by Brandon Drew Holmes
1, 24, 2016 2PM
Hammer Museum
You are invited to The Hammer Museum for the lecture White Gaze Read: Frances Stark. In the lecture Brandon Drew Holmes will discuss Stark’s current retrospective.
In the Hammer’s exhibit UH-OH: Frances Stark 1991-2015, we are presented with a small selection of what one could imagine the artist referring to as her “greatest hits”. The work, being a combination of large scale collages, sculpture and video, is situated as having a feminist voice in conversations on the production of art and intimate communication in modern times. Using herself as subject, Stark’s early work easily garnered her the tag of being a feminist, but it is her current output which reveals the whiteness within this brand of “feminism”.
Having chosen to now include her lifelong love and interest of Black men and hip hop in the work, Stark showcases images of “urban clad” men, text pieces that attempt to speak on Black reality, as well as maintaining an Instagram account, which has boosted her presence and voice within the contemporary art industry. Comprising half of the retropsective, this work (which Holmes acknowledges as Stark’s “Black man series”) attempts to challenge the male gaze of art history. Though art writers and curators position that the “Black man series” is new subject matter for Stark and is progressive in nature, the work still remains to be about Stark and her whiteness.
In this lecture, Holmes will focus on select works within the retrospective and speak on Starks brand of white feminism, by utilizing the artists own words and that of her supporters. Highlighting her fetishization of Black men, co-option of Black culture, her dismissal of Black women as well as her white savior complex, the lecture will challenge not only Frances Stark herself, but the white viewers celebration of her archive.
The lecture will begin promptly at 2:15PM outside of the exhibits gallery.
This is not a Hammer Museum affiliated event and as of such you are asked to do your part to help maintain a noninvasive presence.
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This will be the third in the WHITE GAZE READ series, wherein the artist Brandon Drew Holmes will give impromptu and unofficial reads in the manner of lectures and performances. Approaching and focusing on varying attributes of Blackness in the form of artwork, Holmes challenges the actions and whiteness of the art industry. By inserting himself into exhibits executed by white artists and or institutes, Holmes takes to task the white gaze and those who attempt to discuss Blackness through it.
The previous disruptions have taken place within MOCA's Tongue's Untied exhibit curated by Rebecca Matalon and outside of FARAGO’s current exhibit of Myles Haselhorst’s collection of William Crawford’s illustrations.
NOTE: "So I will be doing one lecture/tour at 2pm and another at 3pm to help with possible crowding and to ensure that people attending the tour can enjoy themselves/participate without interfering with other Hammer patrons." [BDH]
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