Betye Saar Reflects on the Legacy of The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972)
In light of yesterday's public announcement from Quaker Oats that it will retire the Aunt Jemima brand, Betye Saar reflects on the legacy of the Aunt Jemima figure and how she reclaimed the racially-charged image by incorporating it into her work, including her now-canonical The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (1972). "My artistic practice has always been the lens through which I have seen and moved through the world around me. It continues to be an arena and medium for political protest and social activism. I created The Liberation of Aunt Jemima in 1972 for the exhibition Black Heroes at the Rainbow Sign Cultural Center, Berkeley, CA (1972). The show was organized around community responses to the 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. assassination. This work allowed me to channel my righteous anger at not only the great loss of MLK Jr., but at the lack of representation of black artists, especially black women artists. I transformed the derogatory image of Aunt Jemima into a female warrior figure, fighting for Black liberation and women’s rights. Fifty years later she has finally been liberated herself. And yet, more work still needs to be done.” -- Betye Saar, June 17, 2020 For additional information regarding Betye Saar, please click here.
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