Liberty Bros. Permanent Daily Circus: Handi & the Smartasses
Artist:
Michael Ray Charles
(American, born 1967)
Date: 1995
Dimensions:
60 x 35 3/4 in. (152.4 x 90.8 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Charles Knipe
Object number: 95.8
Copyright: © Michael Ray Charles
Label Text
Based on nineteenth-century circus posters, this work is part of Michael Ray Charles’s Liberty Bros. Permanent Daily Circus series. The image of a blackface Handi as the ringmaster evokes the offensive stereotype of African Americans in nineteenth-century minstrel shows. Drawn from his experiences as an African American and studies in advertising design and illustrations, Charles’s graphically styled work investigates racial stereotypes in the history of American advertising, billboards, and posters. Walking the thin line between questioning and perputating derogatory images of blackness, the artist asks the viewer to consider how the systems that propagate racial stereotypes continue today. Also included is a copper penny near the artist’s signature, which Charles pointedly incorporates into each work to emphasize that the penny, bearing the portrait of President Abraham Lincoln, is the only coin of a different color and is the lowest value in our monetary system.
(Lana Meador, 2019)
(Lana Meador, 2019)
Not on view
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
