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Right
on the Money: John Jones' Visual Narratives
Exhibition Review by Tony Bolden
When I realized that slave masters had engraved
black faces on their currency, I immediately thought about the
couplet that slaves used to recite, presumably when the masters
weren't around: "Ought's a ought, figger's a figger / All
for the white man, none for the nigger." All of which
suggests, of course, that contrary to the benevolent,
great-big-family arrangement that southerners (mis)represented,
the vast majority of the slaves were well aware of their
exploitation.
Though denied formal literacy, slaves proved to be quite
adept at reading and exposing the cryptic signs that narrated
the contradictions of plantation life. In a word, the poem
inscribes the entire history of American slavery.
And yet, as W.E.B. DuBois pointed out, a mere twenty-five per
cent of the population owned roughly seventy-five per cent of
the slaves. How, then, as Malcom X once asked, could so few
white people control so many black people? How, in other words,
could the planters induce the majority of white people to
support their system when that meant, quite literally, competing
with somebody who worked for free? On a superficial level, at
least, such a proposal defies all logic: There were only so many
overseer jobs available, and everybody couldn't buy slaves and
raise the funds to buy their own land or become a small
merchant. Many therefore lived in abject poverty in material
conditions that were worse, in fact, than some of the slaves.
So why couldn't they see that they were getting played?
The ideology of race, pure and simple. The planters used it as a
wedge to separate, and thereby antagonize, the two segments of
the working class, so that they could more easily horde the
whole bag of money. And what better way to promote white
supremacy than to put the black face, as John Jones puts it,
right on the money?
Like all forms of capitalist ideology (and I'm not referring
here to an established political philosophy, but rather a series
of assumptions and/or (mis)representations that people refuse to
question), the black-face bank notes justify exploitation,
saying, in effect, that it's natural for Africans to be slaves,
since we all know they're not really humans. Besides, we treat
our nigras (that's the official name given in the Encyclopaedia
Brittanica, 1798) good: See how happy they are! Such myopia,
as black philosopher Charles Mills has pointed out, is
indicative of the kind of misinterpretation that's endemic to
white supremacy.
But if Confederate bank notes inscribe the entire history of
slavery in the U.S., then John Jones' visual narratives not only
expose its contradictions; they illustrate the very process in
which racist ideology was constructed. Like a skilled blues
virtuoso, Jones riffs on the black-face images, repeating them
in bold colors strategically selected to suggest moods and/or
tones. Which is to say, there's an antiphonal relationship
between the bank notes and Jones' artwork.
Oftentimes, as in "Slave Picking Corn," Jones lends
vitality to the slaves by displacing the black caricature with
realistic images of blackness: These are faces we actually see
in our communities' fathers, uncles, cousins, brothers. At the
same time, the ever-present smile that we see highlights the
absurdity of the narrative that the bank notes try to tell.
"Slave in Fancy Clothes" and "Slave Couple"
both (mis)represent slave-life as luxurious; and again, Jones'
brilliant artwork points up the stark contradiction in terms
(slave/luxury).
Sometimes Jones' riffing is sweet and subtle. Take for
instance "Slave Carrying Cotton," which appears on the
cover of the catalog. On the bank note, the slave seems to be
blissfully unaware of economic exploitation. But in Jones
revision, the worker's gaze is no longer directed away from the
viewer: She's looking dead at us, and she is not happy. Her
rough-and-tumble tough mood (which reminds me of Sojourner
Truth) and the blue clothes that she wears suggest the
philosophical response that would produce such blues women as Ma
Rainey and Bessie Smith who didn't take no mess (Bessie actually
chased the Klan away from her tent).
On other occasions, though, Jones' experimental revisions can
be stunning. In "Slave Profits," Jones revises a bank
note wherein Moneta, the Roman goddess of prosperity, has been
engraved. While slaves work peacefully in the background, the
goddess sits, smiling amidst bags of golden coins. But when
Jones represents the goddess in "Slave Profits," he
paints her as a woman of color, which not only symbolizes the
sexual and economic exploitation that Al Fraser and Gretchin
Barbatsis have discussed, but also America's steadfast
insistence on narrowly conceptualizing the nation's culture in
Eurocentric terms.
In other words, Jones calls attention to the creolized nature
of American culture by virtue of the many contributions made by
African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.
Jones' work, then, challenges us to re-examine the past. Just
as blues musicians often confronted and exposed the
contradictions of the mistreaters in black communities, so Jones
uses a blues aesthetic to recast the slavers' ideology in a
communal (slave) song narrated visually. As such, Jones emerges
as a secular priest, testifying to the hard-core realities of
this heretofore invisible black past: Can I get a witness?
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John W. Jones--born
May 11, 1950 in Columbia, S.C. Jones--has been a freelance artist and
illustrator for more than 20 years. His former clients include Time Life
Books, IBM, Westinghouse, Rubbermaid, NASA, Gadded Space and Flight
Center, and the U.S. Postal Service. Jones explores life through art. This multi-talented artist uses
oils, acrylics and watercolors for his painting. Striving for detail in
light and reflection, he meticulously draws each painting first, then
layers it with color, resulting in very realistic interpretations of
everyday life and landscapes, as well as historical insights into our
past.
Jones, who graduated from high school in 1968 and self-taught, has
been drawing since early childhood. Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1970,
Jones served in the Vietnam War, where he also took illustration classes
in military School. |
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update 7 July 2008 |
