Teaching about Race and Racism Across the Disciplines

Part I: Domestic Workers

Content: David Hockney and erasure

A well-known master taught in schools is David Hockney. His paintings of 1960’s California are developmentally appropriate for instruction of any age and ability, whether instructing one and two point perspective drawing (primary), introducing the Pop Art movement (secondary), to studying Hockney’s contributions to the LGBTQ+ community or creation of the gay modern domestic aesthetic (higher education). Widely considered one of the most influential British artists in the 20^th century, Hockney was born in England and has several homes in California – Los Angeles, Hollywood Hills, Malibu, and West Hollywood. His affinity for suburban living can be seen in these ten works.

The Splash (1966), A Bigger Splash (1967), Portrait of Nick Wilder (1966), and Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972) are paintings that feature a rectangular concrete swimming pool in a manicured green backyard, with calm private pool water in Hockney’s signature cerulean glow.  In 2018, Hockney's 1972 work Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sold at a New York City auction for $90 million, becoming the most expensive artwork sold by a living artist.

A Neat Lawn (1966), A Lawn Sprinkler (1967), and A Lawn being Sprinkled (1967) feature lush green grass and the presence of one or more automatic sprinklers in action. All three lawn images take a square format, depict lawns that take up half or more of the composition, and show a midcentury one or two story home at the edge of the lawn, in the upper half of the composition.

American Collectors (1968), Beverly Hills Housewife (1967), and Christopher Isherwood and Dan Bachardy (1968) are double-portraits, with white people dressed in casual upper middle class clothing, effortlessly posed, in their California ranch-style homes. Fashionable midcentury furniture, an eclectic mix of sculpture, and the resounding cleanliness of the homes depicted characterize are recurring themes. In American Collectors, Hockney portrays Fred Weisman, the son of a fur and real estate tycoon, and Marcia Weisman, an esteemed art collector who later turned their home into a domestic art museum. In Beverly Hills Housewife, the artist portrays Betty Freeman, philanthropist, photographer, and avid art collector “surrounded by the cutting-edge modernist architecture of her home, which gleams in the shimmering light and open air of Los Angeles, Freeman is regally poised as the ultimate embodiment of contemporary glamour and luxury, a California dream come to life.”¹⁵ In Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, the artist depicts notable English writer and his partner, American visual artist in their Santa Monica home. Each painting features two people, implying they are the sole dwellers of their homes, an ideal living arrangement.

David Hockney is commonly believed to have the “greatest influence over the way in which Los Angeles has been represented and understood,”¹⁶ but California-based Chicano studies professor Eric Avila asks for a more “balanced articulation of the ineluctable linkages between cultural production, political economy, and urban development”¹⁷ in critique of Hockney’s artwork. Viewers are presented with curated ideals of luxury in suburbanization, but what about the factors at play that make each simulation possible? One such interpretation is the post-war boom that caused many white Americans to move out of cities into suburbs, largely due to cities becoming populated by people of color. Redlining, blockbusting, slum clearance, urban renewal, deed restrictions, zoning policies, exclusionary mortgage lending practices directed at black and Mexican-Americans further aided the massive white flight to suburban Los Angeles. ¹⁸ “In response to chronic housing shortages, the federal government offered generous home loans to war veterans, and tax benefits for home ownership… Between 1950 and 1970, the nation's suburban population doubled (from 36 million to 74 million residents), with 83 percent of the nation's growth in the suburbs. California's abundant land, cheap labor, and mild climate put it in the vanguard of the new housing movement.”¹⁹ Those benefitted from the GI Bill were mostly white while “African Americans received fewer than 2% of all federally insured home loans.”²⁰

