At BLUM Los Angeles, the legacy of Robert Colescott is being reframed through the lens of a contemporary artist who understands the provocateur’s role in culture. Curated by Umar Rashid, The Anansean World of Robert Colescott spans five decades of the late artist’s practice, assembling around 30 works that open up a visual cosmology where power, race, and narrative collide with irony and discomfort.
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Rashid’s curatorial voice, present in his exhibition text and selection of works, introduces Colescott as a “grand trickster of the ages,” aligned with the mythological figure Ananse, the West African spider-deity known for spinning chaotic truths. Colescott’s America is not just observed but dissected and reassembled, a nation seen through the fractured mirror of satire and postcolonial critique. From his Paris years under the guidance of Fernand Léger to his irreverent takes on American history, Colescott used figuration to challenge how stories are told and who gets to tell them.
Rashid does not shy away from critiques of Colescott’s portrayals of Blackness and gender. The exaggerated features, the cartoonish sexuality, the criminalized or voyeuristic figures, these tropes remain troubling, even within satirical frameworks. Rashid’s decision to include such works reflects his belief in context over censorship. Colescott’s internalization of racism and his visual strategies, however difficult to digest, are part of a wider inquiry into American identity and image-making. To look away would be to lose the opportunity for a deeper reckoning.
Rashid draws parallels between Colescott’s methods and the maneuverings of the mythic trickster, that shapeshifter who survives by scrambling systems and making meaning in the margins. For Rashid, Colescott didn’t just paint America, he rewrote its myths, using art history, burlesque, vaudeville, and propaganda to challenge what people take for granted. This is the Anansean world Rashid invokes: one of resistance through reconfiguration, and survival through narrative sleight of hand.
In an era where social commentary in art is once again at the center of public discourse, this exhibition revives Colescott not as a static historical figure, but as an active agent in a continuing cultural negotiation. The Anansean World of Robert Colescott is on view at BLUM Los Angeles through May 17, 2025.
