Michael Paul Britto: Dirrrty Harriet Tubman

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is pleased to present two recent single channel video works by New York-based artist Michael Paul Britto as our Contemporary Project Series 2006. The first work, Dirrrty Harriet Tubman, is a funny and irreverent action-movie trailer that presents a unique re-imaging of freedom fighter Harriet Tubman as a blaxploitation super heroine. Contrary to the most common, indelible image of an aged Harriet Tubman from our cultural imagination—a maternal stateswoman, a gentle grandmother—Britto's Tubman is re-imaged as a youthful, agile, and strong Pam Grier-like character. She is ready to free her people and take-back-the-night as her perilous trips are reenacted in a contemporary setting wherein nothing deters this fearless Underground Railroad conductor from her mission.

Britto is interested in reevaluating historical circumstance with a humorous corrective lens, and in an immediately recognizable and accessible format. Aware of the recent revival of interest in cinema and 1970s culture, particularly interest in the proliferation of action and Kung-fu B movies, Britto acknowledges the influence of a genre that largely disappeared into obscurity in the 1980s. While textbooks may tell us about Tubman's legendary accomplishments that altered the course of American history, Britto adds another dynamic layer to the woman who brought freedom to so many—that she was also young. Co-opting tropes of blaxploitation by bestowing Tubman with youth and a persona that matches her revolutionary actions, Britto presents an identifiable legend. Just as the films that provide source material for Britto's work generated a huge poster industry, he likewise has created a drama-filled poster to accompany his trailer. This comical trailer and poster call attention to a continuing struggle for freedom and self determination that is still evident even among a post-80s generation.

The second work, I'm A Slave 4 U, presents a Britney Spears music video that is completely recast with black actors wearing 19th century slave costumes. Staged in a theater, Britto reworks the choreography to create a dance sequence based on common slave practices like domestic chores and picking cotton. The exaggerated gestures and movements of the dancers work to enhance Spears' lyrical content and effectually render her portrayal of herself as hot-for-you, sex-slave absurd. Replacing Britney Spears is a fully clothed, gun-wielding Tubman who, as the central character, animates plantation labor set to a seductive soundtrack as a way to examine the internal complexities of race in a non-confrontational way. Britto states "My art allows me to make people more politically and culturally aware by using the customary as metaphor. . . I like to challenge the viewer and ask them to remember the past, and pay close attention to what we accept in our everyday lives as being acceptable behavior in popular culture."

In both of these works, Britto manipulates popular culture to elicit various feelings of rage, happiness, sadness, and empathy by provoking viewers to rethink how the mass media perpetuates racial and gender stereotypes. Britto uses humor to examine the discourse of black icons from a wide range of subject positions and perspectives. He uses the poster, movie trailer, and music video format as a platform to twist particular histories into compelling visual narratives that conflate truth in order to challenge perception.

Shannon Fitzgerald Chief Curator

The Contemporary Project Series introduces current work by emerging and established artists that is experimental in nature. Michael Paul Britto: Dirrrty Harriet Tubman is organized by Chief Curator Shannon Fitzgerald.

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Michael Paul Britto: Dirrrty Harriet Tubman
Kurator: Shannon Fitzgerald