Hockney’s decision to portray only suburbs can defined by who specifically such enclaves were meant to keep out. Such suburban homes are meant for a nuclear family, although single family households were not a documented trend until the late 1960’s, and prior most Americans were living in extended family arrangements.²¹ The magazine House Beautiful published a piece in 1950 titled “Good Living is NOT Public Living” where they equated individual home ownership with privacy. “We Americans give much lip service to the idea of privacy. We consider it one of the cherished privileges we fought a war to preserve. Freedom to live in our own lives, the way we want to live them without being spied on or snooped around, is as American as pancakes and molasses… The very raison d’etre of the separate house is to get away from the living habits and cooking smells and inquisitive eyes of other people… if your neighbors can observe what you are serving on your terrace, your home is not really your castle. If you can’t walk out in a negligee, to pick a flower before breakfast without being seen from the street or by the neighbor, you have not fully developed the possibilities of good living.”²² The fear of being “spied on or snooped” stems from a now widely refuted post-war fear of communism and surveillance, supported by active government employment of Red Scare propaganda. Polarizing language surrounding communism has also been used to misrepresent and pacify numerous multicultural labor uprisings around the country in the first half of the 20^th century. The idea that Americans “fought a war to preserve” privacy is a romantic view of overwhelmingly imperialist factors for US involvement in the war, as well downplays the role of the Soviet Union and numerous allied forces with intricate agendas. There is racial implication of “living habits and cooking smells” of others, implying ethnic foods or vocal uprisings attributed to people of color. The idea of “good living” as a prescribed state that anyone can transcend to is also exclusionary as it requires capital not available to all. “Good living” upholds colorblindness as Hockney specifically portrays white, able-bodied, affluent people. The lack of questioning of Hockey’s works speaks to dominance of white cultural relativity in the canon, paralleled by the white supremacy in art curriculum.

Interpretation that is missing from Hockney’s artwork is the attribution to a majority Mexican-American labor force that upkeeps each home. Publications like House Beautiful, real estate brokers, mortgage companies, banks, homeowners associations, architects, city planners, local governments, school boards, down to the residents of the homes themselves “ensured that their version of the [Los Angeles] myth appealed to whites only and acknowledged the presence of nonwhite peoples only to the extent of their capacity to provide cheap but invisible labor.”²³ Showing only the people benefitted from the subordination with no commentary is power-blind, as if the upkeep of beautiful homes is organic and effortless, and the need for subordinate positions does not exist. Nietzsche calls this silencing, resentment, a “practice in which one defines one’s identity through the negation of the other. This is a process governed by the strategic alienation of the other in forms of knowledge-building, genres of representation, and the deployment of moral, emotional, and affective evaluation and investments.”²⁴ The homes pictured are the only kinds of homes. The people pictured are worth portraying because they are somehow morally righteous.

Beyond moral portrayal, Hockney’s artwork upholds that “dwellers of the suburbs have appropriated the radical space of difference onto themselves, occupying the space of social injury, the space of social victim and plaintiff... All of this is accompanied by a deep-bodied nostalgic investment in Anglo-American cultural form and its European connections.”²⁵ By portraying one type of person, Hockney grants only them cultural relativism. The prevalence of a moral white main character in media, literature, and art, perpetuates the position of power. In turn, we have seen the pervasive dominance of their judgement in almost all “neutral” facets of society.

Content: Ramiro Gomez and the counter narrative

Providing an alternative interpretation of David Hockney’s artwork in an anti-racist classroom is not for the purpose of elevating one over the other. Both are valid, with the understanding that one is part of the often unquestioned tradition of how art is typically taught, while the other represents imagery and ideals more reflective of the current critical race scholarship. Ramiro Gomez re-appropriates and reframes Hockney’s work, “appropriating the language, forms, previously taken by colonizers and imbuing them with meanings that resonate with the colonized” and “taking taken-for-granted meanings or chains of signification and recasting them in ways that testify to the agency and power of the colonized or subjugated.”²⁶

