How “Who’s Afraid of Cartoony Figuration?” Provokes Controversy
The exhibition is on view until September 20 at 161 Glass St, Dallas, TX.
Karolina Jabłońska, Gasburner, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Esther Schipper Gallery. Photo by Mateusz Torbus.
The legacy of comics and cartoons is often relegated to childhood excitements we leave behind as we traverse adulthood. However, the existence of adult comics dissuades this. Instead, it sits alongside comics we read and appreciated in our childhood — both are art forms that communicate something familiar or dissimilar to us. Think about the readability of The Beano, The Dandy, and Archie Comics, which, years later, have also revealed deeper and more enjoyable meanings. Cartoon imagery is a long-existing art form that provides socio-political commentary.
This is the premise of Dallas Contemporary’s latest exhibition, Who’s Afraid Of Cartoony Figuration? Curated by Alison Gingeras, the exhibition brings together four artists: Karolina Jabłońska, Sally Saul, Umar Rashid, and Tabboo! It platforms their politics of womanhood, queerness, colonization, and liberation.
Rashid, also known as Frohawk Two Feathers, centers on the liberation of Black people and the exploration of hidden and alternative histories. This focus on Indigenous histories across the diaspora is exemplified in artworks such as The High Priestesses of Caddoa. Rashid notes “the four corners of the state of Texas: The Southeast, Northeast, Northwest, and Southwest. I wanted the Caddo warriors to be women on stilts to match the trees and tower over the pathetic, doomed man who had sought their destruction.”
Art as a form of decolonization “means everything to me that it means to anyone who had their mind colonized, I imagine.” Through featured artworks in this exhibition, Rashid questions othering, identity, and home and uses his art and understanding of decolonization as a mental and spiritual practice in this country… “I wish to excise the colonialist mentality from my heart and soul.”
Gingeras and Rashid spoke with 1202 MAGAZINE to discuss the process of organizing this exhibition, the importance of cartoon figuration, these artists’ work, and the analysis their pieces provide.
Tabboo! Untitled (Devil Girl), c.a. 1985. Courtesy of Gordon Robichaux and NY and KARMA.
How did this curation come to be, and how did you choose the artists?
Alison — I have been working on various strains of figurative painting since 2002 as a curator at the Centre Pompidou and organized an exhibition entitled Dear Painter: Painting the Figure since late Picabia. At that time, figurative painting was still considered ‘dead’ to large swaths of the art world. I was interested in the antagonistic power of figurative art over various decades and trying to understand why artists gravitated to this mode of expression. I was invited to write an essay for Karolina Jabłońska two years ago for a book she was publishing on her work.
I tried to use that essay to trace the ‘cartoony’ language in painting throughout the second half of the twentieth century until now, looking at how the whimsy was, in fact, a perfect vehicle for the serious subject matter. From that essay, I came up with the curatorial conceit of the show in Dallas. I tried to choose artists from different backgrounds and generations who all deployed a cartoony visual language to convey complex ideas and subject positions.
What does each artist and their work mean to you?
Alison — Karolina is a strong voice for a new generation of feminist artists coming from Eastern Europe. The gendered spaces and political issues she addresses in her work, both directly and allegorically, have been particularly crucial in Poland, where the government over the past ten years has passed some seriously misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ laws. There is a real urgency in her work and in the generation that she represents.
Umar Rashid is a polymathic storyteller who has incredible erudition of world history that he transforms into playful yet subversive anti-colonial, anti-racist messages. His revisionist histories of the American Empire challenge what most of us learn in school about the history of our country, and his visual storytelling reflects the potential for a multiracial, anti-imperialist society.
Tabboo! is a gay artist and performance artist who was part of the New York queer underground from the late 1970s onwards. His paintings are disarming in their charm and humor, though a real struggle is recorded in his work that reflects the AIDS crisis and the long, hard-fought battle for LGBTQ rights in this country, beginning with the bohemian underground.
Sally Saul is the most senior artist in the show, and her work also contains a sly feminism as well as a poetic take on everyday life, mythology, and popular culture. As the wife of a famous artist, Peter Saul, she was often relegated to his success and recognition — plus, she works in ceramics, which has always, in traditional circles, been considered a ‘lesser’ medium than painting or more serious sculpture. She defies all of these strictures and negative assumptions to make a joyful, biting, and surprising body of work that deserves deeper recognition in its own right.
Sally Saul, Bewildered, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Venus Over Manhattan, New York.
