Artists take, recreate in ‘Remix’ exhibition

Independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch once said, “Nothing is original.”

Painter Pablo Picasso said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

Model T designer Henry Ford admitted, “I created nothing new.”

The idea that creativity takes root in what has come before is the bedrock of many artistic endeavours. It’s copying, combining and transforming something that already exists to make something fresh.

That process is celebrated in “Remix: Themes and Variations in African-American Art,” the latest exhibition of 45 works at the Columbia Museum of Art. The exhibition opens Friday and will run until May 3.

“For artists, nothing is off-limits,” chief curator Will South said. “We take stories and retell them. And when you retell a story, you make a new one through small additions or omissions. It can’t stay the same. And that’s a big part of the show, that change is relentless.”

Remixing is common in the music industry: Danger Mouse mashes up Jay-Z’s “Black Album” and The Beatles’ “White Album” to create “The Grey Album;” a DJ turns Adele’s slow, soulful song, “Hello,” into an upbeat dance number.

“We thought, ‘Why hasn’t anyone done this in visual art?’” South said about how the exhibition came together.

“Remix” features 40 African-American artists from the early 20th century to present day, and includes nine South Carolina artists.

Historically, artists of color have been excluded from the annals of art, said Jonell Logan, an independent curator and consultant for “Remix.” By taking visual traditions previously controlled by mainstream white culture and updating them, African-American artists have defiantly interjected themselves back into the story, she writes in the essay “This is the Remix.”

In his work, Kehinde Wiley places well-known hip-hop artists and everyday black men in gilded frames reminiscent of classical European paintings.

Elizabeth Catlett’s “Torso” sculpture riffs on an ancient marble statue of Venus, which was considered an example of ideal beauty and proportion. Catlett’s sculpture has larger proportions, voluptuous curves and is finished with a gleaming black polish, as if proclaiming, “This too is ideal beauty, and this too is a goddess,” South writes in the exhibition catalog.

South Carolina native Fahamu Pecou takes Norman Rockwell’s “Triple Self-Portrait” and makes it his own in “Rock. Well (Radiant, Pop, Champ).” While Rockwell wears glasses and smokes a pipe in his piece, Pecou bites on a cigar and sports sunglasses in his. Rockwell’s easel has photos of European painters Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent Van Gogh. Pecou’s has New York graffiti artist and painter Jean‑Michel Basquiat (Radiant), pop artist Andy Warhol (Pop) and boxing legend Muhammad Ali (Champ).

“Remixing is about being able to find ways that we can connect and inject ourselves into the conversation,” Pecou said. “It becomes something that allows us to project our realities in ways that people who are not African American can begin to identify with and relate to.”

In other words, familiar, yet new.

Each piece in the “Remix” exhibition will have a label with an picture of the work it references. Museumgoers can also use a phone app to listen to the artists talk about their work, or read in-depth about the exhibition themes in the catalog.

“We thought this would be a vital, fresh perspective on American art,” South said. “It’s distinctive.”

And stolen, you could say.

All the better.

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Artists take, recreate in ‘Remix’ exhibition."