Ramiro Gomez is a Mexican-American artist, born 1986, east of Los Angeles. He was raised by both his grandmother and parents-  his mother, a school janitor and his father, a trucker. Gomez attended a local community college and then received a scholarship to attend California Institute of the Arts, a prestigious arts university located in Los Angeles County. He dropped out and worked as a nanny for a family in suburban Los Angeles, in a cultural landscape similar to the ones Hockney depicted in his paintings. Working as a nanny was his way of coping with the loss of his grandmother, who helped raise Gomez. “That was a tough experience and a learning curve but one that introduced me to the kind of world that L.A. sometimes doesn’t discuss, especially in cultural products.’”²⁷ As a nanny, he “witnessed a twice-daily shift exchange: in the morning, the predominantly white population would exit the Hollywood Hills just as the predominantly brown hired help would arrive. Latino men and women who resembled his uncles and aunts adhered strictly to an unwritten hierarchy: unlike Gomez, the men who came to the house regularly to clean the pool and manicure the lawn would never set foot inside. The women who cleaned the interiors would never use the kitchen for something as simple as getting a glass of water; one had to be offered. And at 5pm, they would exit the Hills as the second shift exchange took place.”²⁸ His experiences inform his large body of art, which consists of acrylic and oil paintings, and carboard and metal installations that  contain modern interpretations of race, class, and labor in Los Angeles. Typically with a background of a “normal” setting, Gomez inserts workers that make each “scene” happen, forcing the viewer to confront what was previously taken-for-granted. For this curriculum, students are provided a counter narrative to David Hockney’s artwork with seven works of Ramiro Gomez’s “Hockney Series,” created 2013-2014.

No Splash (2013) is modeled after A Bigger Splash (1967) but instead, the pool water is uninterrupted by a splash and accompanied by two dark skin men in white shirts, jeans, and sneakers, cleaning receptacles in hand. Both are actively cleaning the pool and backyard. The diving board, patio chair, palm trees, and even shadow in the sliding glass door remains the same. Portrait of a Pool Cleaner (2014) is modeled after Portrait of Nick Wilder (1966) as it features the same two-story bungalow and round swimming pool. Instead of a shirtless Nick Wilder present in the pool relaxing alone, it is a dark skin man with a baseball cap, white shirt, jeans, in the process of working with a long-handled rake net to clean the pool.

American Gardeners (2014) is modeled after  American Collectors (1968), featuring two bearded dark skin men with jeans and t-shirts, one with a hat for sun protection and one with a leaf blower in hand. The original architecture and art decorations are still present. Beverly Hills Housekeeper (2014) is modeled after Beverly Hills Housewife (1966). The modern eclectic furniture and shiny glass window are still present, instead of the pink floor-length dressed white housewife, it is a dark skin woman with a ponytail and pink shirt, working with a broom and dustpan.

The Maintenance of a Neat Lawn (2014) is modeled after A Neat Lawn (1966) as they both feature a minimalist-style two-story one-family home. Instead of automatic sprinklers actively spraying water, it is two dark skin men in jeans and short sleeve t-shirts maintaining the lawn. One is using a rake, the other holding a hose to water the geometrically-designed shrubs against the house. The same theme is present in The Lawn Maintenance (2014) and A Lawn Being Mowed (2013) as they feature a similarly dressed man working an industrial lawn mower or weed whacker.

Gomez’s artwork helps students see that the other story exists because he acknowledges the once-invisible force has agency, often look like us, and offer capabilities other than labor. Hockney’s depictions “enforce a regime of… flawless and antiseptic presentation in the actual homes of the owners… an expectation in turn requiring this veritable army of near-invisible workers endlessly scrubbing and raking and polishing away, works as individually disposable as the stuff they were being required to dispose of, who might in turn themselves come to introject that very sense of disposability, of replaceability, of worthlessness into their own senses of self.”²⁹ Gomez’s artwork, discussion, and analysis in an art classroom is crucial in understanding collective subordination, but ultimately, collective resilience. Gomez’s artwork elicit feelings of pride and solidarity in the indispensable, irreplaceable history of Mexican-American labor. In class, teachers can mediate discussions around Gomez’s work and how it has “illuminated sources of alienation and strategies for working against forces that structure and legitimate inequality.”³⁰

Instruction: Art critiques and discussing David Hockney

The art critique framework I use with students in observing artwork consists of an opening discussion of initial observations, then independent writing time using sentence frames, followed by a Writer’s Workshop-style sharing.³¹ Sentence frames and word banks provide English Language supports and can be displayed in various formats specific to a classroom. Students receive these frames on the board, in their individual sketchbook, and are read aloud by the teacher or by students to ensure multiple modes of learning. The frames do not directly lead to disruption of norms when analyzing the images, however, the idea is to replicate metacognitive qualities necessary to begin examining an artwork while addressing colorblindness and erasure. Identifying themes may come natural to some students, however, honoring all opinions in a classroom whether right or wrong is important in this beginning stage of crafting artistic critiques.

