Race: John Ahearn and the South Bronx

After the controversy surrounding the 1979 commission of Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc the National Endowment of the Arts sought out artist John Ahearn for their next public arts commission to be placed on the corner of Jerome Avenue and 169^th Street. Ahearn was a symbol of communal integration for how he positioned himself in the community of the South Bronx in a structural way both as a white male resident and artist. Consequently, the NEA perceived the artist’s involvement in the community as an antithesis to Serra’s abrasive approach to public art. Ahearn’s work consists of painted bronze cast busts and full figure renditions of members in the South Bronx that are displayed in galleries andmuseums, community members’ homes, or site specific locations. He portrays the average citizen in attempts to question the conventions and glorification of the subject in traditional portraiture.

Raymond and Toby

1989

The sculpture pictured above titled Raymond and Toby was one of the three works produced for the South Bronx commission and was placed in an abandoned lot on the corner of Jerome Avenue and 169^th Street facing the 44^th Precinct NYPD. The subject matter of this work informed by Ahearns involvement in the community and the relationships he had made with certain community members. He felt that literal representations of community members, how he saw them, were honest and truthful representations of the South Bronx community. Initially the sculpture was to be on the same lot as the 44^th Precinct NYPD but Ahearn felt that placement would associate his interpretation of the South Bronx with the police presence in the community. Consequently, he placed the sculpture across the street from the police department but directed the gaze of the figure towards the police department. With the installation of this work complications arose between the artist, members of the community, and the police department.

The decision to face the piece Raymond and Toby towards the 44th precinct NYPD office was read as a confrontational gesture towards by the officers and many South Bronx residents felt that they were represented incorrectly. The placement of Raymond and Toby was a gesture that had the potential to instigate conflict between local authorities and a community that already held negative connotations with regards to racial stereotypes and complications with local authorities. In fact, the residents felt that despite Ahearn’s excellent reputation in the community he would never be able to understand the African American community experience. It was also argued that the subject of these works, real living South Bronx residents, promoted a type of image that could be perceived as a negative stereotype by people who live outside of the South Bronx. The work was removed within a week of installation due to protests made by South Bronx residents and community members. Initially Ahearn's intentions were ethically correct, but, to the dismay of the project, was unaware of how this site specific project denied community members agency over how they were being represented.