XX MARKS THE SPOT – Maxx Moses presents abstract paintings celebrating freedom in his stunning exhibition “Good Morning America” at the SWC Art Gallery. Photo by Karen Tome
Anger and rebellion seethe under the surface of every stroke of the brush, every paste of newsprint, every spray of the can. His exhibit “Good Morning America” is satirically named but seriously serious. Walls of the Southwestern College Art Gallery are aflame with his vivid vision.
Moses pulls no punches, even for the commander-in-chief. In 2012 he was asked to contribute a painting for a series concerning the state of racial America for President Obama’s re-election campaign. His entry, “The Final Sale,” was deemed too controversial by the art curator and was not used. It features a larger-than-life self-portrait of Moses smiling maniacally at the viewer. His beard is checker boarded, the word “whore” writ on his cheek and a blue star tattooed around his eye. Next to this face in bold black, the words “Nigger For Sale,” with a defiant “not” spray-painted over “Nigger.”
“There is not really a difference between street art and these paintings,” he said. “This was just a merging of those cultures. Yet there was a lot of research and learning involved in this and I used the information I got.”
Moses said he was particularly smitten with the Reconstruction era and its upheaval of land and cultures. America’s first promise of freedom to African-Americans following the Civil War was broken, with more to come. His art career began as a kid living in New York City. His canvas was the walls of the Big Apple. His pallet was his grip of canned spray paint.
“Doing graffiti was my introduction to the art world,” he said. “As a teenager, I remember just looking at the writing on the wall and questioning it, like what are these names? Who is doing all this? I thought it was illegal.”
The hidden world of these street artists kept beckoning to Moses and time after time he heeded their call, scrawling his name over the trolley stations. The very nature and significance of what these drawings meant were a mystery even to him.
“I look at this as trying to find my own identity,” he said. “The act of writing graffiti compelled me. It compelled me beyond any laws, it compelled be beyond anything my parents thought and any beliefs I had. I had to do it.”
It was not always easy, he said. What Moses called art others called vandalism. This hatred baffled a young Moses who thought he did nothing wrong.
Dr. Rachel Hastings, assistant professor of communication, said the college art gallery has never had anything quite like the artwork of Moses.
“Visually the colors pop and so the vibrancy of the colors is really invitational,” she said. “The overlying of ideas are so intriguing that whether you feel invited or feel outside of it, you are going to be thinking of something.”
Hastings said Moses’ creations have inspired many of her students to create and incorporate racial and taboo themes in their own art.
Not everyone on campus was enthusiastic about Moses’ art.
Photography student Enrique Quijada said he felt that the anti-Americanism present in many of the paintings was a bit much.
“I do not think Moses was very honest about his art,” he said. “I do not mind the ‘n’ word, but when I saw the words ‘Is America worth it?’ I felt that that was a bit offensive, it seemed out of place. America is a wonderful country and for him to go and disrespect that, it is just not right.”
Hastings offered another perspective.
“I think that for those folks who are not African-American, who are not familiar with the African-American experience in the United States, can definitely feel off put,” she said. “It is really difficult to look at the imagery and to see how he highlights the Klu Klux Klan, to look at all the details and see castrated individuals and then to ask ourselves ‘Is this how we feel about America?’”
Moses said his exhibition underscores how humans are commodified. In each of the paintings a grotesquery stares back. A nude Statue of Liberty having the milk drained from her nipples in one, a black slave hooked up to a barbaric 60 pound chocker selling “Act Right” miracle elixir in another.
“We are all being enslaved,” Moses said. “We are being marketed. We are the new niggas.”
