Chelsea A. Flowers Uses Stand-Up and Karaoke to Address Race in America
By Jad Dahshan, third-year student studying Art History and Chemistry
Chelsea A. Flowers. Image courtesy of Unlisted Projects.
Amidst all that is currently happening in America, many White people seem to be just now learning about racism, and necessary conversations are coming to the fore. Featured in the Gray Center’s online conceptual art exhibition Another Idea, Chelsea A. Flowers’ work offers avenues for such dialogue—about race, abuse, power, and identity. With a practice encompassing installation, video, and participatory performance, Flowers presents a karaoke video and hosts a trivia night via Zoom as part of Another Idea, using comedy and gameplay to mediate empathy, cultural understanding, and critical conversations about race.
The first work, The Melanated Corner (2019), is a karaoke video in which the artist’s stand-up script runs soundlessly across the screen, speaking to the racism and elitism in the art world and the artist’s frustrations attending alienating art events. She finds solace in the eponymous Melanated Corner, although “as soon as I leave it there’s some white devil asking to touch my hair” or assuming she does not belong in the space. “Love how race and power dynamics in the art world make segregation look appealing,” the text reads as the video ends.
A War On Partying, 2018, Installation, Mixed Media, Cake, Balloons, Tinsel, Microphone, Stool, Streamers, Monitors. Threw a facetious children’s Ronald Reagan themed party, celebrating his “War on Drugs,” providing entertainment, cake, and goodie bags containing all the ingredients needed to make crack-cocaine to party guests. Image courtesy of Friend of the Artist.
The Melanated Corner recalls two of Flowers’ 2018 videos which follow a similar karaoke format: Why I Can’t Sell My Eggs and Zombies. Using clips from a Ronald Reagan election speech and Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” (to drugs) campaign, both videos subvert collective nostalgia for the Reagan era by contending with the former president’s racist War on Drugs and the role he played in spreading crack addiction within Black and Brown communities. The works attempt to approach cathartic release and process the lasting generational trauma that this period caused for many Black families.
An earlier karaoke work from 2017, Stand Up, touches upon the therapeutic potential of comedy and stand-up in dealing emotionally with oppression. Although Flowers’ narrative voice drives all these videos, their karaoke format, characterized by the lack of audible narration and the visual effect of the words onscreen as they change color, invites the viewer to insert themselves into the works. In other words, being positioned as the narrator of Flowers’ experiences allows the viewer to relate to them more deeply. In an interview with Masha Vlasova, Flowers explains the importance of the audience’s engagement with her art. In some performances, the artist puts on her “cheeriest and most inviting self to make people feel comfortable and let them know their contribution matters.”
Image courtesy of Kate Mothes.
That was the demeanor she assumed for her other work included in Another Idea. An interactive performance conducted over Zoom on June 18, Chelsea’s Trivia Night (2020) featured three rounds of six questions each: fill in the blank, true or false, and identification questions. The intimate group of artists, Gray Center staff, and students wrote their answers on pieces of paper and shared them at the end of each round. As we cycled through the rounds, the questions gradually grew heavier. Many of the questions drew from popular culture, testing our knowledge of Rihanna’s fan base and Spice Girls lyrics. Interspersed among them were questions regarding the average life expectancy of a Black trans woman (around 27-35), the way Black and White people are penalized differently for marijuana possession, and the fact that the Kardashian-Jenner clan made a brand out of portraying Black caricatures and appropriating Black culture.
The final trivia question was: “What is White fragility?” After listening to participants’ answers, the artist cited Dr. Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility, defining it as a state in which conversations about race and a small amount of racial stress cannot be tolerated. Part of what Flowers’ use of humor and comic tropes in her art does is work around White fragility to reach more constructive discussions of racial and socioeconomic inequity.
The artist wrapped up her trivia night by sharing a few links: to bail funds for protestors around the country, to a list of anti-racism resources, to the Black and Queer Intersectional Collective, and to other places to donate, including on-the-ground support for protestors, aid funds, and Black organizations. Click the hyperlinks to look through them!
Image courtesy of Unlisted Projects.
Hello! I'm Jad and I am a rising fourth-year studying Art History and Chemistry at the College. I write for artmejo.com about global and Arab contemporary art and occasionally do some arts reporting for the Chicago Maroon. At school, you'd usually find me dangling off a rope in Le Vorris & Vox Circus's practice room at the Logan Center or filming an Instagram story at the Smart Museum. Since being quarantined though, I haven't really strayed beyond the edges of my laptop or sketchbook. Each week of “Another Idea,” I will explore and reflect one piece in the exhibition. Experience and explore the exhibition yourself at The Gray Center.