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newcatwords · 4 years

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who i mean when i talk about the white man

the beauty of the agent smith character from the matrix is that he can inhabit anyone, meaning that anyone can become him.

this is one of the ways i think about the white man.

usually, though, when i talk about The Man, i mean the high level operatives of the state & industry...judges, gatekeepers, bosses. but it also includes the more anonymous enforcers: cops, soldiers, etc... these are people who can bring the hammer of the state down on you if they so choose. they have chosen to become the hand of the state..the mouth of the state..acting on its behalf, doing its work, etc.

is america the white man’s state?

well it was founded by 100% white men:

it was founded for white men. it was not for white women (who couldn’t vote, etc.) or black people (who were enslaved, 3/5ths of a person). it was not for the people who were already living where these men were trying to form their country: native people weren’t even allowed to become citizens of USA until 1924.

you can argue that the white men who ran this place (and who started institutions like the major universities, etc.) have gradually let other people in - women, black people, jews, immigrants, etc. but the rules & values of the american government, of major universities, of news organizations, etc., are in almost all instances the rules & values of those original white people & the white people that have been running those places ever since.

even things like tech products (like this website!) that are meant to be for anyone to use, where technically anyone can work, are the white man’s tech..primarily built & founded by white men..primarily in the white, western tradition of high tech. almost every discipline you can get a degree in (like computer science) was invented & founded by white men working within universities run by white men. this is the most basic sense in which i mean these instutions belong to the white man. he founded them. they are his creations. he continues to create them - publishing the news, keeping the university running, keeping the government running.

you may want to become a part of those institutions - to be in government, to work for a major tech company, to be a cop or a teacher, to be recognized in the art or business world, to get tenure at a major university, etc. ..which is your business and you do you. right now i am writing in the white man’s language (english), using his technology (a computer, the internet, this website), and i, too, try to get my hands on his money (dollars) if at all possible lol.

not all white men are agents of the white man’s state, but most of them (especially if they’re straight and/or christian) can become a part of it. all of them benefit from it (you’re just not as likely to get killed by a cop during a traffic stop if you’re white. this is just reality.).

almost anyone (with the right papers, with the right skin color) can become The Man...when you as a white person call the cops on a black person, in that moment, you are The Man. when you as a white person try to police someone else’s behavior..or question whether they are in the right place etc...in that moment, you are The Man. if you’re gatekeeping your favorite hobby or industry, in that moment, you are The Man. that’s the beauty of the agent smith character in the matrix - agent smith can execute the full power of the state (ie, visit death on you) and anyone can become him.

it’s much harder (in many cases impossible) for certain “others” to enter various parts of the white man’s world. but it’s possible! look at your black & women cops. look at your colin powells and condoleezza rices..look at all the queer people who are allowed to rise to the top. which is why i think of being The Man as a condition, not as something essential about who you are. of course some people really are The Man on the inside lol - they were born into it or have adopted it or really think they know better and can’t see any other way. waddaya gonna do.

many white people especially are confused about the things that make up white culture. it’s especially difficult to understand because part of white culture is insisting that its culture & ways are universal. so every time you’ve heard a white man say “this is human nature” or “all people do this”, that in itself is white culture. white culture claims to be a neutral culture and a universal culture. but the more you learn, the more you discover that things you might have thought were neutral or universal are actually historically, geographically, & culturally specific to whites/westerners..they are things that were invented by whites/westerners.

here’s one example: many people think that some form of jail/prison/confinement of a person who did a bad thing is universal, or at least very common throughout time and in many parts of the world. but jails/prisons were invented in the west and in fact through much of the west’s history, these were not the main or preferred ways to punish people. michel foucault’s book “discipline & punish” is a good history of the invention of the prison.

when i say “a product of white culture” or "western culture”, the white reader might think “well i’m white and it’s not *my* culture.” that may be true! now imagine the whitest of the whites: your new england snobs, your english posh snobs, the good ole boys who run your town or state, your oppressive church leaders, an elected official who hates you & lies to you, a smug know-it-all educated technocrat (it might be you!), a karen, a cop, the trumpists, the polite skeptic liberals who are always telling you to temper your expectations, the shmucks who make the sexist, dumb hollywood movies, alllll the gatekeepers... their culture, the way they do things, the things they value, that is white culture. it varies. the white conservative’s culture is not the same as the white liberal’s culture, but they do have some things in common, like wanting to keep america going. both of their cultures are white cultures.

