Mammy Under Undue Influence

Inscriptions

Signed, inside bottom edge, in silver ink: Joyce J. Scott 2007

Label

A blend of stitched glass beads and blown and cast glass, Scott’s Mammy Under Undue Influence combines the artist’s training in traditional African and Native American beading practices with cultural criticism. Resulting in an uncanny sculptural portrait of a Black domestic worker (“the mammy”), Scott reinvents the historically racist archetype with an experimental aesthetic. In her own words, “this mammy speaks to the person trying to change herself from the core, so she might be whiter/prettier on the outside for society. The skirt is her skin as dressing, not so easily removed. Her desire to exchange her soul-self for a society-self shows how undue this influence is.”

From the 2023 exhibition Homecoming: Domesticity and Kinship in Global African Art, curated by Alexandra Thomas, Curatorial Research Associate

Course History

HIST 6.3, AAAS 88.2, WGST 38.2, Women and Gender in the African Diaspora, Rashauna Chenault, Spring 2012

REL 7, Dark Goddesses and Black Madonnas, Elizabeth Perez, Winter 2013

ANTH 3, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Winter 2015

ANTH 3, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Winter 2015

AAAS 67.5, GEOG 21.01, Black Consciousness and Black Feminisms, Abigail Neely, Winter 2019

ARTH 89.05, Art History: Theory and Method, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Fall 2019

AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021

First Year Student Enrichment Program – Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Colleen Lannon, Summer 2023

First Year Student Enrichment Program - Cultures, Identities and Belongings, Mokhtar Bouba, Summer 2023

Philosophy 1.11, Art: True, Beautiful, Nasty, John Kulvicki, Summer 2023

Writing 2.05, Why Write, Anyway?, Erkki Mackey, Fall 2023

Writing 5.24, Photographic Representations, Amanda Wetsel, Fall 2023

Writing 5.25, Photographic Representations, Amanda Wetsel, Fall 2023

Exhibition History

New Humanisms, Art History 5, Winter 2020, Mary Coffey, Associate Professor of Art History, Chad Elias, Assistant Professor of Art History, Teaching Exhibition, Class of 1967 Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, January 18, 2020 – March 15, 2020.

A Space for Dialogue 79, Traditional Connections / Contemporary Practice, Nicole Gilbert, MALS 2015, Hood Exhibition Coordinator, Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 26, 2013 - January 19. 2014.

Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 1-August 10, 2008; Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, September 10-December 10, 2008; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, California, January 21-April 26, 2009

Homecoming: Domesticity and Kinship in Global African Art, Harteveldt Family Gallery, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, and Northeast Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 22, 2023–May 25, 2024.

Made in the Middle: Constructing Black Identities across the African Diaspora, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Anthropology 3, Winter 2015, Chelsey Kivland, Teaching Exhibition, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, November 15, 2014-March 15,2015.

Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, September 26,2009-March 15, 2010.

The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, May 22-September 6, 2021; Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, Texas, October 28-February 6, 2022; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, March 12-July 25, 2022; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, Colorado, September 1, 2022-February 1, 2023.

Publication History

Barbara Thompson, Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body, Seattle: University of Washington Press [Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College], 2008, p. 334, plate 116.

Brian P. Kennedy and Emily Shubert Burke, Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2009, p.133, no.106.

Nicole Gilbert, A Space for Dialogue 79, Traditional Connections / Contemporary Practice, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2013, ill. p. 1.

Valerie Cassel Oliver, The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse, Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in association with Duke University Press, 2021, ill. p. 191, cat. no. 103.

Provenance

The artist; sold to present collection, 2007.

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