October 21, 2011–January 29, 2012
Curator: Margaret Root
This small exhibition was presented in conjunction with a fall term course, History of Art 286 “Art and Empire in Antiquity.” The show placed images illustrating ancient Egyptian tropes of the enemy Other in dialogue with a display of household artifacts produced for White America in the early to mid-20th century. These 20th-century artifacts, now called “Black Collectibles,” legitimized demeaning characterizations of African-Americans. Some of them evoke nostalgia for the house slave cooking and serving meals on the old plantation. Others depict African-Americans as carefree smiling or lazy boys eating watermelon or fishing. Some have layers of sexual innuendo. Many use disembodied human forms to convey the impotence of the subject. Some express through visual cues the idea of the Black man as perpetual child or subhuman. By juxtaposing these recent items with ancient images, the installation suggested varying ways in which image saturation and the deployment of images of Otherness on objects of “daily life” may operate.
"Dominated and Demeaned" ran October 21, 2011, through January 29, 2012, in the first-floor elevator alcove of the Upjohn Exhibit Wing.