these whites are the people who make the culture that so many of us have grown up in - not just those of us in the west. the white culture machine includes academia (which produces scientific knowledge, histories, & the social theories & policies that many reforms are based on), tv, movies, the music industry, the art world, fashion, wall street, the tech industry, the news, professional sports, the politicians & cops (that are so often the content of the news), schools, white churches, most philanthropies, and all kinds of national (& many international) interest groups (ngo’s, advocacy groups, etc.).

these are institutions that (like the US government) were founded primarily by white men and have been run primarily by white men since their founding. they have all the money. they have power - whether it’s commercial power, political power, power to shape the national conversation, power to define what is true (only western science can say what’s true, according to western science!), power to give you a job or take it away, etc.

if you want to be “at the top of your field”, you are almost always meant to strive to join one of these white institutions (mostly white mens’ institutions). you might say “well there’s nothing particularly white about them..it’s just a news company..or an ad company. they’re just doing business.” but when i say white in this context, i mean that the people who founded them were either 100% white or mostly white. the people who have always run them have been either all white or mostly white, and the people who run them now are either all white or mostly white. in this sense, they are the white man’s institutions.

it can be hard to understand that because they are often the national or otherwise “official” thing: national news, or the biggest national/international companies, the top national/international universities. they certainly sell themselves as “the official thing” because it doesn’t sound great to say “the official newspaper of the white man.” and they want to be the official thing. they want to be the top x in the world. that’s an important white, western value as well - wanting to be the thing for everyone. the UN was not the dream of all peoples. it was the dream of some specific white, western people who created it.

here in america, a white man’s state, we grow up in that state’s schools, learning the history it wants us to learn. we watch its tv and listen to its music. we read its news and use its tech. we & our ideas..many of the things we think are true..many of the things we value..have been installed in us by that state and its various mouths (the ones who teach its desired history, tell you how you should look, what you should want out of life, what you should buy):

(above graphic from the movie “they live” (1988))

but we do all have a choice about which aspects of the white man’s culture we choose to adopt..we have choices about which of his values (progress, superiority of humans over nature & animals) we adopt..choices about which books we read & which movies we watch. is the matrix white man’s media? it used to be, but the wachowskis left the club ;). now it’s white trans women’s media :}

one final thing: is everything that white men do or think part of the white man’s culture? are all white men The Man? i hope that this post has made clear that i think the answer to both questions is “no”. i hope i’ve also made clear that non-whites and non-cis-het-men can very much be The Man or agents of The Man at times, or even their whole life. i’m not saying that it’s necessarily bad or necessarily good here, i just want us all to be honest with ourselves about who we are & whose work we’re doing.

a related question: if you start a club and you’re a white man, is it the white man’s club? i think it depends..it might be. do you work within the white, western tradition? do you accept its assumptions (capitalism is good, meritocracy is real, etc.)? do you further its culture? do you support its work? do you subvert it (by insisting that the club & its ways & rules are co-created with women, POC, etc., as real equal co-founders, for example)? do you use your position as someone the cops might believe, or someone the manager might listen to, to get your way & get what you want? ..to get someone else out of the way when you want? you might be The Man!

we can debate specifics - whether industry x or person y or instution z or cultural value n is white, but for me it comes down to this: was the value/government/institution founded by whites/westerners? has it been run & carried forward by whites/westerners? you can also ask whether it primarily benefits whites/westerners (who are allowed to rise to high positions or allowed to not be as likely to be killed by the cops, etc.) and whether it promotes the values/goals of The White Man. if a judge, a cop, an elected official, a principal, a high level church leader, a university president, and a corporate leader can all agree on it, then in my book, it promotes the values/goals of The White Man. an example of values that might fit this bill include an agreement that we should not try to dismantle america, for example. that one should work within the system...that industrialism is the way to go...etc.. primarily these are pro-establishment values. and “the establishment” is another way that i think many people talk about the white man’s culture & institutions.

anyway, this post has gone quite long. thank you for staying with me till the end. i hope it’s provided at least a rough sketch of what i mean when i talk about the white man or The Man and i hope it’s given you something to think about. i apologize for not going into the history of the usage of “The White Man” or “The Man”..i started writing this on a whim & haven’t done a historical dive. please forgive me for that. thank you.

