How Cringe Stole My Christmas
DEI on display at the French Mecca for contemporary art
Arts & Culture
HOW CRINGE STOLE MY CHRISTMAS
DEI on display at the French Mecca for contemporary art
Jukka Savolainen
I had the opportunity to visit Paris during this past Christmas break. One of my destinations was the Fondation Louis Vuitton—a center for contemporary art housed in a flashy building designed by Frank Gehry.
Regardless of what one may think of his brand, the building is worth entering, if only for the multilevel vistas it offers over the surrounding parkland, featuring a shiny Jeff Koons fabrication perched atop a giant Louis Vuitton trunk.
The main exhibit showcased the works of Tom Wesselmann, a foundational figure in the Pop Art movement. In addition to his pieces, the exhibit included selections from a cornucopia of artists—such as Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and Ai Weiwei—deemed to “share a common sensibility to Pop.”
Still recovering from jet lag, I moved slowly through the interiors. After my initial exposure to a series of Wesselmann’s paintings, I took advantage of the armchairs scattered in the area connecting two exhibition halls. The glass wall behind the chairs revealed a massive structure of painted panels hanging from the top floor ceiling, reaching down below the main floor. A commissioned part of the permanent collection, this colorful sculpture, entitled Canyon, was created for the space by the German artist Katharina Grosse. It was the single most impressive piece I saw during the entire visit.
I quickly realized the chairs were placed there not for the fatigued flâneur but for viewing a video interview of an artist whose work was exhibited in the next room. The artist was a black American woman who looked like a cross between Spike Lee and Claudine Gay: shaved head, bold, oversized spectacles, and understated yet voluminous streetwear. Mickalene Thomas embodied with ease her identity as a Brooklyn-dwelling graduate of Pratt Institute and the Yale School of Art.
In harmony with her appearance, the interview was laced with words one might find in the woke edition of Magnetic Poetry. The artist framed her work as a meditation on the “trauma” inflicted on “the black body.” I had traveled all the way to France, a nation known for its resistance to le wokisme, yet I was unable to escape the half-baked banalities of our never-ending moment of “racial reckoning.”
Consisting of mixed-media depictions of black women in various stages of undress, her artwork was equally disappointing. One of these large pieces, entitled Tan n’ Terrific, featured a woman lying on her stomach, her torso raised to expose perky nipples, wearing nothing but a garter with stockings—sans culotte. All of Ms. Thomas’s pieces were enhanced with rhinestones. Art appreciation is subjective, but for this subject, these paintings came across as muted references to the album covers of Parliament, the funk music collective with psychedelic sensibilities.
In a recent essay for Harper’s Magazine, “The Painted Protest: How Politics Destroyed Contemporary Art,” the critic Dean Kissick reminds us: “Art should do more than communicate; it should move us; it should make us weep; it should bring us to our knees.” None of Ms. Thomas’s pieces conveyed any sense of trauma or any other emotion of note, unlike Rosalyn Drexler’s Love and Violence (1965), which was also included in this wide-ranging exhibit. Drexler’s painting stopped me in my tracks with its restrained depiction of a husband hovering over his wife, his hand on her neck, her face turned away in a mix of fear, defiance, and disgust. Positioned in the same space as works by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, and Jasper Johns, Drexler’s minimalistic painting was the most compelling of them all.
My elation over these transformative works of art was quickly tempered by another video interview featuring a contemporary African American artist. Similar to Ms. Thomas, Derrick Adams is a Brooklyn-based graduate of Pratt Institute. But unlike her, Mr. Adams did not focus on traumas inflicted on the “black body” but on the stereotypes applied to the “black male body.” Vive la différence—however minuscule.
Mr. Adams’s paintings were even less inventive. Each one depicted a naked black man with a large but anatomically incorrect penis: a tri-colored shaft with a star-shaped glans. To underline the cartoonish nature of these paintings, and in an homage to Roy Lichtenstein, Mr. Adams had added written exclamations like “BOOM!” and “POW!” on the canvas. The communication was clear, and the technical prowess was on display, but the impact fell flat.
By the time I was exiting this otherwise incredible exhibit, I had cracked the code of how young American artists get to showcase their work in one of the most prestigious venues in Europe. Step one: Lean heavily into the leftist orthodoxy while avoiding any serious artistic experimentation. Step two: Frame your work discursively within the “social justice” paradigm and exploit your membership in a marginalized identity group. Step three: Position yourself within close geographic proximity to the elite gatekeepers in New York City and—KABOOM!—you’re on the next flight to Paris, Venice, or Kassel, Germany.
Jukka Savolainen is a professor of sociology and criminology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He is an active member of Heterodox Academy, currently serving as the moderator of the sociology community of the organization. In addition to his academic work, Dr. Savolainen has authored several essays challenging ideological conformity in public discourse. His prior commentary on racial politics has examined Kimberlé Crenshaw’s false claims about police shootings; media distortions in the coverage of racial disparities; a comparative analysis of elite attitudes towards hip-hop vs. country music; and “Black Like the Ivory Tower” for the Journal of Free Black Thought. Follow him on X here.
Europeans live in a bubble of thought even as their American counterparts live in their own mental space. I find modern art regressive. Current artists as well as many from the 20th century appear to be running a race to see who can be most banal and deconstructive. The 19th century offers a better representation of African American talent. https://www.history.com/articles/19th-century-african-american-artists
There was a time in 30's 40's Germany you had to join the Nazi party if you wanted any advancement or acceptance in your line of work. I assume the same in the Soviet Union. I'm not sure what the all-inclusive membership card is now as it extends far beyond just the social justice warriors or who gets to issue the card from the Star Chamber, but there is increasingly a party line that must be adhered to in so many areas if you want entry, acceptance, publication and/or advancement. Heretics are not to be tolerated and increasingly that is the vast majority of us. Authoritarian systems work by creating a sufficient climate of fear so that people police themselves.