Posted on 09/05/2002 3:51:35 PM PDT by Momaw Nadon
Some Say Work Is Racist
MARBLEHEAD, Mass. -- This week's opening of a new, multimillion-dollar high school in Marblehead has been overshadowed by a work of art that greets visitors and students.
NewsCenter 5's Rhondella Richardson reported that the sculpture is supposed to depict Joseph Brown, a local black man who fought in the Revolutionary War. But critics said it presents a racist image.
"[Students] think it's racist," Metco director Elaine Munn said. "Other students have said, 'It looks like a monkey, and we are not monkeys. We did not come out of trees.' Other students have said that it's very demoralizing."
The work depicts a man in colonial garb in bronze relief. Critics say the facial features depict a stereotypical image of a black man.
Brown was a free black man and landowner in the 18th century in Marblehead who fought in the Revolutionary War. There are no illustrations or sketches of him. Artist Daniel Zampino said he did extensive research on Brown's life in preparing the work that would go outside the high school.
"It's almost as if we are looking at a colonial figure through the contaminated eyes of the 19th and 20th centuries," Zampino said.
Munn said the artwork does not depict how black people look.
"Artists have their own point of view in the way they look at people and see things, but when you're talking about a culture and you're talking about a person of African-American descent, we did not look like that," she said.
Zampino said that he was following his interpretive imagination.
"My work has never been strictly realistic," he said.
Zampino's works have a mythological feel. He also did a piece featuring Wilmot Redd, the only Marblehead resident to be convicted during the 1692 Salem witch trials.
In response to critics, Zampino modified the Brown work, but it did little to quell criticism.
The school superintendent said that such a stereotypical portrayal in a school setting requires better judgment.
"It doesn't matter whether it's a song, a book, a play or a piece of artwork," Superintendent Ellen Minihan said. "It's subject to scrutiny, which is our obligation."
But then again, I chalk it up to the sculptor's artistic license.
Looks like some folks are gonna try to get it revoked.
<>-<)B^)
Don't they teach Darwinism in schools anymore? :)
"Other students have said, 'It looks like a monkey, and we are not monkeys.'"
IMHO, they have a point. This relief does make its subject look like a monkey.
What on earth was Zampino thinking?
That he could get a lot of publicity by doing something controversial.
What on earth was Zampino thinking?
I'll second that. The so-called "rendering" is atrocious.
Well when you put it that way!
It reminds me of something like that, now that you mention it. In this case, the combination of style and subject is most unfortunate.
Maybe this makes us even?
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