#whiteness #whitesupremacy #culture

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mykidsgay · 6 years

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Know Your Queer History: Artists

Queer history was probably not included in your grade school curriculum—but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist! Part of being a good ally (that’s you, parents!) is learning about the history, hardships, and celebrations that the LGBTQ community has experienced, and remembering all the contributions made by queer folks throughout history.

This week, we are highlighting important LGBTQ artists and writers whose work has made an important, lasting impact on our culture and society today. For some, their sexuality played an important role in informing their work. For others, it was kept private or even erased by history altogether in order for their work to be accepted by the mainstream. In both cases, it is important to remember and celebrate the long history of LGBTQ creatives and the impact they made.

Michelangelo, 1475 - 1564

It may come as a surprise to you that the artist behind Rome’s famous Sistine Chapel was thought to have been gay. Michelangelo was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect, and poet of the Renaissance. In addition to the Sistine Chapel, he was also the artist behind the famous David sculpture and many other great artistic and architectural works. He was considered one of the greatest artists of the time while he was alive and remains one of the most influential people in the development of Western art today. Although the language of sexuality was very different in Michelangelo’s time and he was not “out” by any modern sense of the word, his poetry contains blatant references to the romantic relationships between himself and other men in his life. The homoerotic nature of much of Michelangelo’s work caused enough discomfort that when his nephew posthumously published the collection of writing, he had the gender pronouns in the work changed from male to female to erase the overt homosexual desire. It was not until over 100 years later when art historian John Addington Symonds went back to the original works to translate them into English that the change was discovered and the original pronouns were restored.

Surprised? It is not uncommon for the queer sexual orientations of historical figures to be dismissed or left out of history books. Other well-known historical figures that are thought to have been gay include Leonardo Da Vinci, Donatello, and Shakespeare.

Romaine Brooks, 1874 - 1970

Romaine Brooks was a queer 20th century American painter whose portraits depicting female androgyny contained a critique of gender well ahead of her time. Her inherited wealth meant that she was freed from many of the obligations that women and female artists faced at the time. Her work was largely done in grayscale, with very minimal, muted coloring. Her subjects were almost exclusively women, and her work included portraits of her acquaintances as well as the women she had romantic relationships with. In addition to the androgynous or masculine attire of her female subjects, she is notable for treating the women in her art as the subject, rather than the object, of the piece. Brooks’ own style mirrored that of the women she painted—her self portrait (pictured in part above), is one of her most well known works, and depicts the artist in a collared shirt and riding jacket with a black high hat and cropped hairstyle. Such attire was popular in the early 20th century as a signal of queerness to other queer women. As a female artist—and a queer female artists at that—Brooks’ work was largely overlooked until the rise of feminist scholarship and queer art history brought her work back into the spotlight. Today, gender and sexuality are on the cutting edge of the art scene, and Romaine Brooks’ legacy stands as an early exploration of gender fluidity, identity, and sexual orientation.

James Baldwin, 1924 - 1987

James Baldwin was an American novelist and essayist whose work is noted for its social critique and exploration of race, sexuality, and class in the Western world. Growing up black and gay in America, Baldwin experienced frequent discrimination, which greatly impacted his literary work. One of his early novels, Geovanni’s Room, caused great controversy for its unapologetic depiction of same-sex relationships. His subsequent novels, including Another Country and Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, openly portray queer and interracial relationships, both of which were incredibly controversial in that time. Baldwin was also greatly inspired by and active in the Civil Rights Movement in America during the 1960s; he travelled to the South where he interviewed people who experienced the movement, and wrote several essays about what he saw. He became involved in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), where he travelled across the American South lecturing on his views on racial equality and analyzing the ideologies of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Baldwin was open about his sexual orientation, which was still rare at the time, and his legacy lives on as both an inspiring gay figure and as an impactful literary voice of the Civil Rights Movement.

