Robert Colescott: The Anansean World of Robert Colescott
BLUM is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings and drawings by the late artist Robert Colescott, curated by Los Angeles鈥揵ased artist Umar Rashid. Rashid frames this presentation of work鈥攔anging five decades鈥攁s an entry point into The Anansean World of Robert Colescott, a parallel universe that violates principles of social and natural order, blithely disrupting what once was and then reestablishing it on a new basis.
In the time of the ancient deities, the trickster was the only one who could successfully navigate the complex and morally fraught universe of power-hungry, vengeful, wickedly jealous, and ambivalent gods, as well as their equally maligned human counterparts. One can only imagine the path of Thoth, Hermes, Coyote, Dionysus, Loki, Prometheus, and the original spider-man, Ananse. Although there are far more 鈥渢ricksters鈥� woven into our collective human consciousness throughout time, I have kept the list relatively short so that I may get to the point. Despite being tasked with delivering various decrees on this and that, the messengers of the gods of old almost always had a penchant for mischief, high drama, and outright rebellion. And despite these 鈥渇aults,鈥� they managed to survive the wrath of their omnipotent masters and formed a complex relationship with their painfully mortal audience. Their legacy as 鈥渕iddle management鈥� and mere couriers left an indelible mark on their human charges. With the death of the old pantheon, humanity鈥檚 hubristic and equally chaotic reign, produced its own gods, monsters, and tricksters, bringing to mind the old saying, 鈥淎s above, so below.鈥�
And thus, we enter the world of Robert Colescott, grand trickster of the ages. The appellation is incredibly apt in terms of his artistic practice, yet he was not born thus but forged through the crucible of being an African American fine artist in a time of limited opportunity for those like him and the ideas he sought to bring forth in a postindustrial world, burdened by draconian racial awareness, social lobotomization, and post-imperial, imperial war machinations. This is mid-twentieth-century America, replete with all the trappings of Mount Olympus at its zenith. 鈥擴mar Rashid
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BLUM is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings and drawings by the late artist Robert Colescott, curated by Los Angeles鈥揵ased artist Umar Rashid. Rashid frames this presentation of work鈥攔anging five decades鈥攁s an entry point into The Anansean World of Robert Colescott, a parallel universe that violates principles of social and natural order, blithely disrupting what once was and then reestablishing it on a new basis.
In the time of the ancient deities, the trickster was the only one who could successfully navigate the complex and morally fraught universe of power-hungry, vengeful, wickedly jealous, and ambivalent gods, as well as their equally maligned human counterparts. One can only imagine the path of Thoth, Hermes, Coyote, Dionysus, Loki, Prometheus, and the original spider-man, Ananse. Although there are far more 鈥渢ricksters鈥� woven into our collective human consciousness throughout time, I have kept the list relatively short so that I may get to the point. Despite being tasked with delivering various decrees on this and that, the messengers of the gods of old almost always had a penchant for mischief, high drama, and outright rebellion. And despite these 鈥渇aults,鈥� they managed to survive the wrath of their omnipotent masters and formed a complex relationship with their painfully mortal audience. Their legacy as 鈥渕iddle management鈥� and mere couriers left an indelible mark on their human charges. With the death of the old pantheon, humanity鈥檚 hubristic and equally chaotic reign, produced its own gods, monsters, and tricksters, bringing to mind the old saying, 鈥淎s above, so below.鈥�
And thus, we enter the world of Robert Colescott, grand trickster of the ages. The appellation is incredibly apt in terms of his artistic practice, yet he was not born thus but forged through the crucible of being an African American fine artist in a time of limited opportunity for those like him and the ideas he sought to bring forth in a postindustrial world, burdened by draconian racial awareness, social lobotomization, and post-imperial, imperial war machinations. This is mid-twentieth-century America, replete with all the trappings of Mount Olympus at its zenith. 鈥擴mar Rashid
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BLUM is presenting an exhibition of paintings and drawings by the late artist Robert Colescott, curated by Los Angeles鈥揵ased artist Umar Rashid.
Robert Colescott鈥檚 most famous painting might just be George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook (1975), which was acquired by the forthcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art at a Sotheby鈥檚 auction in 2021 for $15.3 million.
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