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Until the other day, I’d never heard of Thomas J. Price, a black British sculptor who, it turns out, is an absolute genius. No, not an artistic genius – a genius at exploiting today’s vile, vapid cultural politics for fame and profit.
On June 25, the Guardian ran a glowing article by Senay Boztas about Price’s latest masterpiece: a 13-foot high bronze statue entitled Moments Contained that, since June 2, has been standing in front of the central railway station in Rotterdam. Now, whom would you expect to be memorialized in this way in such a prominent location in that city? A few years back, my first guess would’ve been Erasmus, the Renaissance humanist who was born there in 1466. My own choice would’ve been Pim Fortuyn, the martyred patriot and critic of Islam who spent much of his career as a professor in the Netherlands’ second-largest city.
But no. Price’s statue, as Senay Boztas writes enthusiastically, doesn’t represent “a man who did something, a naked white sylph or someone’s colonial hero.” Instead, it depicts “an ordinary-looking black woman.” Ample-breasted, her hair in a bun, she’s dressed in what looks like a t-shirt and track pants. Her hands, apparently clenched into fists, are in her pants pockets. Legs spread, she leans back in a way that will look familiar to anybody who’s ever seen a certain type of black woman being, shall we say, ingracious with a store clerk. Her stance, and her facial expression, are defiant, challenging. She seems to be saying, “Don’t f*** with me.”
According to Price, Moments Contained portrays “a fictional character intended to connect.” It seeks “to critique this idea of status and value within society: who gets to be seen, to be represented.” And it’s intended “to make viewers more aware of what we’ve been told about power, materials and value.” Marjolijn van der Meijden, who advises the city on public art, appreciatively notes that it “isn’t an exalted representation of someone exotic. It’s just yourself, how you are, not a ‘super’ version. And how many images of black women are there?”
That’s the big lie here: that in the Western world, in the year 2023, black women are powerless, invisible, unrepresented, unlauded. The truth, of course, is the total opposite. We live in a time when, solely on the grounds of their sex and race, staggeringly incompetent women of color like Kamala Harris and Karine Jean-Pierre have been lifted to heights of political power far beyond their levels of competency. A time when black actresses are hired to play white historical figures like Anne Boleyn and Cleopatra. A time when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is making even more roles for blacks and women a prerequisite for Oscar consideration, even though minorities, these days, seem, if anything, overrepresented in film and TV.
One example: in the U.S., black people, and especially black women, are far more visible in TV commercials than in the actual population. And they’re always portrayed positively. Believe it or not, this overrepresentation is even more dramatic in the two European countries I know best, the Netherlands, where blacks form a mere 2.8% of the population, and Norway, where they’re 2.5% – but where a foreigner monitoring TV commercials might reasonably conclude that both nations are, at the very least, a third black.
Why such crazy numbers? In the U.S., leftists contend that even today the legacy of slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow impedes black success and that it’s their sacred duty to overcome this impediment. Nonsense. But even more absurd is the exportation of this white guilt to Europe. Consider this: at the site of Moments Contained, Boztas met art students from a school that’s already put Price’s statue on its curriculum. Not its art curriculum, mind you: its “curriculum on the Netherlands’ history of colonialism and slavery.” Never mind that the Dutch Empire overwhelmingly exploited Indonesians – a small, slightly built people who could scarcely look less like Price’s full-figured black woman.
As noted, Price says his statue is of a “fictional character.” So is the Statue of Liberty. But the latter represents something noble. Price’s black woman has nothing noble about her. You’d never take her for Barbara Jordan or Ethel Waters or Zora Neale Hurston. On the contrary, she’s plainly intended to be emblematic of the near-feral subset of black women who, in the post-George Floyd era, have committed arson, looted stores, defecated on sidewalks, and harmed innocent fellow citizens because they’ve been told by the likes of Ibram X. Kendi that they’re eternal victims who owe nothing and are owed everything.
