Ralph Arnold was a Chicago-based artist and community leader, active in the 1960s and 70s. His multi
Ralph Arnold was a Chicago-based artist and community leader, active in the 1960s and 70s. His multidisciplinary practice integrated elements of collage and assemblage to critique American popular culture and mass media, synthesizing aesthetic devices from Pop Art, Dada, and the Chicago Imagists. Arnold’s layered iconography is informed by his experience as a Black, gay, Korean War veteran; in many ways, the complexity of his collages call attention to the multifaceted nature of identity.Keenan Teddy Smith for Hyperallergic writes Arnold’s pieces “illustrate the ways in which Black gay men in the mid-20th century salvaged, from disillusioning white print and television media, representations of what their being could mean… [his work] responded to the absence of a vocabulary for Black gay men regarding who we are, what we experience, and who we might become. Arnold and others contributed to a visual glossary reflecting our potential.” -- source link
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