of being in a person’s physicality, and creates an impression of individuality that will be nearly immortal. I sat down with Faisal Abdu’Allah to talk about his process during Squad, as well as his creative trajectory that brought him to where he is today. Moda Magazine:What was the biggest turning point in your art career? Faisal Abdu’Allah: I was at the Massachusetts School of Art and one of my friends gave me a book on the Harlem Renaissance. That was when I realized there was this huge community of black artists that I wasn’t aware of. I felt that I had been in a wonderland in London, like a hippie doing art about form. Then, later, I was at a Puerto Rican wedding, and while my buddy was looking for his shoes he kicked out the autobiography of Malcolm X from under his bed. He said, “English, you should read it.” (They called me English) I’ll never forget I said “nah” and kicked it back under. My friend insisted, “No, I mean it, you’ve got to read it,” and I eventually did. I read it it probably about three days. I began to see similarities in my own life. I became intrigued in the trajectory of my identity as a young black person located in the world. I saw that I could utilize the art world as a device, to articulate some powerful moments.
The Last Suppers all come from the barber shop, and moments of conversations with clients. I became interested in the identity politics of hair, and the ways in which our roots express themselves through DNA in our hair. After cutting it for so long, and understanding it as a trace of who we are, I became curious in it as a material in Print making. Printmaking has a lot of waste, and I wanted to put properties into ink to give it meaning. There are all kinds of ways for people to conceal who they are with their hair, and this intrigued me enough to begin to understand hair politically and chemically. This connection is at the core of The Common Hero. We all have the same person running through us, and this idea has been eroded away from us by governance and ways we separate each other. MM: That’s a really beautiful abstraction of what you were doing as a barber. FA’A: Barbers and other lesser respected professionals are the oracles of our society. If you go someplace you don’t know and talk to a taxicab driver, they will help you navigate. By the nature of what they do, they are research institutions. Everyone goes into a barber and tells a story. This is the same way research institutions build research, with information. I was able to build an entire project out of the process of people coming into that barber shop space. This is what gives the work credibility. Barbering is an artform, and everyone has value.
“ IT WAS VERY DIFFICULT AS A YOUNG BLACK PERSON, BEING THE ONLY BLACK FACE, BEING DEEMED THE VOICE OF THE BLACK COMMUNITY.”
MM: How did this affect your return to London? FA’A: I made a seminal work called “I Wanna Kill Sam”, and it was included in a show called “Presences”. It was five large screen prints onto steel. The subjects were five men, people would consider dressed like rappers, and they were all holding a different weapon. As you got closer the image was fragmented. That piece looked at issues of representation and misrepresentation of the black body. I received a lot of criticism, that I was making black men seem like urban gangsters. I asked my audience, what’s the problem? I grew up on a diet of 007. That man had a gun. We need to understand that in the historicization of different individuals, different cultures have been given licence to carry guns. When a black body holds it suddenly there’s an issue.
MM: Let’s talk about your installation “Squad.” When I began researching you I was surprised to learn that hair was incorporated in some of the photograph portraits. I didn’t notice that. Is this connected to your past as a barber? FA’A: Oh yeah. When I went to America in 1989 I started looking at hair. I worked in a barber shop so I wouldn’t have student debt. It was very difficult as a young black person, being the only black face, being deemed the voice of the black community. I had these two lives: the barber shop, listening to rap and reggae and seeing masculinity being played out in that space, and then at school reading all sorts of white men. I decided I would bring the narratives of the barber shop into the studio space. Ideas like
MM: How did the students become subjects for your work exactly? FA’A: I wanted my students to be the core of Squad from the start, and they actually came up with the name Squad. I asked them, “who is a person who is your equal in life? who is your advocate?” and they named those people and then we had 8 subjects. There a protest piece called Black Lives Matter that was a hoodie hung up, and I believed those artists were the next two subjects. Those students were advocates, so they’re perfect for Squad. And then the last person in Squad must be the portal into squad in other countries. I heard about this kid who was a spiritual genius named Mogadaace, he ends war, with his hand on his cap, and on either side are the students who did the protest, protecting him. Opposite on the wall are their advocates. In this way they are all heroes. The names come from associations I made with their portraits, and they picked which manifestation of a mythological hero they would become. As you walk into the show, not only do you see my own squad, you begin to recognize your own saviorship. You’re in this sacrosanct moment, where you acknowledge the other, and begin to see the other as us. Faisal Abdu’Allah is a faculty member in UW-Madison’s School of Education where he serves as an associate professor in the Art Department. His art was most recently featured in The Chazen Museum of Art, The Royal Gallery, and the Tate Museum in London. Discover more of his work on his website: www.faisalabduallah.com.
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