Joel Elgin. Athraigh Print Studio: 2020-06-28

Betye Saar: The Liberation of Aunt Jemima

African American printmakers/artists have created artwork in response to the insulting image of Aunt Jemima for well over fifty years.

To offer some insight into the long battle with racially offensive images, Athraigh Print Studio offers a small exhibit of artwork created by brilliant, contemporary printmaker/sculptor, Betye Saar.

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima

Wood, Mixed-media assemblage, 11.75 x 8 x 2.75 in. 1972.

“…In 1972, the Rainbow Sign Cultural Center in Berkeley put out an open invitation for an exhibition of works depicting black heroes. Saar, who decided that she wanted a heroine, produced The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, … Aunt Jemima was Saar’s response to the rage and helplessness she experienced after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The work also responded to the politics of civil rights and black nationalism. Aunt Jemima was the symbol of black nurturing and black servitude. She was the caregiver for the master’s children, as well as her own. She was also the go between for the house and the field. In Saar’s hands, Aunt Jemima, with her broom and her rifle, is transformed into a freedom fighter…”

https://sculpturemagazine.art/ritual-politics-and-transformation-betye-saar/

In an interview, Betye Saar stated:

“…When Martin Luther King was assassinated, I reacted by creating a woman who’s my warrior: Aunt Jemima. Aunt Jemima is a derogatory image of black women … So I created a piece called The Liberation of Aunt Jemima. I gave her a rifle. It wasn’t that I was advocating violence through weapons, but I thought if you saw a weapon—if you saw a gun—you would know that she meant business. I used the image of the gun to imply that kind of violence, but her true violence was her spirit—that she wanted to overcome, that she wanted to move on from where her position was…”

http://womenatthecenter.nyhistory.org/women-work-washboards-betye-saar-in-her-own-words/

At the same time, Saar created Liberation of Aunt Jemima: Cocktail. Consisting of a wine bottle with a scarf coming out of its neck, labeled with a hand-produced image of Aunt Jemima and the word “Aunty” on one side and the black power fist on the other, this Molotov cocktail demands political change, insisting that full racial and gender equality must be achieved, to borrow the words of slain civil rights leader Malcolm X, “by any means necessary.”

https://sculpturemagazine.art/ritual-politics-and-transformation-betye-saar/