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Ray Caesar’s Brand New Retro

Exquisite Corpse Go with me, my “pretense” of English-speaking Africaness. See how I see the work of the new, high-tech computer animator turned “visual artist,” Ray Caesar from the Wired article selecting works that depict the oversized heads of Caucasoid women.

At first glance, the selections of Wired’s Rachel Metz remind me of the ballerinas of Cezanne and Sister Wendy’s interpretation of Cezanne’s misogynistic and impressionistic motives.

Next, we move to the ‘dark side’ and we see that here in my Africa, matriarchy rules because it makes sense. Africans make their own people. This means African cultures value life. Women are essential in this life sustaining process. This means you won’t find The Monumental Temple of Ass Candy in Thebes or the Colossal Pylon of Woman Hatred in Luxor.

So Ray Caesar shows me womanhood from the point of view of misogynistic patriarchy. I am not so simple minded to imply that Ray Caesar is a misogynistic patriarch—I will assume that he is bright enough to find that images of womanhood in the modern Western world are peculiar and confused. I am sure that he has met more than one Westernized woman with or without alabaster skin quite peculiar and quite confused.

Ray Caesar shows women with large heads indicating child-like proportions and intelligence simultaneously. He shows women as insect-like/machine-like alien life forms adorned in ceremonial refinements of monarchic Europe. His work, “The Burden,” shown at left in this Blog post gives new meaning to the condescending phrase “Don’t worry your pretty little head.”

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