{"id":4140,"date":"2013-02-22T12:51:49","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T20:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/?p=4140"},"modified":"2013-02-28T11:58:08","modified_gmt":"2013-02-28T19:58:08","slug":"in-stereotype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/22\/in-stereotype-4140\/","title":{"rendered":"In Stereotype"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared on February 22, 2013 in The Alamedan<\/a>. Michele Ellson, editor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ken

Ken McGhee. Photo: Michael Singman-Aste<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIf you write a book about a serial killer, are you condoning his behavior or making a study about what makes a monster?\u201d Ken McGhee stands in the Signature Gallery of the Frank Bette Center for the Arts, surrounded by his art. \u201cWhat are the origins of this monster that has taken on such a life of its own that it becomes this thing called a \u2018stereotype,\u2019 which is for the ages?\u201d McGhee asks. He seeks to answer these questions in his solo show \u201cIn Stereotype,\u201d which opened on February 1.<\/p>\n

The first piece he created for this series was \u201cWatermelon Boy,\u201d a triptych of a \u201cpickaninny\u201d caricature of an African American eating a watermelon, flanked by panels explaining that watermelon seeds were carried over on slave ships, and that slaves ate watermelon to stay hydrated while picking cotton.<\/p>\n

\"Ken

Ken McGhee, “Watermelon Boy”<\/p><\/div>\n

McGhee, who studied for a BFA in illustration from the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, describes this as \u201ccomic-style, vector, traditional, digital, morphed art that has some kind of message to it other than just shock art octopus heads.\u201d He draws the images by hand, and then loads them into Adobe Illustrator where he redraws them digitally with bold, saturated colors, using the original as a sort of template.<\/p>\n

In \u201cDrive In\u201d he takes a shot at \u201cthis part of Americana that\u2019s now just this side of being defunct, the Baby Boomer era where you had your barbecue grill, your GI Bill house, and everything was hunky-dory.\u201d In the foreground a man casually discards his empty box of snacks, freeing up his hands to pull his date closer, while on the screen in the background Bob’s Big Boy serves up an onion ring-drumstick-taco-burger inspired by \u201cSuper Size Me,\u201d the 2004 expos\u00e9 of the fast food industry. McGhee was particularly disturbed by that documentary\u2019s scene in which filmmaker Morgan Spurlock gets a \u201cMcStomachache\u201d and unswallows his supersized meal in the parking lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re doing the math and all these calculations on what is adding up to morbid obesity in this country,\u201d McGhee says. \u201cThey were doing a lot of finger pointing towards sugar and trans-fats and major calories and carbs. I\u2019m saying they\u2019re all complicit, and they have this phalanx of attorneys that do this double talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ken

Ken McGhee, “Drive In”<\/p><\/div>\n

In a spin on Hidari Jingoro\u2019s 17th century carving, McGhee portrays the three wise monkeys who see, hear, and speak no evil as doll-like \u201cmusic kids\u201d who are controlled by the music industry, in loco parentis<\/em>. \u201cThese record labels would tell you how to sing, and what you can put out and what you cannot,\u201d he says. According to McGhee, his uncle Bob West, who co-wrote the 1970 Jackson 5 hit \u201cI\u2019ll Be There,\u201d had first-hand knowledge of that.<\/p>\n

\"Ken

Ken McGhee, “Musikids”<\/p><\/div>\n

The stereotype in some pieces is more readily apparent than in others, which are more archetypal, or perhaps simply typical. Regardless, McGhee guides us along a spectrum of -isms broad enough to remind us that none of us is safe. In \u201cWhat\u2019s My Line?\u201d the artist accessorizes a pantheon of iconic figures with Groucho Marx glasses, complete with nose and bushy eyebrows. From Homer Simpson to Einstein, and Angela Davis to a Playboy bunny, McGhee illustrates that an identity not of our own making can easily be thrust upon any of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cKen McGhee: In Stereotype\u201d continues through March 2 in the Frank Bette Center for the Arts\u2019 Signature Salon, located at 1601 Paru Street. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. (510) 523-6957. http:\/\/www.frankbettecenter.org\/<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Michael Singman-Aste
\nPostdiluvian Photo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared on February 22, 2013 in The Alamedan. Michele Ellson, editor. \u201cIf you write a book about a serial killer, are you condoning his behavior or making a study about what makes a monster?\u201d Ken McGhee stands in the Signature Gallery of the Frank Bette Center for the Arts, surrounded by his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[73,71,585,486],"class_list":["post-4140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","tag-alameda","tag-frank-bette-center-for-the-arts","tag-ken-mcghee","tag-the-alamedan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPxQO-14M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4140"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4163,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4140\/revisions\/4163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}