And that’s exactly what this statue comes down to. It’s a piece of art that is congratulating black women – and not just black women, but the very worst of black women – simply for being black women. And in that sense it’s a quintessential artifact of this perverse era of ours when individual virtue or iniquity counts for nothing and identity-group membership is all – this era when no attribute is more commended than blackness, and when being a black woman, and hence a victim of intersectional oppression, is particularly wonderful.
As it happens, Price’s statue was donated to the city by a foundation whose director, Wim Pijbes, maintains that it “spoke to him the moment he saw it.” Spoke to him how? His answer: “I’m an art historian, so I am aware of Black Lives Matter and toppling sculptures.” For Pijbes, in other words, this artwork’s appeal is, quite explicitly, that it celebrates the kind of person whom you can picture as a BLM member, razing statues of Washington or Lincoln – or, to switch to a Dutch context, of Rembrandt or Spinoza. And that’s why he liked it.
In Western Europe, many people who fret about the continent’s current demographic trends have been called racists and accused of embracing the so-called “replacement theory” – that is, the idea that a majority white Western Europe will soon be mostly non-white. As it happens, Rotterdam’s native Dutch population is already well below 50%. Most of the non-Dutch residents, in Rotterdam as elsewhere in the Netherlands, are Muslims, relatively few of whom would be considered black. And that Muslim population, alas, far from being a blessing to the country, has been, to put it mildly, a financial burden and a sociocultural nightmare.
So it’s illuminating to read that when Ahmed Aboutaleb, Rotterdam’s mayor, who is Muslim himself, unveiled Moments Contained, he declared with manifest satisfaction that Price’s woman is not someone with “an illustrious past” but is, rather, “the future, our future, and this city is her home.” How to understand Aboutaleb’s statement as anything other than a happy acknowledgment that Rotterdam’s future is non-white – and that that future belongs, moreover, not to robust, imaginative people of color who will sustain the Dutch heritage of liberty, prosperity, and cultural and scientific triumphs but to semi-civilized miscreants who are consumed by irrational anger, a sense of entitlement and anti-white bigotry?
Alas, Aboutaleb is almost certainly right: Price’s statue, in all likelihood, offers a portent not just of Rotterdam’s future but of Western Europe’s. But far from being something to cheer, it’s a dire warning of truly terrible times to come.
And the “artist” didn’t sculpt it or shape the cast with his hands ans skill. It’s obviously some kind of copy made by machine.
A machine most likely conceived and developed by westernkind.
It wasn’t developed in darkest Africa or a ‘hood, that’s for sure.
My neighbor (prof of art history) had some wood carvings he brought back from Africa. One had an extremely long male member. We kids used to play around it when we were in elementary school 🙂
Wonderful article. I was confused as to the “Arts” meaning. I first thought the Europeans were making fun of Americans. The idea being we (Americans of all races) are as dumb as the type person depicted by the “Art.” I put art in scare quotes twice.
And if we though stuff like Piss Christ and scents and shivers was bad enough and that screwball Cristo was crazy
If your were raised with a father who saved string and had a separate box called ‘string too short to save’, you will never forget nor forgive the ABOMINATION that was Megalomaniac Cristo with his huge, enormously wasteful projects that cost millions and were merely ‘stunts’ that were then taken down.
The Muslim mayor said it all, told the truth and exposed the United Nations Agenda 2030 which brings equity to the western world by importing millions of fake refugees.
This year almost every European country has had half a million migrants each. Britain included.
The global world order is people trafficking.
Plus, was the artist anything other than a white man?
As for Rotterdam, the art matches its awful architecture which they built after the Germans levelled it, they chose to destroy the rest of the traditional city.
Better suited as cover art for the book “White Girl Bleed A Lot.”
We should probably get used to this kind of ugly “art.” Those statues that were torn down in the US will need to replaced with something — here’s a taste of what could be in the works. About as ugly as it gets.
But no nudity! No white supremacy!
