Susan Inglett Gallery
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Home
  • Exhibitions
  • Artists
  • Viewing room
  • Focus
  • Publications
  • News
  • Contact
  • I.C. Editions
Menu

WILLIAM VILLALONGO

  • Overview
  • Works
  • Exhibitions
  • Press
  • Publications
  • Video
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: A shield-shaped painting featuring women painters studying a black model wearing a Josephine-Baker inspired banana-skirt and wearing a modernist painting as a mask

WILLIAM VILLALONGO

The Painting Lesson, 2012
Acrylic, velvet flocking and paper/wood panel
106 x 62 in.
Copyright The Artist
View on a Wall
Modernism, Villalongo argues, is not a break from colonialism, but a continuation. In Villalongo’s words, “That outward look was squarely focused on the plunder from distant lands which was detained...
Read more
Modernism, Villalongo argues, is not a break from colonialism, but a continuation. In Villalongo’s words, “That outward look was squarely focused on the plunder from distant lands which was detained in ethnographic museums and on exotic postcards by the turn of the 20th century… This gaze would give the West a new visual language in the form of Abstraction. It seems convenient that we never speak of the birth of Western Abstraction as an extension of colonial power and desire.”

Here the exotism of the Other takes the form of Josephine Baker, Jazz Age performer and Belle of Paris. Baker wears a Modernist abstract painting as a mask turning the tables on the French women of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon with their African masks. Baker reminds us of the importance of outside influences as a source of inspiration, the arts of Africa playing a pivotal role in the development of the art and culture of the West.
Close full details

Exhibitions

"William Villalongo: Myths and Migrations," Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell, IA, 26 January 2024 - 6 April 2024; traveled to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI, 4 May 2024 - 18 August 2024; Museum of Art, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 13 September - 21 December 2024; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 15 May 2025 - 31 August 2025.

"Look at Me Now!” curated by Allison Glenn, Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, IL, 13 June 2015 - 23 August 2015.

"New Mythologies," The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture in Charlotte, NC, 26 October 2013 - 20 January 2014.

"William Villalongo," Scarfone Hartley Gallery, University of Tampa, FL, 1 March 2013 - 29 March 2013.

"Sista Ancesta," Susan Inglett Gallery, NYC, 18 October 2012 - 24 November 2012.
Share
  • Facebook
  • X
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • Email
Previous
|
Next
29 
of  32
Manage cookies
© 2020 SUSAN INGLETT GALLERY
Site by Artlogic

522 West 24th Street New York NY 10011 212 647 9111 info@inglettgallery.com

Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
Twitter, opens in a new tab.
Join the mailing list
Send an email

This website uses cookies
This site uses cookies to help make it more useful to you. Please contact us to find out more about our Cookie Policy.

Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences
Close

Join our mailing list

Signup

* denotes required fields

Susan Inglett Gallery is committed to data security and to protecting your privacy. The gallery is in full compliance with requirements as stipulated by the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Should you wish to change, update or delete any of your details, please contact us.