Inspired by Frantz Fanon’s book Black Skin, White Masks, this work uses sculpture, installation, video-art, photography and performance to examine Black consciousness and self-image, as seen through my eldest son’s burgeoning Black manhood in a racist world, and my concerned maternal eyes. The trope in this work is the syncretism of Catholicism and the Afro-Cuban religion, known as “Palo,” in my birth island of Cuba, which resulted from colonialism.

AIN’T FUNNY CRUCIFIX SCULPTURE

AIN’T FUNNY VIDEOART

Ain’t Funny Videoart © 2014 by Lili Bernard

The youth (my eldest son Rafael) who is the subject of the video art piece — as well as of the related Nkisi crucifix sculpture and photography — asserts his Black masculinity while struggling with society’s attempt to label, dilute and destroy it. He navigates through layers of his identity, combating racism and stereotypes — with his strength, diligence, resilience, joy, frustration, anger, compassion and vulnerability exposed.

The creolized syncretism in this work is referenced by the Congolese Nkisi-like nail fetish watermelon, the whitened African warrior face, and the crucifix with nails, indicating the Passion of Christ and the tabernacle. As stated in the beginning of the video-art, the work is dedicated to two women who were lynched along with their children: Mary Turner (1918 Georgia) who’s 8 month old fetus was gouged out of her belly and stomped to death by the mob as she hung upside down burnt and shot, and Laura Nelson (1919 Oklahoma) who was “swung” from a bridge alongside her 14 year old son L.D. Nelson, made famous by widely distributed souvenir postcards of their lynching.

AIN’T FUNNY PHOTOGRAPHY

(related digital photography to be exhibited along with the Ain’t Funny installation, but can be exhibited and sold separately)

AS AMERICAN AS CHERRY PIE
(a related sculpture to be exhibited along with the Ain’t Funny installation, but can be exhibited and sold separately)

“As American As Cherry Pie” is a sculpture of a KKK baby in the highchair, with accompanying digital artwork. Both are part of the “Ain’t Funny” installation. The work remembers the lynching of the pregnant Mary Turner and Laura Nelson and her son to whom the video art piece is dedicated. “As American as Cherry Pie,” is inspired by Black Panther H. Rap Brown’s famous quote: “Violence is as American as Cherry Pie.”

I created As American as Cherry Pie for the exhibition Rise: Love, Revolution and the Black Panther Party which ran in the Spring of 2014 at ArtShare LA. The work was widely reviewed. Here are links to the reviews:

• Art Share LA, Mar 2014
• NELA art News, Mar 2014
• CSUN Daily Sundial, Mar 2014
• KCRW Radio & Blog, Feb 2014
• KCET Art Bound, Feb 2014
• Michael Blaze Productions, Feb 2014

SELF PORTRAIT
(a related mixed media work to be exhibited along with the Ain’t Funny installation, but can be exhibited and sold separately)