It will not be long before those white statues start be be removed in Rotterdam and the rest of the country to make room for more Third World statues. Next, the name of their schools will have to be changed as well. It won’t be long before they look just like America, another third world country. You Dutch are doing a great job. Keep it up!
My new question I always ask myself when confronted with these things: “What accomplishment is being celebrated?”
The answer is almost always “being a victim with he right skin color.”
Looks like Sistah Souljah has met the “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman”.
Harry Archer:
What made her grow like that?
Dr. Victor Loeb:
You menctioned that she began growing when she got angry. Clearly it’s stress related. The blood tests show that her hormone levels are abnormally high.
Harry Archer:
Congratulations, Doctor. You’ve just discovered a new kind of PMS.
“It seeks “to critique this idea of status and value within society: who gets to be seen, to be represented.”
Who gets to be seen? Well, based on TV ads, black females are as “seen” as anyone. You’ll also see black men, gays, an occasional Muslim or Sikh, a few stupid white men, and practitioners of meditation, yoga, and Tai Chi. But you are extremely unlikely to see a Christian or a Hassidic Jew.
And nearly all the scientists, doctors, people in authority and athletes in commercials are women. And black and white couples are almost exclusively black men and white women.
Vile.
Commercials have a LOT of money and thought behind them. Their very purpose is to sway public opinion. Before wokeism, the aim was to increase profits. Now, the woke corporations have joined the “long march” and receive encouragement from globalist technocrats, who promise rewards for those who have high ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) scores. Western civilization must be destroyed if our Marxist future is to be realized, and with it, the people who created and maintain western civilization must be destroyed.
Go here and read the FAQs, especially “What is the United States Law Regarding Genocide.”
Thanks, Kynarian I’ll read it gladly.
Those globalists obviously want to rule over us economically while we toil as proles to sustain their wealth and privilege. They’re truly evil and want to seize control of the Western world through bureaucratic fiat. That Bond villain at the recent World Economic Forum admitted it publicly, and so did the entire cabal of evil at the forum.
I think what they are saying is that nobody wants a black woman? I wonder if any black women notice.
Who wants any woman in sweat pants?
Yeah, yuck. There are plenty of apparel choices for women when they’re feeling lazy that aren’t hideous and unflattering. Women shouldn’t even wear sweat pants when they exercise. Neither should men. The only thing they’re good for is as pajamas but even then, blankets are better.
I’m pretty good at Mister Potato Head™.
What’s my earning potential? Should I go Russet or Baking?
Anything but baby reds. Only red diaper baby commies like those.
I usually like what I read on this site but I feel you read into the statute a lot of things that are not there. I got the feeling that you hate black people. I don’t really like the statue but we need to keep separate our dislike for art, which is a very personal choice, and our attitudes toward others who are not like us.
What’s the matter with you? It’s the Netherlands not Africa. Europeans have NO OBLIGATION to display anything from Africa, most of which is ugly like this monstrosity. As an artist I am sick and tired of having ugly forced down my throat just because you people like ugly. And stop putting us white women in commercials, television and film with black men and moslem children. It’s all degrading and highly offensive.
That’s ridiculous. Re-read the article for a better understanding. It’s the statue that is crass and racist, and personal choices don’t make works designed to elevate one demographic and denigrate all others isn’t art, it’s garbage conceived in hatred.
Art is one thing, where you display it is another. Did you not understand what the mayor was saying when he said what this display represents? This is an “in your face”, anti-racist statement in the middle of a busy city to the people of a country 97% white. Its positioning and message is not artistic, it’s political. It has no more artistic value than BLM graffiti on a wall in St. Louis.
1. “Reading into [statue] a lot of things that are not there.” Art is communication. The Supreme Court just correctly ruled it is protected speech. I think the message of this statue is clear and powerful. What do you think is the intended message?
