title: “Art For Art S Sake” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-20” author: “Anthony Mcclure”
In 1999, the mayor had his first run-in with the museum over “Holy Virgin Mary,” a painting by artist Chris Ofili that presented the Virgin Mary amid a flurry of porn-magazine cutouts and with a breast made partly of elephant dung. This time, the Mayor is focusing on “Yo Mama’s Last Supper,” a feminist sendup of the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, in which artist Renee Cox, nude and flanked by 12 male disciples, stands in for the figure of Christ. The inclusion of Cox’s photograph in a tax-supported exhibition has even prompted Guiliani to talk about appointing a commission on “decency standards,” whose role presumably would be to ferret out such “objectionable” art in the future, possibly with long-term effects on public art viewing. The short-term consequence, however, is the way the debate over one image has overshadowed the rest of the show.
So far, the media focus on “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” has eclipsed the nearly 200 other photographs included in “Committed to the Image,” all of which are on view through April 29. The works, selected from approximately 900 submissions, present a portrait of the contemporary black experience in the United States and around the world. Barbara Head Millstein, the museum’s curator of photography, says she had wanted to put together such a show 20 years ago, but is happy she waited until now. “I think the photography is even more interesting,” she says. “There are lots of different techniques that artists are using, and I think the work today is much more sophisticated and much more universal.”
The images are an exploration of contemporary African-American culture and experience. Subject matter is arranged under twelve sections, ranging from “The Street,” to “Religion.” Aesthetics and photographic styles vary throughout. In “The Street,” for example, Omar Kharem’s “On the Beat,” focuses on the almost pitch-black silhouettes of three New York City police officers, while Bud Williams’ “Double Dutch,” catches young girls jumping rope in mid-air. In the “People” section, the lives of some legendary black figures are explored, as in Hugh Bell’s portrait of a strung-out Billie Holiday and Oggi Ogburn’s photograph of Joe Louis’ grave surrounded by a somber group of prize fighters, among them Muhammad Ali and Smokin’ Joe Frazier.
Tribute is also paid to African culture, religion, family, performance, politics and other themes, with imagery that seeks to understand how each influences contemporary black life.
Included are vibrant contributions blacks have made to music and dance, as seen in photographs by Art Harrison and Chuck Stewart, and much social commentary, including Ernest C. Withers’ powerful 1963 image of a fierce-looking Martin Luther King, Jr. being confronted by police at Medgar Evers’ funeral and Gordon Parks’ iconic “American Gothic,” an image of a cleaning woman in front of the American flag.
Giuliani’s criticism of “Yo Mama’s Last Supper” may have rallied some curious New Yorkers to visit the museum just to look at that particular photograph. But Millstein hopes that museum-goers will come for the entire show. Her colleague Orville Robertson wants viewers to see the bigger picture as well. The exhibition, he says, “is sort of like a set of instructions for everybody: the viewer, the photographer, about what is possible if you keep your nose in there.” The museum hopes those noses will focus on the art.
