Philip Guston, an Ashkenazi -Jew, and Trenton Doyle Hancock, a black artist with a strict southern Christian upbringing, came from very different backgrounds. But a current show in the Jewish Museum in Manhattan reveals that their perspectives and sensitivities are seamlessly. Both were malignant because of their figurative, comic strip influenced styles: Guston by the elite art world that was scaled by his surrender of abstraction for figuration, and Doyle Hancock by the Satanic panic of the 1980s, when his mother burned his collection Garbage can children Cards and Bun and dragons Materials, in the conviction that she saved him from eternal damnation. When Doyle Hancock first came into contact with Guston, he recently found the freedom he needed at the university, away from his strict living at home, to explore new worlds of art. He told Hyperallergic That at the time he saw Guston ‘as another comic book artist’. While he has tightened his vessel to become an editorial cartoon illustrator, he felt a relationship with Guston’s crazy caricatures – and soon saw how he could continue his legacy of the use of comic aesthetics to emphasize the darkest aspects of American racism .
Right: Trenton Doyle Hancock, “Schlep and Screw, Knowledge Rental Pawn Exchange Service” (2017), Acrylic and mixed media on Canvas (collection of Hedy Fischer and Randy Shull, Asheville, North Carolina; Image Courtesy The Jewish Museum)
Both also confronted white supremation in different ways throughout their lives: Guston, a proud anti -fascist, lived through the KKK’s terror of Terror in Los Angeles; Doyle Hancock would learn that the trade fair area of his house in Paris, Texas, the place of many happy childhood memories, were once full of spectators who have their neck tap to watch the lynching of a teenage -black boy. Furthermore, both wonder if they themselves are complicit: Guston through his image of herself as an artist wearing the Klan hood, and Doyle Hancock through his series Surrealistic characters who at the same time are perpetrators and victims of supremacy culture.
In this episode of the Hyperallergic podcast, editor -in -chief Hrag Vartanian and Trenton Doyle Hancock, together with poet and critic John Yau, who has been writing about Guston for decades. With his deep knowledge of the life and work of Guston, Yau highlights, which almost seems like a cosmic connection between the two artists.
Work in 2020 came in doubt About whether it was appropriate to show during a period of settlement with racist images. It would be far from the first time that Guston’s work was covered or censored, whether it was through institutions that tried to avoid liability, the Catholic Church in Mexico is wary to stand up against authoritarianism, or anti -Communist Los Angeles Police -Units destroy his anti -racist paintings. With fascism in the increase in America and all over the world, Doyle Hancock’s ‘confrontation’ with Guston’s work shows the power of tackling white supremation frontal, with all its mean truths in sight.
Right: Trenton Doyle Hancock, “The boys in the hoods are always hard” (2023), acrylic and graphite on Canvas (collection of Amanda and Donald Mullen; image with thanks to the Jewish museum)
Pull them in, paint them out: Trenton Doyle Hancock confronts Philip Guston Continue in the Jewish Museum (1109 Fifth Avenue and East 92nd Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan) until March 30.
Subscribe to Hyperallergic Apple PodcastsAnd everywhere you listen to podcasts. This episode is also available with images of the artwork on YouTube.
