Chacón, Hipólito Rafael

English

University of Kentucky

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory Volume 7 Coloring Article 8 4-15-1998 Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination Hipólito Rafael Chacón University of Montana at Missoula DOI: https://doi.org/10.13023/DISCLOSURE.07.08 Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/disclosure  Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Chacón, Hipólito Rafael (1998) "Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination," disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory: Vol. 7 , Article 8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13023/DISCLOSURE.07.08 Available at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/disclosure/vol7/iss1/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory. Questions about the journal can be sent to disclosurejournal@gmail.com Hipolito Rafael Chacon Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination Mr. Imagination and Derek Webster, two self-taught African American artists from Chicago, are visionary sculptors who have caught the attention of the art world in recent years.1 With little access to traditional venues of authority and legitimacy, they would have been excluded from serious discussions of contemporary art just a few years ago. At best, they might have achieved the status of "primitives," "naives," or "savage artists" in the midst of the modern world. How-ever, they are now considered modern griots, ngagas, and babalawos, vi-sionaries who combine art making with a spiritual discipline. Not only are they part of the vanguard in contemporary art circles, but they seem to play a corrective role in a cynical society and world seemingly de-void of spirit. The late Janice Brill eloquently wrote that, Derek Webster and Mr. Imagination practice the making of art as a means to access the sacred and harness the divine. To them the art object expresses, elucidates, and connects, helping to provide meaning and purpose to a society seemingly gone adrift.. .It is through the example of such modern practitioners and through the wisdom of traditional societies that our own may be salvaged, redeemed, and healed. Sharing a deep sense of individual purpose, Mr. Imagination and Derek Webster are committed to their history, vision, and the belief that· art can heal and restore. While the "discovery" of these "outsiders" Hip6lito Rafael Chac6n, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Art History and Criticism at the University of Montana at Missoula. He teaches a number of subjects from Spanish Renaissance to contemporary American art nnd specilizes on art at tlze margins of c11/t11re. © 1998 disC/os11re, No. 7, Committee on Social Theory, University of Kent11cky, Lexingto11, KY. pp. 101-122. Hipolito Refael Charon may seem like romaticizations on the part of altogether jaded critics and historians, there is no doubt that these artists have shifted the focus of contemporary art in the post-modern world. Flattery is indeed the highest compliment and these "naives" have a fair number of admirers and copyists, even among trained artists who are taken with the prolific nature of the work, the simplicity and elegance its design, and the breadth of its vision. Derek Webster Derek Webster leads a dual life. By night he is a maintenance man in a downtown office building in Chicago, a hardworking Central Ameri-can immmigrant who has successfully carved a piece of the American pie for himself and his family in the course of three decades. The rest of the time he is a self-taught, prolific sculptor and a cause celebre in the art world, a rising star in the field of contemporary art. Since 1979 this un-trained artist has been collecting discarded materials, scrap wood, used bottles, broken dishes, and shards of colored glass to compose dynamic sculptures that seem to vibrate with electric colors and rich textures. He has transformed his home and garden in a tidy working-class neighbor-hood on Chicago's southside into a festive carnival of richly decorated whirligigs, wooden trellises, picket fences, life-size figures, and other assemblages. His sculptures are predominantly anthropomorphic figures, often with multiple identities. They are usually made from scrap wood, given dynamic poses and encrusted with broken bottles, bottle caps, old fab-rics, wigs, etc. The figures might be described as totems, haints, ances-tors, guardians or portraits of known individuals. However, the artist shies away from identifying them and it is entirely possible that he himself does not know who they are or what they represent. Critics have been tempted to associate Webster's fanciful constructions with the disparate tendencies of African American folk art of the United States or even with the gritty urban images that tend to characterize contemporary Chicago art. However, his aesthetic and cultural roots lie in his homeland Belize and therefore in the colorful festival arts of the British Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa. Fig. 1 In this construction from 1994 Webster renders two regal figures riding on the back of a turtle-like creature, whose shell is decorated with found objects much like a sumptuous carnival float. The Gulf Coast of Central America, where Webster spent his youth, is also known as the "Turtle Coast" because of the annual migration of sea turtles and the veneration of this animal in ancient times as a symbol of the regeneration of the life cycle. (Photograph by Bob Luce, Clayton Photography. Courtesy of Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana.) 102 Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination 103 Hipolito Refael Chacon Fig. 2 Webster's "turtles" are low, squat creatures with thick carapaces encrusted with broken glass, plate shards, and bottle caps. Though usually humorous in tone, these lively critters are sometimes menacing in character. This one rears its head and threatens to dismount its shocked rider, a bearded figure who sports dread-locks, jeans, and children's sneakers. (Photograph by Bob Luce. Courtesy of Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana.) 104 Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination 105 Hipolito Refael chac011 Fig. 3 This animated, almost life-size figure s trides with jagged movement and dancelike rhythm. Various parts of its body seem to bud new faces And the back view has an altogether different face, in this cAse, a haunting visage. (Photograph by Bob Luce. Courtesy of Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana.) ,,.-.... 