Collaboration with Joel Feldman.
This collection of photographs began with the tableau of three African figures (image 1). The tableau is in the Colonial Figure style made by the Baule, Ivory Coast, West Africa. Such carvings are made, to some extent, for the tourist trade; they are certainly made to sell. One can find similar figures in ethnographic museum gift shops. The African trader (Mali) from whom the tableau was purchased had another one, almost identical in form but painted a bit differently.
Although the Baule tableau is the only narrative carving in this series, it serves to focus the particular descriptive nature of the other figures. In all cases, whether they are American, European, or Chinese made for Export to the United States, the figures rely on the appropriation of specific characterizations which, in today’s world, are no longer considered cute.
We depict each figure in an extremely non-contextual light and space in order to maximize both the iconic characteristics and the formal qualities of each piece. We also set up a dialogue between the non-precious nature of “folk art” and the rarified characteristics of the “exquisite” fine art photographic print.