Whitewash, 2010
MALCOLM MOBUTU SMITH
Whitewash, 2010
Stoneware, slip and glaze
18.5 x 19.5 x 10 in
Whitewash is pretty much straight absurdist – deployment of an actual character created for comic relief in comic books from the 1940s whose name is Whitewash, wherein in the name then was tongue-in-cheek humor of the ironic sort and by me redeploying it in the context of a ‘high’ art object where its shapes and forms are laid out for aesthetic import as much as cultural critique. The audacity of the character itself in my opinion is re-doubled by my audacity in representing it. As if to shout to everyone ‘For real… are you all serious with this shit? You all thought this was OK to lampoon us this way and feed it to your kids?’” - Malcolm Mobutu Smith