Audre Lorde, 1934 - 1992

Audre Lorde was an American writer, a daughter of immigrants, and a self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” Her writing is most well known for its social justice framework and discussion of feminism, racial injustice, and queer identity. From powerful, emotionally expressive poetry to social critique and queer feminist theory, her work spanned multiple genres, always with the underlying themes of identity, intersectionality, and oppression. Her writing on identity and intersectionality established Lorde as a pillar of the feminist movement, notably penning the well-known essay “The Master’s Tools Will Not Dismantle the Master’s House,” a critique of the racism that was pervasive in much of the feminist movement. Lorde was also a social activist; she was active in the civil rights, anti-war, and feminist movements during her lifetime. She co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, dedicated to helping queer women of color get published in a time where the industry was dominated by white men, and was an associate of the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, a non profit publishing organization. Lorde’s fierce and powerful work and legacy continues to impact the literary and feminist communities today.

Keith Haring, 1958-1990

Keith Haring was a gay American artist, and a prominent figure in the New York East Village Art scene in the 1970s and ‘80s. He is well-known for his pop art graffiti and the political and social commentary in his work, especially relating to sexuality and the AIDS crisis. His work utilized bold lines and vivid colors and his early work was done graffiti-style on unused advertising boards in the New York subway stations. His work made overt references to his sexuality as well as social issues such as the anti-apartheid movement, the AIDS crisis, and the crack cocaine epidemic. He also created the Keith Haring Foundation to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations, specifically to educate disadvantaged youth and individuals about HIV and AIDS. Haring himself died of AIDS-related complications at the age of 31, but his legacy lives on in his iconic work and advocacy. His mural Crack is Wack (1986) can still be seen along FDR Drive in Manhattan today.

It is important to remember that LGBTQ people have always existed and contriubuted to our culture and society. Throughout history, queer artists often faced rejection of their work based not on its merit, but because of their sexual orientation. Therefore, it is even more important now to look to the past to celebrate the lives and creative works of the queer community and credit them for how their work continues to influence and inspire people today.

Want to learn more but don’t know where to start? We recommend checking out:

Ourqueerhistory.com

Outhistory.org

The podcast Making Queer History

The Stay Proud Project

And these lists of book and documentary recommendations

And in case you missed it, Part One: Activists can be found here.

Stay tuned for next week, when we’ll highlight historic LGBTQ politicians. Happy Pride! <3 <3 <3

#Know Your Queer History #My Kid Is Gay #LGBT #LGBTQ #Pride #Pride Month #LGBTQ Artists #LGBTQ History #michelangelo #romaine brooks #james baldwin #audre lorde #keith haring #knowyourqueerhistory

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barrieshannon · 6 years

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Queer life goes on after marriage equality

BARRIE SHANNON

This article originally appeared in the May Newsletter of the Newcastle University Postgraduate Students Association (NUPSA), linked here.

In December 2017, the Australian Parliament passed legislation that legalised marriage for same-sex couples. The feeling of watching this vote happen live was one of disembodiment. I felt as if I should have jumped out of my chair or begun crying, but I did neither. The pro-equality parliamentarians grinned, misty-eyed, and waved to the gallery, which was packed full of queer Australians, their friends and their families. They sang and waved flags, embraced each other and wept. I turned the TV off, sent a heart emoji to my partner, set aside my phone and exhaled.

What I had just witnessed was undoubtedly a very significant moment in our country’s history, and indeed in the history of our movement for recognition and legal rights. On an intellectual level, I understood the gravity of what just took place, but I felt too deflated to celebrate. In this moment, I had to take a while to contemplate whether this legislation passing on this day, in this specific way, was worth the months of emotional labour that had preceded it. To be honest, I’m still trying to figure that part out.

