The first of the twenty works of this Art History series on view at Blum & Poe Los Angeles, ROBERT'S complete HiSTORY of WORLD ART (1979), announces that these drawings present his personal, idiosyncratic version of the subject at hand. For an uncompromising individualist like Colescott, the reduction of art to broad categories or “isms” presented him with an irresistible target for satire. The tendency of scholars and art historians to categorize artists only intensified during the twentieth century, which meant that any beginning student of art history would be taught that it is a procession of movements leading logically from one to the next, in an inevitable flow of progress. Art history became a history of movements, and artists became something less than individuals. Aesthetics gave way to taxonomy, to a certain extent. Art history as an academic discipline came into being during the nineteenth century, and the earliest professional art historians viewed their primary task as similar to that of their colleagues in the academy, the natural scientists. Presenting two series respectively dating back to 19, the exhibition showcases the artist’s well-established satirical and critical approach to cultural clichés, racial stereotypes, and tropes of beauty and the gaze.īy the mid-1970s, Colescott had created the works with which he achieved a national reputation. These paintings used the tools of parody and appropriation to remake art historical masterpieces, while satirizing and deconstructing pervasive racist attitudes. In 1979, Colescott created a series of drawings that satirized art history itself. Blum & Poe is pleased to present a solo exhibition of never before exhibited works on paper by the late artist Robert Colescott.
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