“It is tempting to focus, one more time, on Michael Ray Charles' use of racial stereotypes and whether his work leads to productive discourse on social issues or perpetuates the underlying hatred and ugliness that spawns those images in the first place.”[1]
Michael Ray Charles is an African American painter whose works epitomizes identity as he reveals the insidious repercussions of European colonization on second and third world cultures that occurred in the 15th – 19th century. Charles’s paintings and installations deal with concepts of beauty, abhorrence, nostalgia, and violence which appear and expose the past that society has inevitably tried to dissociate itself from. His art reminds the viewer that the past has lead us to our present, molded who we are, who we will become and how we are depicted both as individuals and a society, for his work is not about people so much as they are about images as he is trying to obtain and produce an understanding among all races.
In his 2003 exhibition “Shiny Figures” at the D Berman Gallery in Spain, Charles attacks serious issues with deft humour, using ironic symbolism and historical references. Utilising his background in commercial design, Charles takes stereotypes created by white advertisers in the late 19th and well into the 20th century, such as racial caricatures like Sambo, Mammy, Minstrel, and the pickanninies, he modernizes them to incorporate black youth, celebrities, and athletes. Images which he sees as a constant in the American subconscious.
After slavery was abolished in America, African Americans were viewed as a source of entertainment, a race that could be exploited and laughed at, yet never escaping the shackles. These stereotypes are still subconsciously in existence as sport and entertainment are seen as the two main professions available to African Americans. Charles depicts this through his use of basketball as the main theme for his exhibition.
In “(Forever Free) Jersey #9 (Cultural Value/Black Hand), 2003”, Charles replaces basketball singlets with burlap coffee sacks, stuffed with raw cotton, he makes a palpable intimation to the past slave trade in south America. The symbolic use of a red curtain on entering the exhibition, a Minny grand piano in the middle of a basketball court, and songs by Billy Holiday resonating through the exhibition are all direct links to the theme of entertainment. “One could think about notions of blackness and how they’re linked to entertainment, athleticism, and sports…I would say that blackness continues to hover around this comfort zone of entertainment- providers of entertainment.”[2]
Michael Ray Charles deals with identity by exploring past and present stereotypes in the context of today’s society, by utilizing images that stir peoples gut emotions. The blindfold on society is being revealed through the stereotypical images and the ironic commercial punch lines which catches the viewer’s attention. “These images are very much a part of who we are as blacks, and very much a part of who we are as Americans.”[3]
[1] Rebecca S Cohen, “Michael Ray Charles”, Austin Review. Summer 2003. www.dbermangallery.com/articles/charles-artlies2.htm
[2] Michael Ray Charles, “Advertising and Art.” Art21, inc (2007),www.pbs.org/art21/artists/charles/ -
[3] Michael Ray Charles, Michael Ray Charles. (New York: Tony Shafrazi Gallery, 1998) 9.
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