The vote in Parliament followed a voluntary postal survey on changing the law to allow marriage equality, and it took place against the backdrop of a sustained public debate on marriage. However, it was a debate that also captured a range of ‘related’ issues in its orbit, such as parenting, gender diversity, sex education and religion. But most of the time, it hardly felt that marriage was at the centre of the debate at all. The discussions happening within the media, in radio interviews and TV panel discussions, appeared to be stuck on sex education and the Safe Schools debate that Australian conservatives are perpetually transfixed on.

As is the trend with Australian moral panics about sexuality, the figure of the innocent, corruptible child was gratuitously deployed to convince the public that LGBTI people were a danger to children. The strategy was to muddy the waters and obfuscate the actual object of the debate, while appealing to our society’s well-meaning desire to protect and nurture children. The architects of these moral panics rely on the juxtaposition between their imagery of the vulnerable, impressionable child alongside the damaging stereotypical depictions of gay and transgender people as slaves to sexual deviancy and excess that unfortunately still permeate our culture.

Many ads run on TV during evening primetime lamented a hypothetical post-gender future in which young boys were physically forced to wear dresses to school by sinister gay ‘cultural Marxists’. Others expressed patronising concern about the welfare of children of same-sex couples who are denied their ‘right’ to both a mother and a father, while withholding that same level of concern from children in other family configurations. Other ads featured people who seemed genuinely terrified that marriage equality would result in them being prosecuted under the law for their views on gender politics, or for their adherence to their religious beliefs. The imagery in these ads was almost universally negative.

On the other side of the debate, pro-equality ads usually featured sunny, cheerful images of happy families, accompanied with messages and slogans promoting the ideals of freedom, happiness and inclusivity. It was, overall, a feel-good movement. In this respect, the two sides of the debate could not be more different in tone; and when faced with a choice between fairness or fire and brimstone, Australia decisively chose fairness. The final result of the campaign saw 61.6% of votes cast in favour of marriage equality. The ‘yes’ vote prevailed in 133 of Australia’s 150 federal electorates.

“...the two sides of the debate could not be more different in tone; and when faced with a choice between fairness or fire and brimstone, Australia decisively chose fairness.”

Reflecting on my feelings in the days and weeks that followed the Parliament’s legislation of marriage equality, I realised how heavy the weight of the campaign had been. It is a surreal experience to live through weeks of people debating your life with each other. Your identity, your love and your sexuality are intensely personal things, and yet for LGBTI people, these are seen to be fair game for analysis, critique and debate by people who have no frame of reference to understand what this feeling of scrutiny is like. The attitudes that underpin heterosexual Australia’s claim of entitlement to our personal lives and our narratives continue to influence public discourse about LGBTI issues.

This remains a concern as we turn our attention toward the deficiencies in how our social and political infrastructure provides for transgender and gender diverse Australians. Alarmingly, a lot of public sentiment, especially on social media, seems to suggest that marriage equality was seen by many people as the final step in making our society inclusive of LGBTI people. Now that we can get married, further debates involving gender diversity are portrayed as frivolous, or ‘taking it too far’.

This year, May 17 is the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT). On this day, we seek to draw attention to prejudices and injustices perpetrated against people based on their sexuality, gender identity and intersex status. This is our opportunity to reflect on how our attitudes and our taken-for-granted social norms – whether they are deliberately oppressive or not – have consequences for LGBTI Australians.

This is just as important to reflect upon from within the LGBTI community as well. Marriage equality was a monumental shift in how same-sex relationships are recognised by the law, and by society. This change in our fundamental attitudes around who does and does not belong within our social institutions was unthinkable just a couple of decades ago.

It is therefore vital to remember that we stand on the shoulders of activists who have fought and bled for our right to demand this change. They took deliberate action to disrupt the restrictive norms surrounding gender and sexuality that are imposed upon all of us. And we have a responsibility to continue that legacy for future generations of LGBTI Australians.

There is still a lot of work to do before we see the liberation of queer people in Australia and abroad, and days like IDAHOBIT allow us to connect, reflect and organise for exactly this purpose. We can’t afford to stop the momentum we have built during the marriage equality campaign. Hearts and lives depend on it.

