TikTok users call out plagiarism of black cowboy painting, sparking change at the guggenheim

black cowboy paintings at Guggenheim Bilbao spark controversy

A recently opened exhibition at the Guggenheim Bilbao has sparked social media controversy over the artworks of participating Basque artist Gala Knörr. Depicting a Black cowboy from various angles, the paintings have been called out over concerns of plagiarism by TikTok and Instagram users, who have spotted similarities between Knörr’s works and ‘BLUE’, a short film by queer Black multidisciplinary artist dayday, who is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Directed by dayday, ‘BLUE’ tells the story of Ezekiel ‘Blue’ Mitchell, a young Black cowboy and professional bull rider from Baytown, Texas. During the opening scenes of the film, Mitchell turns back and looks at the camera, in a pose that appears almost identical to that in one of Knörr’s paintings, ‘Young Cowboy Gazing (2022)’, which depicts a Black figure in a cowboy hat glancing backward. Although it’s not so uncommon for artists to reference film stills in paintings, what has prompted the controversy online is the fact that Knörr has blatantly ‘ripped off’ the original image without crediting dayday as her reference. Instead, her work’s description cites the cowboy archetype in American pop culture, ‘the young Afro-American Brianna Noble on horseback’, and the Black Lives Matter movement as her references.

According to the exhibition text, works in ‘Basque Artist Program’ address issues like identity, history, representation, and individual and collective memory. In particular, Gala Knörr’s paintings address the image of the cowboy in American popular culture. ‘The image of the cowboy is an archetype produced by advertising, the cinema, and the media that nevertheless hides an important part of its history, since its origin lies in colonialism and in a mixture of races, cultures, and provenances,’ reads the description. ‘Gala Knörr investigates and retrieves some of these figures, forgotten by literature and iconography despite their major role in helping to develop the economy of the American West. The artist’s revision of this narrative is inspired by the image of the young Afro-American Brianna Noble on horseback, one of the numerous photographs of the protests that erupted in the USA within the context of the “Black Lives Matter” movement after the murder of the Black man George Floyd.’

Gala Knörr (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1984), Young Cowboy Gazing, 2022, Oil and oil pastel on canvas, 162 x 130 cm, Artist’s collection | Photo © Gala Knörr, via Guggenheim Bilbao

DAYDAY’S FILM NOW EXHIBITED ALONGSIDE Gala Knörr’S PAINTINGS

Art consultant and curator Alexis Hyde was one of the first to highlight the concerns over plagiarism in Knörr’s paintings through her TikTok account. ‘This white woman artist is out there trying to talk about erased Black history while she is actively erasing Black history and this Black artist’s creations,’ Hyde notes in one of her videos.

After a few days of commenting and tagging on social media, the Guggenheim Bilbao, the curators and artists dayday and Gala Knörr, announced that they have agreed that together with Knörr’s work, the film ‘BLUE’ will be exhibited along with an artist statement, marking the visible source of inspiration for Knörr.

video still from short film ‘BLUE’ by dayday

 

 

short film ‘BLUE’ by dayday

 

 

statement released by the Guggenheim Bilbao on July 13, 2022

sofia lekka angelopoulou I designboom

jul 13, 2022