What do you want this exhibition to convey to viewers in terms of messages, themes, controversy, etc.?
Alison — I think I answered your question in my previous answer. There is a complex humanism that emerges from this ensemble of four different artists coming from very different geographies and generations. I think the cartoony language they share is a legible and hopefully less intimidating way of inviting the viewer to consider the subjects and perspectives that each artist proposes. Each visual story invites empathy and connection, hopefully highlighting specific socio-political issues or identities and allowing us to see the commonalities we all share in our humanity.
As a curator, how are you dismantling predominantly white art spaces to uplift those like the ones in "Who's Afraid of a Cartoony Figuration?"
Alison — I think it is important to constantly challenge oneself to look beyond the establishment in culture and expand the canon of art history with every project. We can always do more to challenge ourselves to look beyond the familiar, and I hope that, humbly, a show like this continues my various efforts to write and exhibit new histories of art that account for the full range of human experiences around our planet. It's an impossible task and not always easy to implement because of practical limitations, but a challenge that I relish.
Umar Rashid, F Anon Is Me (Fanonisme as an answer to the scourge of colonialism) However, sometimes it is difficult to get to the ringleaders atop the pyramid and one must be satisfied by dispatching proxies. Ultimately, a wasted effort. Or, red woman on a horse., 2021. © Umar Rashid, Courtesy of the artist and Blum, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo. Photo by Josh Schaedel.
Describe some of your pieces in this exhibition and what they represent regarding theme and messages.
Umar — The High Priestesses of Caddoa (on stilts) execute an ambush. General Galvez and his steed Artax succumb to the swamps of sadness. A high-ranking general (Galvez) gets separated from his troops in the swamps of Caddo Lake and is afflicted with a curse that causes him and his horse Artax to drown whilst grieving the ending of their corporeal existence. The Caddo warriors who cast this spell have backup weapons to finish the job if their magic isn’t powerful enough.
I was talking to a friend many years ago who is a descendant of a Galvez who was honored by naming the city of Galveston after him. I had been making stories about Indigenous resistance movements from the Caribbean to California. So, when I got the opportunity to exhibit in Dallas, I started my research of four corners of the state of Texas: The Southeast, Northeast, Northwest, and Southwest. I wanted the Caddo warriors to be women on stilts so that they matched the trees and towered over the pathetic, doomed man who had sought their destruction.
The dark humor came in by way of the 1984 film The Neverending Story (a favorite of mine), where the Indigenous hero, Atreyu, loses his horse in the swamps to a sickness of sadness. In a way, it is medicine for me as I was terribly traumatized by that scene as a child, but when the role of hero was converted to villain, it became cathartic in a sense, even though the horse was innocent. Yet, the foreign animal and the murderous rider represent the adversary and things that didn’t belong. Things that change the Caddo world for the worse. Ultimately, all the new things and ideas we have as humans haven't necessarily made us “better” people.
Apres Ski at the Malcom X Games, hosted by the Lo Lifes, takes place in Northeast/central Texas where a group of Caribbean freedom fighters all decked out in Ralph Lauren Polo gear (a la 1990-94) attend the inaugural Malcom X Games with celebrity host, Anna Wintour. This painting is of a dream that one of the freedom fighters had as they landed in Veracruz and made it all the way to Texas to spread their revolutionary ideas that they gleaned from Frenglish visitors to the liberated island of Hispaniola.
What does decolonization mean to you as a Black artist?
Umar — Decolonization means everything to me that it means to anyone who had their mind colonized, I imagine. Since I was born here in the States, even as a descendant of enslaved African people, some folks with European and (possibly) Indigenous ancestry, is this my home? Who owns the land? It can be bought and sold, but it does not belong to me. And I feel that decolonization is a mental and spiritual practice for me in this country.
I cannot speak for the Indigenous people of these lands because they have had a unique experience with settler colonialism here. I want to eventually return to the lands of my ancestors, but because of the nature in which I came to be here, that is a very difficult task. So, again, I wish to excise the colonialist mentality from my heart and soul. I know it is there because I can feel it. After that, a progress of sorts.
In addition to your own work, how do you resonate with the other artists and their works in Who's Afraid of a Cartoony Figuration?
Umar — I had a wonderful time interacting with all of the artists in the show. I spoke mostly with Karolina, but the gold really goes to Alison Gingeras because this show is her brilliant vision, and I’m just pleased to have participated in it.
