David Blandy
The White and Black Minstrel Show
About the artist
My work deals with my problematic relationship with popular culture, highlighting the slippage and tension between fantasy and reality in everyday life. Either as a white man mouthing the words to the underground hip-hop classic 'Bring Da Ruckus' in 'from the underground' (2001), or being taught how to make art by the deceased martial arts star Bruce Lee in 'emotional content' (2003), I'm searching for my cultural position in the world. I try to use humour to ask the thorny question of just how much the self is formed by the mass-media of records, films and television, and whether I have an identity outside that.
About the work
Using the character of the White and Black Minstrel (an inverted Black and White Minstrel) I perform 'live' lip-syncing to songs like 'I'm Black and I'm Proud', 'The Revolution will not be televised', or, as in this case, 'Is it because I'm black?'. This clownish figure, with a 'whited-up' face, has come to embody my cultural confusion in this post-colonial world. In a cavernous art-deco theatre, I mime to every note, dancing, posing, even doing air-guitar to the solo. But despite the clowning, no matter how emotive the performance, the irreconcilable natures of the song and the performer remain.
Additional credits:
The Cameraperson was Claire Barrett, who I work with on most of my recent productions. She consents to submitting this work, and its use by Jerwood. Features the song "Is it Because I'm Black" (1969), a Syl Johnson original performance and production, written by Syl Johnson, Jimmy Jones and Glen Watts, produced by Syl Johnson for the Syl-Zel Music Company (p) 1986.
