Imani Perry has been hanging out with the most wonderful writer and most thoroughly decent of human beings, Jesmyn Ward, and not surprisingly on Jesmyn’s home turf of DeLisle, Mississippi, and Gulf environs, so familiar to her fans. This will be part of my weekend reading but I just had to scribble a quick post with the link (NYT sub. probably required).
Tag: Imani Perry
A right royal Welfare Queen
In the process of posting at the end of last year on the film Passing, I considered Imani Perry’s review of that film, and in glancing Perry’s Wikipedia profile I was alerted to her role in a recent interesting art transaction; from which arose questions to do with ownership of art and the responsibilities that come with that – to the artist and to the public arena.
As reported here at Artnet, Perry was in fact the owner of the Amy Sherold painting Welfare Queen (2012), which was sold at auction for a sum way beyond the estimate. Controversy ensued on a number of fronts. Firstly, Sherold’s own dissatisfaction that this work which she herself sold to the fledgling collector Perry, for the first time and under generous circumstances, a decade ago, should now be auctioned; destination unknown. (Sherold articulates her disquiet on the matter in a statement to Culture Type.) And this leads, of course, and as the Artnet piece considers, to the matter of re-sale equity conditions. Mostly one would think in “royalties” (no pun intended!) but equally so in terms of due “care”, and I think it is this latter that grates so at the artist. Perhaps not all, not even most, artists have this as an imperative, but it seems for this Black woman artist a transaction has more worth than the almighty dollar; rather is an act of passing on the guardianship of her work, her art, her intent. An honorable intent.
In her lot essay for Phillips (something else that raised eyebrows; normally the prerogative of a qualified other, not the collector), and the above video, Imani Perry enthusiastically states her highest regard for the artist and the painting, and (in the essay) her wish that the new owner will be similarly disposed. I suppose it is no one else’s concern … well, Amy Sherold may be entitled to a legitimate interest … but one has to wonder, should the painting have meant so much to Perry, why on earth did she unload it at all, let alone let it loose to the highest bidder in the capitalistic playground of the auction house? As I say: not my business! For Ms. Perry: good business, perhaps. As I write, I can’t track the buyer which seems to indicate that it was not purchased by a public gallery and is destined for another private collection. Hopefully, one with an interest in its public display, because, for all the reasons Perry says, it is a powerful work that invites reflection and identification in many ways, and especially in respect to stereotyping – based on race, gender, class – created very often through political expediency and becoming entrenched through language (‘welfare queen’) into societal norms.
Diverting, I also note that in her essay Imani Perry remarks upon the painting being a constant companion and inspiration during the last years and in the course of her own creative endeavors, right up to the writing of her latest book, so I should mention that that book, South to America – A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, was in fact published last month by Harper Collins. There is a sample reading on the publisher’s website, an adapted essay (regarding New Orleans) at The New York Times and also there, a (middling to good) review by Tayari Jones.
Should you be unsure of quite where to place Amy Sherold, you may remember, as I do, her celebrated 2018 portrait of Michelle Obama; now hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Well, usually! For now I see, through until May this year, it is on a nationwide tour – with its other half so to speak!
Shades of the past
As I said I would here, to provide some company through the lonely nights of winter, I have restarted my lapsed Netflix account. And, Rebecca Hall’s film adaptation of Nella Larsen’s Passing was indeed one of my first treats unto myself.
There have been any number of reviews around the place in the last month or so, but I particularly like this one from Imani Perry for Harper’s Bazaar. Amongst other things, it defends the film against some of the criticism of casting. Perry’s counter argument in some ways presumes the immediate reaction that I too had; that is, it a stretch to imagine that either Tessa Thompson (who plays Irene) or Ruth Negga (as Claire) could have got away with passing as white in 1920’s America. But on reflection, I get the point Perry makes. Perhaps only the obviousness of the performers Blackness, allows the viewer to embrace the Black gaze and to, for instance, imagine the risk Irene is taking when she seeks refuge from the sweltering day in that ritzy hotel restaurant, or to contemplate the nerve and concentration required in Claire’s deception of her racist husband. In both cases the tension is tangible, and the player’s gestures and the subtle movements of camera and lighting enhance the atmosphere of a shared experience.
Like Perry, I was very much convinced by Rebecca Hall’s artistic decision to shoot Passing in black-and-white. Monochromatic mixes to various degrees have become not uncommon in contemporary film and photography; so much so, that one wonders sometimes to what end – to seduce with misplaced nostalgia, to just kind of “look old”? But here, it makes sense in two very important ways: realistically, in terms of the period in which the story is set and symbolically for the stark opposites and all the grey areas in-between suggested by the tonality. And, in both these cases, conjured is powerful imagery of America’s social and racial divide – then and now. The ‘look’ is completed by an intelligent cinematography that follows and gently brushes the characters; there is a blurriness around the edges that blends intimacy and ambiguity – lives and situations not quite focused, out of reach.