David Blandy

The White and Black Minstrel Show

Hes been watching too many of his grans black n white vid collection.

Fizzy pop

a brilliant bold and simple piece. everything is perfect, well done david

LM

Love it! well done David!

DL

Yawn. Rarely has a short film felt so long, smug and entirely up its own minstrel

sugarquesne

A GREAT SONG, BEAUTIFULLY SUNG. OK, THE MIMING, AIR-GUITAR PLAYING AND TOAL PRESENTATION KNOCKED ME OUT TOO.

JAMES

Bland by name.

JK

go on david.

az

Brilliant work, David -moving , unsettling and profound - the best of the finallists. You are the only one aspiring to something more than a cool or cute aesthetic appeal.

David Andrews

crap way to use popular culture in art.

jim

Boring and dull. Take at least some lessons in clowning and mime next time!!

a proper clown

glad the judges saw fit to not award this weak work.

TJ

This work captures the ambivalence I feel being in a privileged position simply because of my skin colour.

lb

Brilliantly subversive - the best art always causes debate.

Lizzie H

pretty dull art school anti hero stuff

DP

This work is a facinating and important insight into post modern culture and is inspirational to artists such as myself. Great stuff, I hope he wins.

Adam S

David Blandy one idea done a million times. Change the record please!!!

t

Is David Blandy running out of ideas?

poo

brings a little grin to my face but i think my friend jim miming aretha franlin in a dress is a fair bit funnier...has Blandy just done something funny then just tried to bestow a deeper meaning upon it?

tony g

Is this work dealing with your problematic relationship with popular culture or about your search for your cultural position in the world. Did you grow up in colonial times? Why are you confused?

b

cindy sherman made work about the stereotyping of women in films, television and magazines in the 70s. blandy is out of date.

cecil

i do no think this was ever ment to be funny...i liked the performance...i saw past the minstrel....lol reminds me of cindy shermans works,but, more real...i digged it .

isaacs

This is about as ironic as Alf Garnett, not funny and ruins a classic song. The white and black/black and white minstrels are well past their sell by date and were never funny.

The Mack

i love it, black HUMOUR with white irony.

adnan y.

such strategies and mechanisms of subversion, irony, humour of the ybas, a nod to 70s performance art, post-colonial identity politics of the black arts movement are trivialised here. if anything it reinforces stereotypes from a privileged consumer.

KP

good song pasted on to an uninteresting idea....

jumping suete

Horrible! Anyone can dress up and lipsync to a song, no originality . . .

Laura Sherrington

pointless mime. a bad idea down the pub.

dimbo and his wid

Love his work. Bring it on.

Able Murray

The song says so much, but the film is barely interesting.

JBD

Captivating and humerous..5*

This work confronts issues of our relationship with our times and mores in a subtle, gentle and yet inescapable way. I watched the piece and felt more certain that the individual can connect with our cultural universe without fear of alienation.

G Barrett

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About the artist
My work deals with my problematic relationship with popular culture, highlighting the slippage and tension between fantasy and reality in everyday life. Either as a white man mouthing the words to the underground hip-hop classic 'Bring Da Ruckus' in 'from the underground' (2001), or being taught how to make art by the deceased martial arts star Bruce Lee in 'emotional content' (2003), I'm searching for my cultural position in the world. I try to use humour to ask the thorny question of just how much the self is formed by the mass-media of records, films and television, and whether I have an identity outside that.

About the work
Using the character of the White and Black Minstrel (an inverted Black and White Minstrel) I perform 'live' lip-syncing to songs like 'I'm Black and I'm Proud', 'The Revolution will not be televised', or, as in this case, 'Is it because I'm black?'. This clownish figure, with a 'whited-up' face, has come to embody my cultural confusion in this post-colonial world. In a cavernous art-deco theatre, I mime to every note, dancing, posing, even doing air-guitar to the solo. But despite the clowning, no matter how emotive the performance, the irreconcilable natures of the song and the performer remain.

Additional credits:
The Cameraperson was Claire Barrett, who I work with on most of my recent productions. She consents to submitting this work, and its use by Jerwood. Features the song "Is it Because I'm Black" (1969), a Syl Johnson original performance and production, written by Syl Johnson, Jimmy Jones and Glen Watts, produced by Syl Johnson for the Syl-Zel Music Company (p) 1986.

* Ratings do not contribute to the panel's decision.