To conduct the critique, I show one of Hockney’s artworks on the board with a think-aloud, and print individual packets containing copy of the paintings in color for each individual table. At times, the class may critique the same painting together, but for this particular unit I offer all the choices and ask students to choose one that they would like to critique.

1. When I see this artwork, the first feeling I get is __________ because __________.
2. In this artwork, there are __________ colors because __________.
3. In this artwork, there are __________ lines because __________.
4. If I was the artist, I would improve __________ because __________.
5. This artwork reminds me of another artwork, __________, because
6. I think the artist’s deeper message in this artwork is __________ because

A requirement in a Two-Way Bilingual Immersion classroom are the sentence frames in Spanish. As art class is not strictly English-only, I typically provide the same stems in Spanish for both Two Way Bilingual students as well as native Spanish speakers in my classroom to promote participation in the process, in their own language, free of assessment.

I use sentence #1 to honor the feelings and emotions of students upon seeing an artwork, I use sentence #2, #3, #5 to draw on prior knowledge, which informs the answer to #1. I use sentence #4 to foster principles of art creation as a fluid process, constant improvement, that work is never finished. Sentence #4 also appeals to the student as an expert. Student input is valued, even if there is an established art tradition. I use sentence #6 to track preexisting attitudes about Hockney’s artwork. Additional sentences to include are:

1. David Hockney paints__________ people because __________ and doesn’t paint __________people because ______________.
2. This picture tells me __________ about David Hockney’s attitude about life in Los Angeles because __________.
3. David Hockney’s work reminds me that wealthy people often have ________ to make their lives easier.
4. The people who make the pool/house look clean are __________ because __________.
5. I would/would not want to live in the house shown in this picture because __________.

When discussing, writing, and interpreting Hockney’s artwork with students, I anticipate the class will be divided among these attitudes: aspiring to live in a home like those depicted by Hockney, feeling that such homes are uninviting and overly clean, or that they prefer their own home.  Scholars of children’s literature have long written about the importance of diverse characters to challenge stereotypes in children’s books. Children respond to thoughts, feelings, and intentions of characters and are frequently taught to make connections with literature.³² Less scholarship exists about the mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors paradigm³³ in fine art, but I believe it echoes the sentiment. Students need to see themselves in paintings. If students are not similarly taught “art-to-self,” “art-to-art” or “art-to-world” connections, already frequently taught in reading classrooms,³⁴ then they are not equipped with skills to critique art as it pertains to liberation of oppressed people, nor grapple with influences of domination and subordination  of when an artist makes a choice. Ideally, white supremacy erases the nondominant narrative so intrapersonal awareness is radical.

After using the basic art critique framework and supporting student voice through writing, I would use a circle-based discussion to discuss these questions with students.

1. If you were to add more people to David Hockney’s artwork, who would you add?
2. What do you think went on “behind the scenes” before David Hockney started this painting?
3. What do you think people who have never been to California or LA think about it after seeing these pictures? (Would they be right? Is that the only true description?)
4. A lot of art historians think David Hockney is showing a normal But what does normal actually mean?
5. How do you see yourself in these artworks?

Instruction: Ramiro Gomez’s intentions through artist statements

Before diving into a conversation about Ramiro Gomez, I would let student access his artworks to gather initial reactions. Teachers may choose to display these works one at a time or provide all the works at once for student to explore. I find that the latter option is more engaging for students, as even beginning English Language Learners are able to choose their favorite. Students naturally gravitate towards what is most aesthetically pleasing to them and enjoy natural group objects. I would print all the pictures in full-color on separate pages, arrange them in clear page protectors, and put them together with a silver binder ring in no order, so students can take them out and place them wherever they want, to be returned bound when finished.

