Critical i by Jeff Jahn
www.nwdrizzle.com october 2001

damali ayo
Shift we are not yet done.
An art experience
Mark Woolley Gallery
120 NW 9th Ave.

Damali Ayo is right on, and Portland is in need of hearing it. She puts it bluntly: "We live in a society that relies on racism not as historical occurrence but as an everyday foundation to our interactions and structures of all kinds."

Ayo knows full well that humans are visual creatures, as well as the perils of not really paying attention.

Da Vinci called it the "kingdom of the eye," and the truth is that people, for the most part, don't actively pay attention to what they see. They do react, however. As an oversimplification, most people react to the easiest, most general visual stereotypes that come into view. The familiar is usually perceived as good and unfamiliar is usually bad. It is ingrained, on all sides. Ayo's "eye-con" series explores these assumptions and the icons that have gained cultural cachet without much critical review.

In one of my favorite, eye-con, blackface entertainer Al Jolson is a blown-up photocopy fronting the shadow of Mickey Mouse, another blackface character. Ayo's tag notifies the unaware that these entertainers are not black, yet made their reputations furthering negative stereotypes. It makes me wonder when Disney as a corporation will publicly denounce "The Song of the South," but that would open a whole can of worms in moviemaking history. By turning up the focus on icons like Jolson and Mickey, Ayo shows them for what they are: not entertaining and not funny, yet too obvious to avoid.

 

"the collar," by damali ayo

Ayo's strategy is the abrupt wake-up call, but her provocative work has a lot of levels that can be missed. Her "collars," which, according to the narrative, shock the wearer whenever a racist statement is made, has connotations to corporate culture and the overall yolk of a capitalist culture imbued with racial value judgments. The collars can even reference those who adopt the "blend-in-and-don't-stick-out" aesthetic of the corporate workplace.

Similar to a caste system, the collars are arranged with the lightest collar higher than the colored ones. Are they all slave collars? Is it the individual or the collar that matters? The clothes make the man, according to the old saying. Is this homogeneity simply breeding an intolerance for certain inalienable facts like race and personal expression? Do these facts have anything to do with an employee's job description?

Good questions.

Portland is particularly adept at ignoring the race issue. In the Southeast, Southwest and Northwest neighborhoods, there is a conspicuous homogeneity of white folk. Here is a big-city planning problem: the Northeast neighborhood, Portland's (ugh) "center of diversity," is tough as hell to get to from the Southwest because of the freeways. It's easier to cross the Willamette River than I-84. The Northeast is walled off from the rest of Portland, and a few puny avenues are the only real north/south arteries other than the freeways.

Ayo catches flack for the abrasiveness of her work and, yes, Betty Saar has done great things with Aunt Jemima. But the fact remains that this is a worthy tradition. This is sociologically involved; it is archaeology for the present.

If a utilitarian Etruscan artifact has become museum art, then I argue that Ayo's work certainly tells us more about America today than a broken plate tells us about the Etruscans of yesterday. The problem lies in admitting the obvious: everyone can try harder. Ayo takes it personally because it is her right; she doesn't acquiesce to ignorance. After this show, nobody can say Portland's galleries lack engagement.