#marriage equality #media #auspol

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: A Curated Section Brings Body Politics to Volta NY

The entrance to Volta NY 2017 at Pier 90 (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

Volta bills itself as a “rigorously curated, boutique event — along the lines of a sequence of intense studio visits versus a traditional trade show environment.” An art fair can dream, but Volta is, for better or worse, like all the others of its ilk, just that: an art fair. Ninety-six solo booths (though some are actually duo) do not curation make.

Last year, though, Volta NY added a curated section — a special eight-artist display organized by fellow artist Derrick Adams — to up the critical caliber of the show. This year, it continues the tradition with another eight-artist section curated by writer Wendy Vogel. Curiously, both the 2016 and 2017 displays focus on the body. Adams sought to “explore the idea of the body as a site of reckoning, transformation and departure,” while Vogel has chosen artists “who foreground the precariousness of the body and identity in a time of political turmoil.” In retrospect, the progression seems almost natural, as much of the country, especially artists, has moved from a period of possibility mixed with anxiety to a time of terror. Political precariousness reminds just how vulnerable our non–white, straight, cis, male bodies are.

View of Wendy Vogel’s Your Body Is a Battleground at Volta NY 2017, with artwork by Carmen Winant on the front walls

I didn’t see last year’s curated section, but it should be noted that labeling the current one — which is titled Your Body Is a Battleground, after Barbara Kruger’s 1989 work — an “exhibition,” as the fair materials do, at times feels like a stretch. The display is comprised, essentially, of eight single-wall “booths” arranged in a rectangle, a formation that works well for the works shown inside the shape but awkwardly cuts off the ones on the outside. They feel mostly like independent solo presentations, though Vogel’s success is evident in the the meaningful connections that emerge between them.

Kent Monkman, “Baptism by Fire” (2017), installed with custom wallpaper at Peters Projects’ booth

The showstopper — of both the section and the entire fair — is Kent Monkman, presented here by Peters Projects. The queer artist of Cree and Irish descent continues to address the very serious subject of historical erasure and representation without barely a hint of self-seriousness. In Monkman’s hands, humor is a real weapon, a means of pointing out the absurdity of the white, colonial, European tradition, and by extension its dangerousness. When he paints an elaborate pastoral scene of homoerotic Native American men riding on horseback near white people who are pouring alcohol onto a flame atop a man’s head (“Baptism by Fire,” 2017), he puts you in a specific position — of having no idea what’s going on. It makes you wonder if everything you’ve ever seen in a history painting is just the invention of someone else’s imagination. A similar phenomenon is at work in his new series, Fate is a Cruel Mistress (2017), which casts Monkman’s alter-ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, as the protagonist in a number of famous Biblical scenes involving women: Judith cutting off Holofernes’s head and others. Decked in headdresses and heels, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle reminds us that we only understand stories as extensions of who tells them.

Kent Monkman, “Salome” (2017), with Peters Projects

This is a major theme of a body of work made by Carmen Winant for the fair and presented by Fortnight Institute. In one of the new series of collages, all titled “Anita Told the Truth,” Winant gathers images of Anita Hill testifying before the Senate in 1991 about being sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas, who had formerly been her boss and went on to be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. The pieces feature images of Hill and other black women in grid formations alongside images of white men and bodies, all of them covered with severe applications of what looks like graphite or black paint. The coatings represent a kind of literalization of the way Hill was smeared, while the juxtaposition of black and white bodies — and in one piece, a border of raised, broken hands — prompts a questioning of which bodies and stories we instinctively trust.

Works by Camen Winant with Fortnight Institute

Installation view, Your Body Is a Battleground at Volta NY, with work by Nona Faustine on left, Deborah Roberts against back wall, and Sable Elyse Smith on right

Nona Faustine, here represented by Baxter Street at the Camera Club of New York — where she recently had a solo exhibition of much of the the same work that’s on view at Volta — uses her photographs to directly challenge such assumptions. In Faustine’s strongest work, she places her own black, female body, often fully or partially naked, at historical sites of US slavery. (Her pictures of national monuments with black bars across them are less compelling.) Sometimes she poses directly facing the camera, but even when not, the challenge she’s mounting is explicit: Reckon with your history, America, rather than attempting to bury it or wash it away. Recognize my body and the history it carries.