2. I am probably in your frame of people who “hate black people.” My question to you is this: Is it possible to hate a message given by someone who is black without hating the messenger or the ethnic group from which he comes? Do you see the subtle racism of your frame?
3. Likewise, is loving your own people hatred against those who are not in this group? Is desiring the preservation of one’s people equivalent to desiring the destruction of another?
Your article reminds me of someone Ask TJ Sotomayer, a Podcaster since 2009 and psychologist, what he thinks about this sculpture. LGMAO
I just looked at a few of his videos. They’re good stuff. I’m always heartened when I see blacks who tell the truth about stupid, racist gutter blacks, and he does it in an unexpurgated manner. He said “it’s a waste of time talking to n!&&-%$ and that most blacks are stupid. The guy doesn’t hold back. and knows blacks have nothing in common with those people besides race, which is meaningless.
” . . . Price’s full-figured black woman. ”
( fata$$ed sheboon )
“Full figured” is a euphemism for fat and dumpy.
With the facial features of a white woman she lacks the depth and breadth of a true colored woman….I mean woman of color. Aunt Jemima, who was the face of delicious pancakes and syrup, was the friendly, capable, homey, and lovable Aunt who always had a ready smile while millions of Americans ate our meals. A reassuring face with a smile that never disappointed, and consistently satisfied. She is certainly deserving of a lasting memorial cast in bronze. Even the racist, cross burning bigots of the early 20th century were consumers of Aunt Jemima products.
Wikipedia has a ton of info about her and the actual women who posed for those pictures, and makes for an interesting read.
Thanks, I’ll read that, even though most of Weakapedia is left-wing garbage and lies. I never knew there were actual models for Aunt Jemima. When I was a kid that was my favorite syrup just because the top of the bottle was shaped like her head. She’s gone now, along with Uncle Ben. Leftists are ridiculous as well as being fascists. Next they’l try to get black chefs’ images off their own line of grocery products, like Stubbs barbecue sauce for example. Left-wing scum are a bane on civilized society.
The families of the Aunt Jemima models are fighting the disappearance of the brand, feeling that their ancestor’s legacy and person will be erased.
I am old enough to remember the dolls that were based upon Aunt Jemima. They were very simple, but beautiful. Very cuddly for small children.
I hope the ancestors of the Aunt Jemima models win, although Pepsi Co is a very powerful and very evil “woke” company.
I didn’t know about the dolls.
The notion that depictions of beloved aunts and uncles who provide comfort are racist depictions is irrational to the point of insanity. Leftism needs to be expunged from America by any means, preferably mass protests and boycotts. I don’t know what the former Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben products are called now but no way in Hell will I ever buy one. I use real maple syrup but after reading about Aunt Jemima being “cancelled,” I think I’ll experiment and mix real maple syrup with fake syrup. I’ll bet the maple flavor overpowers the corn syrup based one and I’ll save money. I’ve been eating pancakes lately, by coincidence.
The Western woke politicians want to make their countries a mixture of Lebanon with its sharia and religious conflicts, South Africa with tribalism and racial tensions and globalism with its pagan love of the environment. This is being achieved through massive immigration of 3rd world people with no concern for the effects on the national culture.
This “sculpture,” of a generic (but no particular) black woman with quasi-Negroid features, and celebrated by the Left as somehow telling her race’s struggles and suffering as slaves at the hands of white Europeans and Americans over the centuries, is an insulting disgrace.
It should be removed from its pedestal, melted down, and the bronze(?) smelted, tested for purity, and used for something else. How about One-Euro coins with legal tender value?
The “artist/sculptor” has no talent, no Gift for creating moving, important art, and no “message” that’s worth listening to, paying attention to, or anything else worth even thinking about, beyond wondering how in the world his insulting, mediocre “work” was ever placed in the public square of this once-proud city.
the face on the statue sure has that I’ve been well trained to hate… look….
It’s bad, it’s not even art, but it’s typical of what political correctness has done to the art field. An artist has to be extremely sensitive these days to such issues.