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The Coconut Chutney Series From the obvious - Disneyland, Vegas, Atlantic City - to the less so - the naming of rock formations at Grand Canyon as Buddha's Butte and Shiva's Temple - to countless sites/sights in between, orientalism is not only invoked in the American landscape, but dizzyingly and shamelessly celebrated. This series draws upon this peculiar triangulation of Indian, English and American excess. In Mama India, Hindi film posters vie with architectural inserts from the Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, NJ, while gemlike lozenges, containing nineteenth century ethnographic portraits of "native types," plunge into an unseen black hole. Fanon's classic phrase is thrown back: who's scaring whom? In Taj Company, holiday brochures meet the Aladdin Casino meet the Raj. The flags carried by the soldiers have the dual distinction of being the first American Union flag as well as the flag of the British East India Company. In Bombay Fling, English officers dress up as Indians, their haloed heads perched on native bodies, while the ubiquitous waiter serves cocktails. As with the sleight-of-vision architecture and fools-gold dazzle of casino culture - and the acid green colouring of coconut chutney, with "coconut" being an accusation of attempted 'passing' - nothing is as it seems. Mimicry and masquerade, but who and as what?
-Allan deSouza
Allan deSouza is an artist/writer living in Los Angeles. He was an active participant of the Black Arts movement in Britain during the 1980s and has exhibited extensively internationally. He is the author of a book, The Sikhs in Britain, and his fiction and critical writing have appeared in numerous journals. Satellite Show - The Campos Group |
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