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Whiteness and Masculinity in Richard Lou's ReCovering Memphis: ReContexting Bodies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2019

JODY STOKES-CASEY
JODY STOKES-CASEY*
Affiliation:
College of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Email: jodyls2@illinois.edu.
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Abstract

In 2016, racist, patriarchal rhetoric dominated the political landscape of the United States. As a response, activist artist Richard Lou of Memphis, Tennessee created a video piece as part of his series ReCovering Memphis titled ReContexting Bodies. In the artwork, Lou performs whiteness by re-creating photographs and reciting words of historic Civil War leaders Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest and President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis. With his racialized body, Lou confronts the foundations of white supremacy in the United States American South. ReContexting Bodies examines how two historic identities of southern masculinity shape contemporary biases.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , pp. 407 - 429
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2019

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References

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31 For a more complete timeline of Civil Rights events in Tennessee during the 1950s and 1960s see David Risser, ed. “October 1960: The Untold Story of Jackson's Civil Rights Movement,” Jackson Sun (2004), at http://orig.jacksonsun.com/civilrights/sec2_tn_timeline.shtml, accessed 2 Dec. 2017.

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39 Phone interview between the author and Richard Lou, Bloomington, Illinois/Memphis, Tennessee, 28 Sept. 2017.

40 Latorre, “The Art of Disruption,” with quote from phone interview between Latorre and Lou, Columbus, Ohio/Memphis, Tennessee, 11 July 2016.

41 Ibid.

42 Michael McLaughlin, “The Dynamic History of #BlackLivesMatter Explained: How a Hashtag Transformed into a Movement,” Huffington Post, 29 Feb. 2016, at www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/history-black-lives-matter_us_56d0a3b0e4b0871f60eb4af5, accessed 5 Dec. 2017.

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47 Latorre, “Art of Disruption.”

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49 Ibid.

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58 Ibid. His reference to Charlottesville refers to an Alt-Right/Unite the Right rally at the University of Virginia that resulted in violence and three deaths (one civilian killed by a car plowing into the crowd of counterprotestors and two officers from a police-monitoring-helicopter crash) the next day. A timeline of the protest was published by Joe Heim, “Recounting a Day of Rage, Hate, Violence, and Death,” Washington Post, 14 Aug. 2017, at www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/local/charlottesville-timeline/?utm_term=.e20698fcf2c4, accessed 12 Dec 2017.