Art awakes us

https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/we_wanted_a_revolution

          Prepare the facelift by Emma Amos is one of those art pieces that stood out to me from the We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women on the Brooklyn Museum website. It’s a painting of a woman with writing on her face. The writing picks at every imperfection of the women from the age spots to the bags under her eyes, every woman has encountered these issues, but what makes things worse is that the color of her skin is an issue. For decades’ women of color had to face what society saw as imperfection the color of their skin is considered to be ugly or something that doesn’t live up to beauty standards during the 1960’s. Besides the color of their skin, any other feature like the shape of the nose or mouth was seen as ugly. Milk white skin, small nose and small “kissable” lips were seen as beautiful during the 1960’s. Apart from the imperfection that is being pointed out, it also shows how women are supposed to stay beautiful all the time and must keep up with their beauty no matter what they are doing. Somehow, we must look like supermodels, while also working an 8-hour job and cooking for the family. Let’s be realistic that’s not how it works. This painting speaks on so many levels like racism and sexism that happened in the 1960’s, and this paint brings it to light.

http://banksy.co.uk/out.asp

Child Labour

           Another artist that also knows how to stir up some controversy is an artist by the name of Banksy. He has been on the scene of the art of graffiti for the past 20 years in England, and until this day no one knows who Banksy is. He has managed to keep his identity a secret for the public. He goes into the streets at night and creates graffiti, but not graffiti like gang tags he makes people wake up and see what is going on in the world. Many of his pieces of art aren’t always full drawings of individuals or objects, sometimes they are just phrases or quotes from himself. There is this one art that he created, and it says “if we wash our hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless we side with the powerful- we don’t remain neutral,” this stands out because of who is running the country now. We were powerless when he became president with someone who is powerful, but managed to fight back. Still, we are always fighting someone with much power making us less than neutral. 
           Many of Banksy graffiti art I can relate back to the clip we saw in class and of John Berger book where he explains that people are consumed by media and ads on TV. It catches our attention, it draws us in, and certain images can make us stop and think. Even some images can stay in our minds and have us think back. Banksy is one of those persons who makes people stop and think about what he just created. Banksy arts has people talking like during the year of the Olympics in England he created an art piece for a child making England flag pennants. The piece was to show child labor and what better way broadcast such an artwork than on the day of the Olympics

http://banksy.co.uk/out.asp

             Another art piece that I can relate back to the previous is once again from Banksy. This image is of the bottom half of a woman where a bush is used to well represent a woman’s pubic hair. The way I see this picture I can relate to the first because pubic hair isn’t seen as beautiful, it’s seen as someone who doesn’t care about their appearance. Having hair down there means you don’t care about attracting males. Just like Emma Anos painting, its similarities represent what is not seen as “pretty” in society. But what also makes them so different is Emma Anos painting was a fight for no more racism and for women of color to be accepted. Banksy artwork represents what women are fighting for today to be seen as equals and not to been seen by their looks. Each artwork has their own interpretation of the fight, the fight for sexism to end for women to be seen as more than just objects.