Pulling No Punches Forceful, unsettling exhibition at WhiteSpace Gallery confronts 'racism, oppression and privilege' head-on

Racial issues are never far from the surface of American life, as evidenced by racially charged exchanges among the candidates and their surrogates campaigning in the recent South Carolina presidential primaries.

Such issues take center stage in "Dispassionate Discourse: Examining Racial Disparities," an exhibition at WhiteSpace Gallery through Feb. 28. It brings together artworks dealing with race relations by 15 artists and other individuals from various parts of the United States.

The show was the brainchild of Jim Toole, a local financial actuary with a strong interest in social-justice issues. To organize the show, he and gallery owners Chevara Orrin and Marlon Hubbard collaborated with the Institute for Dismantling Racism and the Forsyth County Healthy Community Coalition, two local organizations. They solicited art from artists across the country, specifying their particular interest in works that "interpret the impact of racism, oppression, and privilege and ... depict how those forces shape disparities in the Winston-Salem community and around the nation," according to Orrin, who said that a portion of proceeds from sales of the works will benefit the Institute for Dismantling Racism.

Among the show's more pointedly critical works are several photographs, including two by Linda Hesh. Her diptych titled Lisa -- Safe/Suspect pairs two straightforward head shots of the same woman that are nearly identical except that her skin is pale and her hair blond-tinged in the image at left, labeled "Safe," while her coloration is darker in the right image, labeled "Suspect." In Race Aid Hesh plays on a common figure of critical speech -- "to put a Band-Aid on it" -- used to indicate an inadequate solution to a difficult problem. Alluding to the expression's use in discussions about racism, Hesh has created and photographed an ersatz Band-Aid box whose labeling information ironically comments on racial issues with such phrases as "multi-cultural bandages" and "White Liberal Products."

Even more effective by virtue of its scale and confrontational imagery is Andrea Ellen Reed's large-format photo diptych titled Bling Bling (2). Together, its two panels form a portrait of a young black man with his face painted coal-black except for his lips and the area around them, which are painted bright red. Peering out from beneath the hood of a dark gray "hoodie" sweatshirt, he also wears a shiny silver chain and dollar-sign medallion that he holds in one freshly blood-stained hand. The photo makes for an unsettling critique of racial stereotyping, consumerist values and their negative impact on economically disenfranchised black youth.

Sheila Pree Bright's untitled color photo from her "Plastic Bodies" series -- a tight close-up of the face of a Barbie-like doll -- comments on racial disparities as well as on social attitudes toward the female body. Although the doll's heavily lashed blue eyes look painted on and her dark hair looks similarly artificial, her creamed-coffee-colored skin and wine-red lips are eerily lifelike. Her racial identity -- if a doll can be said to have one -- is hard to determine, but she looks rather like a light-skinned black woman who has successfully adopted white American standards of physical beauty.

Less pointed in their critical approach to racial issues are four documentary photos that gallery co-owner Hubbard made in economically marginal black neighborhoods in South Africa, emphasizing aspects of daily life there.

Photographic images and printed texts removed from their original contexts are integral to San Pedro de Burque's two mixed-media pieces, which are among the show's most effective works. The one titled Politik comments on Hurricane Katrina's heavy impact on New Orleans' black population. It features a patchwork image of a black man -- partly collaged and partly painted -- brandishing a flier for a "Post-Katrina City Tour" highlighting "The Devastation" and "The Rebirth of New Orleans." Racism's continuing impact on the city and its recovery from the storm is emphasized by the words "MACHINE" and "FOR SALE," emblazoned across the man's hat and chest respectively.

Two large, surrealist-influenced narrative paintings by McArthur Freeman are impressively executed and richly allegorical in their satirical treatment of issues directly relevant to the show's theme. Particularly forceful is the one titled Gimme Some Sugah, in which an "Aunt Jemima" character stands outside in a neighborhood of modestly scaled, identical homes hawking suggestively shaped chocolate treats to other stereotypical black folks from a cart equipped with a meat grinder into which she's feeding a human heart.

Sharif Bey highlights socio-economic disparities between low-income black mothers and their more financially secure white counterparts in his clay sculpture titled The Luxury of Lactation: Asteir's Biological Clock, in which nipple-shaped beads are strung from a clock face bearing a facial portrait of Bey's wife surrounded by stylized flowers.

Also of particular interest are Bobby Roebuck's collaged drawing about the history of black slavery in the United States and Scott Betz's video montage celebrating the musical legacy of John Coltrane and other aspects of black history.

■ "Dispassionate Discourse: Examining Racial Disparities" is on view through Feb. 28 at WhiteSpace Gallery, Suite 202, Piedmont Leaf Lofts, 401 E. Fourth St. For more information, call 336-722-4671.