 2012, aluminum, automotive finish.
It is perhaps ironic, then, that Strother’s work looks at the Black rapper, athlete and comedian, when he wouldn’t be where he is today without having gotten noticed by Kanye West. It began in 2009, when Tumblr was all the rage amongst young creatives. Strother was doing a residency at Skowhegan; his then-girlfriend suggested he email his artist website to 60 or 70 well-curated Tumblrs and websites. He took her advice and did it.
“Overnight, a bunch of people reblogged my website,” says Strother. “A couple days later, Kanye West reblogged me on his very popular Tumblr, and his agent called me wanting to buy some work. Then I got a call from Kanye West’s manager. Then dollars started falling . . . and then I got here.”
Devin Troy Strother, “A bunch of niggas at the opera”, 2013, Acrylic and Auto-body Paint on Wood Panel.
The deal with Kanye didn’t end up going through, but it led to many other sales and calls from galleries in New York and Los Angeles, which set the stage for more shows and representation. Strother went on to have solo shows at Monya Rowe Gallery and Marlborough Broome Street, both in New York, Galeria Marlborough Madrid in Spain, Bendixen Contemporary Art in Copenhagen, and at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica.
It’s only been seven years since that Kanye West reblog that took Strother to the next level in the art world. He’s 29-years-old now. It’s been a really untraditional route for the artist, who grew up in West Covina, a suburb that he describes as “a place where a lot of skateboarders come from — nothing but concrete and a lot of middle schools and high schools.”
“My parents had thrift store Egyptian art, like the Black aesthetic, Egypt/Africa or whatever,” says Strother. “They worked all day and night shifts too, so I was basically raised by television and movies. I think MTV or Nickelodeon cartoons — that was my first intro to art.”
Strother was exposed to art galleries and museums in his 20s, when he was at Art Center in Pasadena doing his BFA.
Devin Troy Strother, “Michael Jordan.’I don’t know if that’s your dick or your leg, but please baby baby don’t make me beg! Just take me to the Bahamas and fuck me like I’m your big mammas.'” 2014, Mixed Media on Board.
“TV has a major effect on my practice,” he says. “I grew up watching a lot of Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, and then into Chris Rock and Jamie Foxx, Dave Chapelle, Girard Carmichael, and all the Black comedians, and then Louie CK and Marc Maron.”
In some of his works from 2012, he uses the title of the piece as a sort of joke set-up, and the image itself as the punchline. Says Strother: “I can set-up a boom-bam. Maybe the work is the pay off of the joke. Or the work sets up the title, if that works.”
Devin Troy Strother, “A Black Marina Abramovic in ‘I’m gonna fuckin’ shoot you with this arrow'”, 2012, Acrylic, gouache and paper collage on panel.
But while some of that 2012 work is actually funny, the recent turn toward racist stereotype overload leaves many wanting more.
New York Times art critic Roberta Smith was one of those people; she expressed her disappointment in an exceedingly negative review that she wrote about his show Space Jam at Marlborough Chelsea Gallery in early 2015.
As Strother told me, he didn’t freak out and decided to try and learn from this experience. He says that when he ran into her at an opening in New York, he went up to her, introduced himself and thanked her for the review. Then she gave him some suggestions for what to read, which included Glenn Ligon and David Hammond.
“She was like: ‘You need to figure out where you fit in to this history of art making,’ which to me implied Black people,” he says. “And I was like: ‘If you want me to figure that out, I’ll figure it out I guess.’ Her review was like a critique at a different level — it’s like the same as getting an MFA critique, but in public. I feel like she gave me homework.”
