Talk:Blackface in contemporary art

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 January 2019 and 17 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aejones2nd18. Peer reviewers: Mfarmer26, BLTownsend02.

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I am copying the comment below from my talk page as it seems more appropriate to have this discussion attached to the article itself.

Hi, I'm not sure about moving the citation of Bruce Nauman's Art Make-up and Flesh to White to Black to Flesh videos to the Physical section. I can see why, but imho these artworks are more conceptual, i.e. more "about" the idea (and history) of blackface than being actual, derogatory blackface. I don't have a citation to that effect, at least not yet, it's only my judgement. But of course since it involves actual makeup I can also see how, objectively, it is actual, physical blackface. Cheers Donellew (talk) 04:30, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My response is this: It is a debate worth having, as the intent of artists is not always clear. My view is that if a bodily transformation takes place (e.g. a white person uses stage makeup to appear black) then that is a physical manifestation of blackface. In the decades since the Civil Rights movement, all sorts of meanings can be imputed to that act, from racist mocking, to attempts at obliviousness, to the upholding of tradition, to anti-racist deconstruction. The meanings can be stated by the artist, or analysed by critics, but will always be interpreted by the audience. In other words, the intention and ideas behind the bodily transformation are up for grabs - it is art, and it deals with a concept, so it is conceptual art if its creator says so, and maybe even if the creator does not comment, but critics claim it as such. All racialised bodily transformations force the audience to grapple with the concepts of racism and appropriation (or they ought to), but some adoption of personae are useful to consider under the blackface umbrella, although they do not involve bodily transformation. As you say, citations would be useful. It may be useful to consider the Manual of Style guidance on list-like articles. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:18, 27 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Blackface article opens with "Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-Black people to portray a caricature of a Black person." This is the traditional definition of blackface. This article, however, opens up with the misleading/disingenuous line: "Blackface in contemporary art covers issues from stage make-up used to make non-black performers appear black (the traditional meaning of blackface) [...]"

This is not the traditional meaning of blackface. The meaning in the blackface article is the traditional meaning of blackface. Traditionally, caricaturing is a requisite for something to be blackface. Despite the Be Bold policy on Wikipedia, it's been my experience that edits to articles on highly controversial subject matter result in edit wars and wikihounding, so instead I wanted to make a Talk section.

I think the opening section of this page should be re-written such that it doesn't make false claims about what the traditional definition of blackface is, and that it doesn't read as politically-biased. Perhaps it could suggest that this is a new, contemporary attempt to reframe what blackface is or it could just remove the text in parentheses altogether. Uchiha Itachi 25 (talk) 13:31, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]