"Capsizing the Niggerati #01", Paper, ink and acrylic on Arches W.C. paper 140 lb., 24 1/4 X 20 1/4 inches (61.6 X 51.4 cm), 2006.
he name Niggerati was first used - with deliberate irony - by Wallace Thurman for the group of young African American artists and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. “Niggerati” is a portmanteau of “nigger” and “literati”. The rooming house where he lived, and where that group often met, was similarly christened Niggerati Manor. The group included Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and several of the people behind Thurman’s journal FIRE!!. Today, the latter form of the word “nigger” is a colloquial reference typically utilized without malice and within the black community itself, although some black intellectuals in present day America want to see the word disappear completely. With the group of drawings called Capsizing The Niggerati, I create a body of work that tells the story of present day conversation around the word “nigger”. The interweaving of semantics and pictorials allows me to invent a language that can act as a puzzle, but also be seen as a great joke that reveals flaws of human nature.
-Deborah Grant Images courtesy of the artist and Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles.
"Capsizing the Niggerati #04", Paper, ink and acrylic on Arches W.C. paper 140 lb., 24 1/4 X 20 1/4 inches (61.6 X 51.4 cm), 2006.
"Capsizing the Niggerati #07", Paper, ink and acrylic on Arches W.C. paper 140 lb., 24 1/4 X 20 1/4 inches (61.6 X 51.4 cm), 2006.
"Capsizing the Niggerati #18", Paper, ink and acrylic on Arches W.C. paper 140 lb., 24 1/4 X 20 1/4 inches (61.6 X 51.4 cm), 2006.
"Capsizing the Niggerati #19", Paper, ink and acrylic on Arches W.C. paper 140 lb., 24 1/4 X 20 1/4 inches (61.6 X 51.4 cm), 2006.
Deborah Grant is a New York based artist. She recently had a solo exhibition called Christ You Know It Ain’t Easy at The Drawing Center NYC. She’s represented by Steve Turner Contemporary in Los Angeles, CA. Her work is featured on the cover of Nat. Brut Issue Five.