By Suzanne Révy
The art of Holland celebrates abundance, from luminous landscapes to lush portraits bathed in northern light depicting gentlemen with wide brimmed hats and ladies adorned in silks and brocades. These sublime paintings and drawings were the product of a culture that flourished politically and economically in the 16th and 17th centuries. But they cloak a dark underbelly: Dutch expansion and colonialism were fueled by the slave trade. In a gilded re-balancing of the social scales, photographer Alanna Airitam has created The Golden Age, a series of images in which the opulence and privilege depicted in 17th century Dutch paintings is transferred to those with deeper skin tones. Airitam’s astonishing shift in perspective is drenched in symbolism, paying homage to a vivid and celebrated era in painting and referencing the rich cultural heritage of the Harlem Renaissance. Presented by the Griffin Museum at the Sanborn House Historical & Cultural Center in Winchester, MA through September 1st, 2023; there will be an online artist talk on August 29th at 7:00pm EDT.
“Saint Minton” by Alanna Airitam, 2017, from the series The Golden Age, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
As an enthusiastic student of art history, I have long been enamored of 16th and 17th century Dutch painting. Rembrandt’s use of chiaroscuro in his muted self-portraits brings his presence into the room. The rise of the merchant class favored genre paintings such as those by Vermeer and DeHooch, whose use of soft window light anoints their domestic scenes, and fill me with a sacred sense of awe. And the still-life paintings by Claesz-Heda or Ruysch, for example, featuring flowers, fruits and skulls caution me with the fragility and ephemerality of existence despite the bounty of worldly goods. Airitam mines the details found in Dutch painting, and employs them to open viewers– like myself– to the imaginative potential for rethinking history and to the possibilities for a more equitable future.
“Saint Madison” by Alanna Airitam, 2017, from the series The Golden Age, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
Before photography, very few people had their picture made, and those who did were, for the most part, wealthy and powerful. Such portraits were lit and framed for gravitas or showed off the villas, mansions and lands of monarchies or gentry. They rarely featured dark faces, and when they did, they were shown in subservience. Airitam has photographed her friends and family in velvet, silk and lace, surrounded by sumptuous flora and delectable foods to impart nobility to the people who have been marginalized in the history of western art. By employing the classic use of Rembrandt light, saturated color, formal poses and sublime textiles, Airitam endows her sitters with reverence and dignity. The absence of Black faces in the western art canon is made all the more pointed and poignant in Airitam’s work.
“Saint Strivers” by Alanna Airitam, from the series The Golden Age, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
Saint Nicholas” by Alanna Airitam, 2017, from the series The Golden Age, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
Harlem was one of the first villages settled by the Dutch, along with New Amsterdam, on the island of Manhattan in the mid-17th century. It became a largely Black community after the Great Migration in the 1920’s when the Harlem Renaissance blossomed. Airitam pays homage to the streets and people of that time in titles and detailed captions written by the Griffin’s staff that can be accessed on a smartphone via a QR code. In several examples, she sanctifies her sitters with the moniker of “Saint” in her titles. Saint Strivers, for example, features a strikingly handsome woman wearing red velvet, a hat, headscarf, and holding a bounty of peonies that represents the professional class of residents who lived on Strivers Row in Harlem. In Saint Nicholas, a young man is holding grapes, which represent the bounty of creativity on St. Nicholas Avenue, home to the popular Savoy Ballroom. Most impressive is Queen Mary whose wreath of flowers reflect both African and Dutch sartorial and still-life traditions and who holds up a key symbolizing equity and empowerment.
Featured Image: “Queen Mary (The Queen)” by Alanna Airitam, 2017, from the series The Golden Age, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
The presentation of the work in a stately early 20th century mansion encourages a further dialog with the past. The Sanborn House was built by James Sanborn who made his fortune in the coffee trade, which has its own dubious ties to enslaved peoples of color in the global south. It is disquieting to gaze upon Airitam’s opulent photographs in a gracious setting that was likely built upon the backs of people who look like those in her pictures. And yet, these courtly portraits feel at home.
The Sanborn House Historic and Cultural Center in Winchester MA, featuring “Saint Abyssinian” (left) and “Saint Striver” (right) by Alanna Airitam from the exhibition The Golden Age presented by Griffin Museum of Photography. Installation photograph by Suzanne Révy.
For more information: https://griffinmuseum.org/show/alanna-airitam-the-golden-age/
“Saint Monroe” by Alanna Airitam, 2017, from the series The Golden Age, courtesy of the artist and the Griffin Museum of Photography.
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