John Blair’s FREEDOM: THE AMERICAN HUSTLE

I N R E V I E W

JOHN BLAIR’S

FREEDOM: THE AMERICAN HUSTLE

ARCADE CONTEMPORARY ART PROJECT, WEBSTER UNIVERSITY

A culminating moment in Gordon Parks Jr.’s 1972 Blaxploitation crime drama Superfly is Eddie speaking to Youngblood Priest about getting straight: “Ya know, you’ve got this fantasy in your head about getting outta the life and setting that other world on its ear. What the f*** are you gunna do except hustle?”

Freedom: The American Hustle, a multi-media exhibit by St. Louis artist John Blair, took its title and much of its inspiration from this film. Blair describes this exhibit as an exploration of the challenging and demeaning characterization of black America in the post-Civil Rights 20th century. He looks to a series of experimental and independent Blaxploitation films from the 1970’s that helped to launch black stereotypes in the late 20th century and recharacterizes these figures as rounded individuals, providing dignity to the actors who stepped into these roles.

America in 2018 is an interesting time and place for this exhibit. It followed a renewed interest in the history of black identity in the United States since the 20th century. It followed Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize for Music for his album DAMN, described by Dana Canady, the administrator of the prize in an interview with the New York Times, as storytelling whose “time was right.” It followed 10 years of growing attention being paid to artists of color in higher education humanities departments.

The films Blair responds to explored the problem of marginalization, but Blair extended that conflict into the psychology of such characters. “When you think there is no other place for you in the system, no other options,” he says, “you buy into the role that the system set aside for you.” Blair’s interest in and characterization of this genre stem from the section of black population not wholly served by the Civil Rights act of 1964, the Voting

Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Wih the advent of desegregation, middle class people of color could now leave the black community, but many people were not served by these changes (those with felony convictions were denied public housing, food stamps, loans, even the ability to sit on juries).

Blair began to explore the voices of those who had been left behind. Where was their American Dream? Many of those, whose conflict is partially captured in Blaxploitation films, were left with few options beyond what the title of this exhibit articulates: hustling. Blair’s premise evokes Childish Gambino’s This is America, where a choir sings “get your money, black man,” and Glover appears with a weapon, representing a stereotype while simultaneously annihilating it. There’s a story here - people with their own disappointments and things they are fighting for, stepping into survival mode while despising their only options for accessing resources.

The images of black women in the Freedom photo series within the exhibit are photographs presenting the nude body nonsexually—they become more than their sexual function for male or white consumption. This is Blair’s commentary on how the black liberation movement and feminist movements of the1970s largely silenced or ignored the voices of black women. He seeks to present their bodies as their own.

John Blair, Freedom: The American Hustle, installation view with John Blair at right (photo credit: Eric Pan)

-Allison Cundiff

www.webster.edu/gateway/arcade-building

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