ART THOUGHTZ: How To Be a Successful Black Artist
by Jayson Musson, 2011
YouTube Video
Hennessy Youngman is a hip-hop art critic character that is featured in the popular episodic YouTube series called, “ART THOUGHTZ”. His character name, “Hennessy Youngman,” is a false persona. The artist behind the name and the videos is Jayson Scott Musson, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, receiving his MFA degree in 2011. Musson explains that, “Hennessy comes out of a specific reaction to graduate school and the academic, fine-art world that I was exposed to at school[.] The character starts partly from “a place of anger,” though, for him, “the relationship between anger and laughter are very, very close” (Considine, The New York Times). In addition to that, "Hennessy was created to explore the dissonance between speaker and speech. I thought it would be interesting to see how Artspeak would sound coming out of the mouth of someone without the seeming cultural authority to discuss what he was discussing" (Musson, Electronic Arts Intermix). In other words, “Musson uses hip-hop vernacular to critique the exclusionary language of art discourse, hilariously pitting hip-hop and art world idioms against each other in a dual parody of cultural clichés. (Hennessy Youngman's name references both the comedian Henny Youngman, who was famous for his one-liners, and Hennessy cognac, a status liquor in the hip-hop world” (Electronic Arts Intermix).
For this particular Youtube video from Art Thoughtz on How To Be a Successful Black Artist, Hennessy Youngman is talking about is how to be a good black artist. Not only he is talking about how to be a black artist, but also he is pointing out that the environment of black artists is not fair enough for them to achieve success. Black artists can’t compete with white artists because of the skin color. Racism is still a problem, and black people cannot help it. So to say that black people should stand up by themselves. The ideas in which Youngman gives are: be angry, use jazz principle, paint black people doing white people’s things, and use the idea of slavery. In his explanation, when you get angry, people cannot mess with you and they can take more serious with you in the situation, so you can be emotional. “The anger built up through experience and the quotidian struggles against dehumanization” (Rankine 23). Racism is a serious problem which still occurs in today’s society, although Youngman addresses this problem in a different way. He uses his senses of humor to tell the cure reality and it lets people not to feel as negative. Youngman’s ideas in the video’s are also demonstrated in the context of the book. Rankine explains Youngman’s idea, which places more focus on the “anger” aspect of things, by using Serena Williams as an example. She is trying to state that Serena is trapped by the circle of skin color, she has so much potential beyond her skin color, and because of the “anger”, she achieves the price of the tennis game. By the author providing detailed statements of Serena Williams portraying her anger, it creates a very vivid picture in reader’s mind.
Links:
Art Thoughtz: How To Be a Successful Black Artist
Image from:
"Brown Foundation Gallery." Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art. Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2017. http://camh.org/exhibitions/radical-presence-black-performance-contemporary-art#.WJtafDsrKUk
References:
"ART THOUGHTZ with Hennessy Youngman: The Studio Visit." Electronic Arts Intermix. Electronic Arts Intermix, n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2017. https://www.eai.org/titles/art-thoughtz-with-hennessy-youngman-the-studio-visit
Considine, Austin. "Biting Humor Aimed at Art." The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Feb. 2012. Web. 06 Feb. 2017. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/fashion/hennessy-youngman-offers-offbeat-art-criticism.html
Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric. Minneapolis: Graywolf, 2014. Print.
Research by Catherine Liu and Samara Lyons