DISMANTLING THE WHITE CIS MALE PATRIARCHY IN ART HISTORY: HARMONIA ROSALES
DISMANTLING THE WHITE CIS MALE PATRIARCHY IN ART HISTORY: HARMONIA ROSALES
In her series titled “New World Consciousness,” Harmonia Rosales speaks on the ideals of eurocentric beauty standards using the biblical figure Eve as well along with the Virgin Mary. She challenges the white perception of beauty through her own reconstruction, of illustrious paintings of Black women. In the words of Rosales, her art acts as “The duality between The Virgin Mary and Eve as a point of departure in the deconstruction of a dominant ideological narrative rooted in Eurocentric conceptions of beauty and superiority.” Decolonizing art has become a widespread conversation of substantial impact. Decolonizing art means taking away those strictly white viewpoints, or more westernized viewpoints, of beauty perpetuated throughout the majority of Art, as well as many other indicators of beauty, in history. Rosales intentionally black centered artwork adds a much-needed voice of diversity in the art world. Rosales’s voice speaks to art as a whole, she shows that Black is beautiful in an all-white room. Through this paper, I will analyze the racialized space of black people in fine arts, specifically the eurocentric view of The Virgin Mary and Eve as white women.
In Euroeverything there is a quote that states: “Europe looked in the mirror and saw the world. Beyond that lay nothing.”(Euroeverything 2009) The notion that European features and fair skin are the most attractive and therefore beautiful is commonly perpetuated from many artistic voices that hold power but, why is that? European beauty standards have been thrust upon numerous regions worldwide in a plethora of ways throughout history. In American History, after emancipation in 1863, this “Eurocentric is best” ideal was manifested in black women specifically. Eurocentric views had taught Black women the idea of being “high yellow”, thin, with slender facial features was the symbol of their beauty. If you failed to present as that uncommon image, you were deemed ugly and unrespectable. In the Netflix series Self Made based on the life of Madam Cj Walker, who is the first-ever woman recorded in American history as a self-made millionaire, this Eurocentric thinking presents as evident. In Self Made a recurring theme was this idea of Eurocentric beauty and presented as a struggle for walker herself. In the series, the audience sees a conventionally beautiful light-skinned slender woman helping Walker grow her hair and get back on her feet. The light skin woman was also a businesswoman with the main format of selling her products as the door to door salesmanship. When Walker decided to offer her services to aid in business, the light skin woman went on to tell her “she does not have the look”. Later in the series, Walker’s husband continues to perpetuate this image onto her and her brand by creating the “Walker Girl”. The Walker Girl was featured as the same image of a light-skinned woman with slender features and long hair. Walker’s experiences and Self Made act as one of many examples of how European beauty standards are constantly being thrust upon people and thus artists alike. Another example of this problem of European art standards is the presentation of museums. In museums, Contemporary is defined as living or occurring at the same time or Belonging to or occurring in the present. Contemporary art is art produced by artists who are living in the 21st century. These definitions specifically call for recent people or events and involve things occurring in the present. The 21st century by definition started on January 1, 2001. If this is a held truth then why do we see an abundance of very old none white and female artists in contemporary? While many artists have come out recently and plenty have been shown within contemporary art, not many have been able to be placed and remain placed in the museum’s contemporary galleries as they should be. While working in a museum, I often heard that art often had some requirements in the acquisition. Specifically, many artists or collectors will only give pieces to a museum involving special conditions. Those conditions can be that a piece would need to be up for a certain amount of time, often that can reach up to 60 years. Knowing that I can understand why traditional art museums may not have more recent works. But that is where I begin the question: should pieces be moved into permanent galleries? These pieces all have been stylized and fit the contemporary look, such as Odol (1924) Stuart Davis, a piece that fits contemporary with its color blocking and bold use of line to depict the very obvious picture. But for the purpose of the definition of the word, the pieces that outreach the 21st-century time limit should be moved. Museums oftentimes hold many artists that don’t fit European standards in the contemporary galleries, therefore giving them less view time. Harmonia and her pieces actively disrupt this as she mixes the two references. In her art, Harmonia addresses the European beauty standards referred to in Self Made (Netflix original series) through this disruption. In her pieces, the black women she creates are represented through a variety of colors and sizes. She presents a plethora of women who are bigger, dark-skinned, with blemishes, no hair, really coarse hair, or even albino women. That alone is actively fighting against the eurocentric narrative and the idea that eurocentric features should be praised for black women in the black community. In addition to addressing the image of women and the representation of people of color, Harmonia emphasizes this disruption with her recreation of traditionally white represented paintings of biblical The Virgin Mary and Eve. This is decolonizing art itself. Eve and The Virgin Mary are seen very highly as respected white female figures in the art world and culturally, to see them represented with non-eurocentric features or as people of color are actively empowering and removing some of the colonized views. But even then the depiction of the Virgin Mary was whitewashed in itself by Europeans from the very beginning because in the bible The Virgin Mary is a Jewish woman born in the middle east. Racism and White Privilege has always been prevalent in the majority of culture worldwide since the beginning of colonization. (an exploration of the whitewashing of Virgin Mary) With the help and use of modern artists, we have and will continue to decolonize the biased viewpoints of the world in art.
Having white bodies painted by men replaced with black women painted by a black woman is an excellent way to disrupt a replication of this art historical canon, in other words, it breaks a constant cycle of art history and its white male representation. In conclusion, the best way to break this art streak is through new artists being presented. I also have the belief that museums should begin to incorporate more nonwhite artists into fine arts and permanent galleries to break the stigma as well. Harmonia using her voice as a black woman and her eye for diversifying paintings of white dominant artworks is a huge step in this area. She has also been shown in many galleries so far and has revealed that black art can be illustrious and deserving of being and belonging in fine arts. “Since global history was documented, religion and power go hand in hand. Sometimes that power can be abused for greed” (Harmonia Rosales for Dazed Magazine Sep 2018)
https://www.harmoniarosales.com/
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