Les Demoiselles D'Alabama: Vestidas

Thoughts on the 1985 painting of the American artist, Robert Colescott (1925 - 2009).

Last week I decided to attend an event called REMIX at the Seattle Art Museum. I went with a friend whose roster of past employers includes Twitter, Adobe, and Coinbase. She's a Senior Infrastructure Security Engineer, but her knowledge of the Arts -- specifically in literature and most of the humanities disciplines, surpasses mine. I've thought about calling her the Idiot Savant of All Things, but an idiot savant has limitations. This girl, who's in her late twenties, is really just the modern embodiment of a Renaissance Woman.

With this friend, I walked through a labyrinth of art from around the world. A massive hanging installation of Ikat-dyed thread from Japan gave way to luminously a colored fabric collection from Southeast Asia. Then wandering into the land of sculptures we stared at the strong, dark figure of a Rodin. "Before Rodin, the standard was classical design, perfection in all ways, a valorization of beauty, symmetry and good sense," my friend said. She was remarking on the headlessness of the sculpture. "But Rodin was inspired by real life, not by ideas of an idealized self." I nodded and we walked on.

Some twenty minutes later we entered a room with a collection of Jacob Lawrences, Faith Ringgold, Basquiats, and some others I can't recall -- except for the Colescott canvas.

Les Demoiselles D'Alabama: Vestidas was placed at the very center of the back wall and seemed to call out like a siren. I don't remember who approached it first, my friend or I, but eventually we found ourselves side-by-side, gazing at the work.

"What do you think?" I asked eventually. Tipping her head to one side and strolling guardedly around the painting, as if it were alive, my friend shrugged.

I found the Artist Statement and read it out loud.

"Robert Colescott's paintings tackle the legacy of the European avant-garde, using irony and acerbic wit to deconstruct art's historical narratives. Recasting canonical western paintings with Black subjects as observers, agents, and narrators, he points to a history in need of revision."

"I guess it makes me uncomfortable," my friend finally replied.

"Why?"

"I guess, as a woman with dark skin, as a black woman, I've internalized some ideas about what it means to be found desirable..."

"Yes, and look at that one there in the.pink dress, with the eye askew."

"I didn't even notice that," she said quietly.

We laughed.

"This is good," I said. "It's making us think, by pulling us out of our comfort zones. That's what great art does."

Les Demoiselles D'Alabama: Vestidas, which is neither French, English, or Spanish, generally means "the young ladies" or "maidens" of "Alabama." Given that Colescott himself had roots in the American south, it's possibly a reference to a group of young women from or in the southern American state of Alabama. "Vestidas" means "dressed" in Spanish.

The Patois-like configuration of this title is a little like the general melange or "melting pot" of the American experience. But the image itself, which is in direct conversation with Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which means "The Young Ladies of Avignon" (originally called "The Brothel of Avignon") -- is loaded with meaning about the intersection between dark skin and ideas about female desirability or femininity in general, in the West.