Works by Nona Faustine with Baxter Street at the Camera Club of New York

Whereas Faustine insists on inserting herself — and by extension, her people — into the national narrative, Sable Elyse Smith grapples in a more nuanced way with presence and absence. Smith’s presentation, brought by the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), is the most coherent of the group, featuring a series of works centered on one topic: prison, and more specifically, her father’s imprisonment. Smith approaches the subject in different ways: aerial photos that evidence the scale of prison complexes, reproduced and deconstructed family photos taken inside prisons, a text piece and video about the anxiety-inducing experience of visiting prison. As a conceptual group, the works gracefully balance personal narrative with systemic reality. Smith uses her body as a kind of surrogate for her father’s; its presence points to the conspicuous absence of his, and of the over two million others hidden away behind bars in this country.

Works by Sable Elyse Smith with MoCADA

Zachary Fabri also works across media, and also uses his own body to explore and understand his place in the systems around him. Co-presented here by the Rockelmann & gallery and Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art — where Fabri had a show earlier this year that included some of this work — his display feels the most like a fair booth, with a sampling of works that doesn’t quite come together. The two strongest pieces, however, drive home his abiding interest in the black male body: “Aureola (Black Presidents)” (2012), a grid of images of black men playing presidents in works of fiction, and “The Big Payback” (2009), an alternately funny and discomfiting video showing two black men dancing to James Brown on a Harlem street. These works, as well as others not at Volta, show how keenly attuned Fabri is to representations of black masculinity and the way they circumscribe him in society.

Works by Zachary Fabri with Rockelmann & and Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art

Across the way, Joiri Minaya, presented by Casa Quien, does something similar with ideas of Dominican femininity. After conducting a Google Image search for “Dominican women,” Minaya printed out the results at life-size, but broke them into body parts — an arm and leg here, head of hair there, a stomach — which dangle from the ceiling like a pixellated puzzle. The backs of the pieces sport tropical-print fabrics, much like the ones in which Minaya has entirely cocooned herself for a nearby set of funny, faux-sexy beach and jungle photos. There’s indignation here, but also, as with Monkman’s work, a sense of playfulness. Minaya subverts stereotypes of sexiness by refusing to indulge our desire for the perfect body.

Detail of Joiri Minaya’s “#dominicanwomengooglesearch” (2016) at Casa Quien

Works by Joiri Minaya at Casa Quien

The last two artists in the show — Deborah Roberts, presented by Art Palace, and Melissa Vandenberg, brought by Maus Contemporary | beta pictoris gallery — are the weakest. They deal with related themes of womanhood, racism, and patriotism — Roberts in collages made from magazine pages, Vandenberg mostly in burn drawings — but in more simplistic ways than their peers. The show does a great job of taking a resolutely intersectional approach to a phrase that emerged from white feminism; in that vein, Vogel might instead have brought in another one or two LGBTQ artists, who, even before Trump instructed states not to comply with Title IX, were facing a vice president who has worked to oppose their rights. A nearby booth that’s part of the main fair speaks to this possibility: Samuel Freeman Gallery is showing a project by Danny Jauregui that elegantly traces the history of the coded gay address books that Bob Damron began compiling in the 1960s. Alluding to absent bodies through the use of human hair, it’s of a piece with Your Body Is a Battleground.

Still, Vogel has done an impressive job putting together a timely and thought-provoking show. It’s especially valuable for reminding us that the real world doesn’t magically disappear when we step inside the artificial environment of an art fair.

Works by Deborah Roberts with Art Palace

Works by Melissa Vandenberg with Maus Contemporary | beta pictoris gallery

Danny Jauregui in Samuel Freeman Gallery’s booth

Installation view, Your Body Is a Battleground at Volta NY

Volta NY 2017 continues at Pier 90 (W 50th Street at Twelfth Avenue, Manhattan) through March 5.

The post A Curated Section Brings Body Politics to Volta NY appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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