Wyatt AllgeierDerrick, were you familiar with Tom Wesselmann’s work before embarking on this project?
Derrick AdamsYes—actually, about two years prior to this invitation from Fondation Louis Vuitton, I had connected with the Wesselmann Estate. I reached out to them out of curiosity about the Great American Nude series in particular. I wanted to understand the historical framework around Wesselmann more generally, and their records and team were great. The more I considered the complexity and challenges of Wesselmann’s series, the more I wanted to engage in some sort of visual dialogue with it. As I’ve pondered those works, I’ve spoken with so many different people about them, and Pop art more generally. Of course, questions around accountability, the representation and disembodiment of the female body through the male gaze, and the transformation of the nude into almost a logo of America—these are all things I thought through as I approached my own series. It was important for me to shift from “depicting” toward a mirroring. It’s connected to me in a way that is not personal, but reflective.
What I’m working toward is, in a way, the opposite of Wesselmann’s subject. His series is, primarily, white women painted in a particular palette in a particular historical moment. Looking at his work makes me think about the idea of whiteness not just as a racial construct, but also as a formal color scheme constructed through the red, white, and blue flag. The colors are key. I wanted to respond to it with a variation: the Black male nude, enveloped in the colors of the Black liberation flag, as made iconic by David Hammons, of course.
WAYou’ve taken the flag and transformed it into a superhero cape. How did this element develop?
DAThinking about the mainstream iconography that American culture produces, superheroes are huge. They’re so prominent in contemporary entertainment. But the phenomenon also reaches into the past—to African mythology, Greek mythology. I wanted to extend that framework within the language of my art making. The cape became an important formal element—it makes up the backdrop. There’s very little atmosphere beyond the figure and the cape. Everything else is pretty much dark, and the cape sets the stage, where the viewer is invited in. While they’re called Super Nudes—and they do have a really strong presence—they aren’t actually doing any superhero-like action. They are in repose.
WAThe figures are ever so slightly censored.
DAThere is often a seriocomic nature to my work. It has a humorous element, but it’s a serious humor. Here, that humor comes in with the starburst that slightly obscures the crotch. Thinking about the contemporary nude, I wanted to bring in the language of social media, where so many bodies are on display. You know, when people are being provocative but not explicit, they’ll pop on a star or an eggplant or a peach emoji or whatever. That provocativeness with humor, and skirting censorship, still has a certain level of eroticism to it. This was really interesting to deploy in the context of this work. I want it to be provocative enough that it can be shared socially without being censored, but still have the same profound impact on the viewer’s visual experience.
WADo you have anxieties about how the work will be received?
DAThis is definitely more provocative than my usual! But it’s more than that, and I hope that the audience will experience it as I intend. I’m always less interested in literal depictions of things, and with the nude, I wanted to figure out how to complicate the experience of the viewer and create an image that can in no way be rejected as perverse. I was thinking about the conservatism of America as I was trying to present the figure in a way that’s seductive but not graphic. I don’t want to talk about the size of the superhero’s penis per se; it’s really more about the tonality of the figure and the vulnerability of being nude. These figures, they have power in their vulnerability. That’s what the work is fundamentally about.
