In this primary election season, we are reminded more than ever that stereotypes are the bane of a just society. And so it is no wonder cultural institutions worldwide see dispelling stereotypes as an important part of their mission.
The season’s exhibits and events in Kansas City reflect a vigorous effort to set the record straight with regard to misrepresented peoples and communities, including an extraordinary March 7 American Public Square panel, Muslim in the Metro, held at UMKC. Filmed and later aired on KCPT, a partner in the project, the panel of Muslim community members and area media and political figures engaged in a provocative and illuminating discussion about perceptions and realities of Muslim life in KC. If you missed KCPT’s March 25 broadcast, you can view it here online.
Striking another strong blow for informed awareness is “Stereotypes to Civil Rights: Black Paper Dolls in America,” an exhibit at the National Museum of Toys and Miniatures, notable for its inclusion in the mix of offensive early dolls. Caricatural depictions of Topsy and Sambo, mammies and minstrels, from the collection of author and lecturer Arabella Grayson, demonstrate the power of inculcation through play, a topic explored in Ieshia McDonald’s review of the exhibit in this issue of KC Studio.
Many people are visiting the Nelson-Atkins’ spring blockbuster, “Reflecting Class in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer,” for the opportunity to see Vermeer’s exquisite A Lady Writing (c.1665). But the exhibit offers plenty of food for thought as well as a feast for the eye. The free brochure cites influential Dutch painter and theorist Gerard de Lairesse’s advice to his contemporaries to portray “‘people of fashion’ (in) … elegant upright postures, while peasants can be recognized by their stooped shoulders and slouching gaits.”
There is a parallel to be drawn perhaps, between Lairesse’s promotion of class stereotypes and contemporary mass media’s portrayal of America’s poor and marginalized as ignorant and untidy dwellers of ghettos, trailers and hollers, who speak poor English with thick regional accents.
Another group in this country that has endured centuries of stereotyping is American Indians, a phenomenon explored in the exhibit, “Fritz Scholder: Super Indian,” opening June 23 at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. Impatience with stereotypes was a major impetus to Scholder’s portrayal of Indian subjects from 1967-80. In canvases such as Mad Indian, Insane Indian, Hollywood Indian he blew up the whole unspoken truth that, in his words, “People don’t really like Indians… they like their own conceptions of the Indian…romantic and noble and handsome.”
It’s been almost 50 years since Scholder changed the course and tenor of American Indian art, but the need to combat stereotypes persists. As seen in her recent one-person show at Haw Contemporary gallery, contemporary American Indian artist Wendy Red Star takes on the same romanticized conceptions that bedeviled Scholder. Red Star’s format — large, staged photographic self-portraits amid romantic trappings — is different from Scholder’s, but the biting irony remains.
One of the spring’s most moving moments was the unveiling of artist Jesse Small’s Beacon Memorial honoring the shooting victims at the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom. It was a hate crime, enacted in the mistaken belief that the victims were Jewish.
The prejudices that fueled that April 2015 attack run deep and have a long history, a history that also took its toll on Jewish artists. Krista Lang Blackwood profiles the musical group Shir Ami, which is resurrecting the scores and songs of the many promising Jewish composers whose lives and careers were ended by the Holocaust.
On a happier note, KC Studio’s May/June issue celebrates the arrival of spring with stories focusing on the joys of the natural world and the convergence of art and science. They include a tour of six creative gardens and a section of Artist Pages featuring ornithological illustrations from the “Drawn from Nature” exhibit at Linda Hall Library. Readers can also enjoy a visit to the Kearney, Mo., studio of paleosculptor Gary Staab and get the scoop on an ingenious tool created by Kansas City sculptor Jarrett Mellenbruch, who is collaborating with KU scientists in the battle against Chagas disease.
Also on the smile side: With this issue, KC Studio welcomes Kansas City-based cartoonist Tom Toro as a regular contributor to our pages. If his style seems familiar, you have probably seen it before. In the past six years, The New Yorker has published more than 150 of Toro’s cartoons; they have also appeared in The Harvard Business Review, Audubon and other publications. Toro is also a writer, at work on children’s picture books, screenplays and novels. His short stories have appeared in New Haven Review and Slush Pile Magazine. His dual talents make him the perfect fit for KC Studio.
