1988
How Ya Like Me Now
First painted in 1988, David Hammons' 20-foot-high painting on tin billboard appeared on a street corner in Washington, D.C., facing the National Portrait Gallery. The painting depicted black civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson with white skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. Scrawled across the bottom, in graffiti-like script, were the words, taken from a song by the iconic eighties Rap artist Kool Moe Dee, "How Ya Like Me Now." Shortly after the painting was installed, without a label or any other indication that it was a work of art, a group of young black workers attacked the billboard with sledgehammers, partially destroying it. The painting was ultimately returned to Hammons, who re-created the work and installed it inside mounted to the gallery wall with a row of sledgehammers in a row directly in front of it. The vandalism inflicted on the work at its unveiling ultimately became a part of it. As David Hammons later said about the vandalism: "Whenever you put something outside you have to be prepared."
How Ya Like Me Now was Hammons' contribution to a Washington Project for the Arts exhibition entitled The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism. Curated by Rick Powell, the exhibition included a series of outdoor installations by seven African-American artists across Washington, D.C. While most of the outdoor installations were placed on private property, How Ya Like me Now was the only work placed on city property. It thus required additional approvals that significantly delayed its installation. For Hammons, the location of the work was critical to its meaning. Facing the National Portrait Gallery, the painting was a comment on the lack of diversity in the institution's collection. But more importantly, its presence in the nation's capital during Jesse Jackson's second run for President was an overtly political act. As Hammons has said, "This was a very on-the-edge experience. I think if Jackson had been white, he would have been elected long ago. I wanted the white community to see that very clearly - basically, how racism in America works." Depicting Jackson with pale skin, blond hair, and blue eyes, alluded to the belief that even the most influential black cultural figures were expected to assimilate into white culture.
The use of the quotation How Ya Like Me Now from eighties rap with the image of a prominent civil rights leader brings into question the nature of racism in American culture and politics. As Ellie Clarke has stated, "Many argue that the framing of an icon of black political solidarity with hip-hop graffiti was a way in which Hammons comments on the disparity between the civil rights generation and the incipient hip-hop generation. Perhaps black leaders, such as Jackson himself, were prepared to assimilate into a predominately white government. In which case, had their struggles been in vain?"
By placing the work outdoors in the heart of Washington, D.C., Hammons ensured that its political message would resonate. As curator Rick Powell has said, "For me it is very evident what it is about - are your likes or dislikes about people based on race? That was the question it was posing to people." And indeed, the work initiated a visceral and angry response among passers-by who took the painting as a cruel insult and because it was installed just three feet off the ground, it was an easy target. When asked about Hammons' depiction of him as a white man and the painting's subsequent destruction, Jesse Jackson said, "Sometimes art provokes...Sometimes it angers, which is a measure of its success."
Oil Paint and spray paint on tin billboard - Washington Project for the Arts. Private Collection.
