Empire Archaeologies: The Symbolic Interaction of Stereotype and New Self-Representation

Abstract

Utilizing the intersection of Critical Race Theory and the de/re/constructive tenets of visual culture archaeology, this chapter proposes to explore the means by which the colonized reinterprets the colonizer through an examination of the intertextual subversions of African American artists ranging from Aaron Douglas to Kehinde Wiley. Visual culture archaeology recognizes the power-knowledge confluence that constitutes: (1) the social construction of modern Eurocentric institutions and identities; (2) the discursive matrices for the social construction of normativity; (3) socially transgressive interpretations of identity; and (4) the interrogation of visual culture as the arena wherein these contestations take place.