106 Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination 107 Hipolito Refael chac611 Fig. 4 Webster's individual figures are in a constant sta te of flux. For example, a creature with recognizable features and familiar attributes transforms itself into something completely different and unexpected before our very eyes. This figure carries within its belly a frightening, ghostly image reminiscent of Edvard Munch's painting The Screnm. (Photograph by Bob Luce. Courtesy of Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana.) ,........._ 108 Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination 109 Hipolito Rafael Chacon [this page left bhmk to preserve photo quality on reverse! Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination Mr. Imagination Although Mr. Imagination comes from a long line of crafters and has been a practicing artist for as long as he can remember, he points to a near-fatal shooting in 1978 that left him in a coma for six weeks as the source of a personal and artistic transformation. That coma transported him back in time and allowed him to witness previous incarnations. Af-ter his recuperation, he began carving figures out of a sandstone-like industrial by-product collected from local smelters. The artist states that he felt much .like an archeologist removing layers of sand, dust, and dirt to reveal images that sometimes literally beckoned him from the past. He has since made hundreds of sculptures that are ambitious in design and sumptuous in detail and his recent rise to fame in artistic circles has been meteoric. His latest sculptures are thrones, staffs, rich vestments and "paintbrush people," fashioned out of discarded furni-ture, tools, and other recycled objects and covered in flattened bottle caps, imitation gems, and inexpensive stones. This body of work fea-tures the likeness of a bearded king, perhaps an ancient pharaoh, prophet, or self-portrait, as its primary subject. This work, coupled with Mr. Imagination's public success and emerging sense of business savvy, creates an image of an artist fully in control of his themes and the course of his career. In some circles, he is no longer perceived as a newly-discovered savant, subject to the tides of the art market and the critical status quo, but rather as an untiring self-promoter of an elabo-rately constructed artistic persona and self-myth. Indeed, he keeps a fe-verish schedule of production and exhibition, as well as traveling and conducting workshops and public lectures: Not only does he give away samples of his sandstone sculptures at these events, but he liberally hands out photocopied and autographed photographs of himself dressed in full regalia and seated on one of his thrones. Indeed, Mr. Imagination presents an image of a beneficient priest and enlightened pharaoh, who graces us with his largesse and visionary presence. Per-haps his is a self-delusional myth or overly inflated ego, but I know of no artist who does not possess one. The late Africanist Janice Brill wrote about him: For an artist who models so much of his work on his own physiognomy, Mr. Imagination is surprisingly free of the assertive ego which has defined the creative personality in the modern era. He is, rather, the model for everyman, from everywhere, in every time. Much of his work recalls the ancient civilizations of the Nile and the Niger ... He is the messenger from those places to ours, reminding us of the continuity between past and present, between present and future . In exhorting us to Hipolito Refael Chacon recognize and recover the beauty and wonder around us, he speaks with the wisdom of those who preceded us on behalf of the those who will follow. What seems to matter is that Mr. Imagination is unfaltering in his humanistic message that beauty is everywhere and the creative process is open to all. Fig. 1 When asked about the source of his limestone portraits of pharaohs, Mr. Imagination states that he does not know precisely what inspires them. With their probing, all-knowing eyes, these sculpted portraits of bearded rulers on staffs and paintbrushes present the possible reappearance of ancient ancestors or manifestations of the artist himself in a previous life. {Photograph courtesy of Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.) 112 Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination 113 Hipolito Rafael Chacon Fig. 2 Modern self-mythification or the reappearance of an ancient sage? Mr. Imagination wearing full regalia and seated on one of his many thrones. (Photograph by Ron Gordon. Courtesy of the artist.) 114 Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination 115 Hipolito Rafael Chacon Fig. 3 Mr. Imagination's portraits of bearded pharaohs with jeweled headresses may be evocations of ancient Egyptians but, since most of them bear an uncanny similarity to his own likeness, they are more likely self-portraits. (Photograph courtesy of Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.) -116 Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination 117 Hipolito Refael chac6n Fig. 4 The "paintbrush people" represent a case of humorous self-reference on the part of the artist. They have become favorites of artists who often collect used and discarded brushes for Mr. Imagination. Local bar owners in Chicago's Wrigleyville neighborhodd save bottle caps for him. (Photograph courtesy of Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.) 118 Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination 119 Hipolito Refael Chacon Fig. 5 Like an ancient African or Northwestern Indian totem pole, this sculpture from 1993 contains n host of ancestor figures stacked atop each other. Mr. Imagination often hears their voices as he sculpts these assemblages. (Photograph courtesy of Cnrl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, Illinois.) 120 Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination endnote 1. This photo-essay derives from interviews with the artists and the catalogue the exhibition Healing and Transformation in the Art of Africa and African America (Crawfordsville, Indiana: Wabash College, 1994) by Janice Brill and Hip6lito Rafael Chac6n. 122 Michael Caufield Blue coffee poem a wash of colors awash with color I worship I drink brown coffee brown below blue I dance toward the toaster and strangely enough I don't think of you as in Africa but out of blackness and below blue a pale memory cries from years I will let fall through blacknesses see me singing with the brown coffee outside the blue washes me clean who dares not think this could've been you Micl1ael Caufield is completing his Ph.D. in English liternture/critical theory at tile University of Washington in Seattle. © 1998 disClosure, No. 7, Committee on Social Theory, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. pp. 123. 

Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination

https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1250&amp;context=disclosure

Derek Webster & Mr. Imagination

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Kentucky