Although David Hockney’s artwork has shaped the scholarship and tradition that exists in many art classrooms- that is beyond our control, but not beyond our awareness. It is essential to discuss issues in respect to student culture, because we are aware of the damage caused from classrooms refusing to discuss issues that students encounter in their communities and at home. Acknowledgement that awareness is a profoundly personal experience but cultivation can begin for all parties through class discussion. Ultimately, student experience should be centered.³⁵ I would ask students these questions using structured student talk strategies to make it as informal and unintimidating as possible:

1. Ramiro Gomez made his artwork more than fifty years after David Hockney did, and art galleries celebrate him because they think he is original, while some people are offended by Ramiro Gomez’s artwork. Why do you think people could be offended?
2. Why is it important think about “the other side of the picture”?
3. How do you think Ramiro Gomez’s life story influences his art?
4. Do you think Ramiro Gomez’s artwork respects David Hockney’s beliefs? How?
5. How do you feel more similar to Ramiro Gomez or David Hockney? Why?

If the class expresses sentiment that Gomez’s artwork appeals very much to their personal lives, here are deeper questions could prompt students to elicit more of their personal experiences:

1. Does your life story ever influence your art like it did for Ramiro Gomez/David Hockney?
2. What kind of power does Ramiro Gomez make art about?
3. Ramiro Gomez is proud to be Mexican-American. He doesn’t believe that Mexican-Americans can be only be laborers but he knows that is a big part of his history. How do you think he shows pride, through art, or through actions?

As an introduction to the student art project, students should also learn how to write an artist statement. Artist statements are used by professional artists to support their work and give the viewer understanding. Often, it is biographical in nature. For example, this is Ramiro Gomez’s official artist statement:

“Ramiro Gomez was born in 1986 in San Bernardino, California to undocumented Mexican immigrant parents who have since become US citizens. He briefly attended the California Institute for the Arts before leaving to take work as a live-in nanny with a West Hollywood family, an experience that did much to inform his subsequent artistic practice. Gomez’s work is known for addressing issues of immigration and making visible the “invisible” labor forces that keep the pools, homes, and gardens of Los Angeles in such pristine condition.”³⁶

If there is already a culture of writing artist statements established in the classroom, I encourage the use of the same structure. If there isn’t one already in place, this is the paragraph that I have successfully utilized in the past with students in writing their first artist statements, along with the intent for each blank:

_____________ is an artist originally from _____________, but is now living in ____________. Inspired by _____________, _____________ created _____________. _____________’s artwork features colors like _____________ because _____________. In _____________’s artwork, you can typically find _____________ because _____________. The interpretation many of _____________’s artworks is ________________.

Full name is an artist originally from city, but is now living in city. Inspired by inspiration, full name created describe artwork. Full name’s artwork features colors like colors because reason. In full name’s artwork, you can typically find subject OR theme because reason. The interpretation of many of full name’s artworks is deeper meaning.

Students can come to answers on their own through research online, reading Domestic Scenes by Lawrence Weschler, watching a video, exploring the Charlie James Gallery or PPOW Gallery website, or reading an interview with Ramiro Gomez. There is a variety of ways students can formulate answers. Students may also learn through direct teaching, though it is not as democratic of a process as working collaboratively to find “answers” together. Accepting variation, yet accuracy, in the answers is one way of supporting student voice and honoring student findings. The sentence about colors can be reworked to a different developmentally appropriate artistic element or principle.

Student project: Behind the façade

Students should create a home or a room in a home. They may choose any type of home and can be given magazines, photos, and artistic renderings of homes. Be mindful that “typical” pictures of homes found in magazines may not be reflective of what students want to create, often only affirming Hockney’s supposed colorblindness and powerblindness. Magazines curate ideals based on trend, fashion, and often perpetuate the subordination of the invisible labor. Using new media such as screen grabbing images from Google street cameras or archives to find old but recognizable houses from your community are innovative ways to expand student choice. Students should be taught one or two point perspective drawing by this to ensure they have the skills to go about sketching a home. After creating the home, students are to insert two choice people into their composition. Although many may simply decide to decorate a “modern” home with two “fancy” people, now they are conscious of their decision and possess the vocabulary to explain their choices. All artistic choices should be supported with writing, as part of an assessment or in helping students create thumbnail sketches of their plan for the project. For this project, I would use tempera paint, watercolor, oil, or acrylic paint, as they closely recreate the medium both Hockney and Gomez used. Possible sentence stems to support students in explaining their compositions include:

1. I’ve chosen to create a (certain type of home) because _________.
2. The two people I have placed in my composition are __________ because _______.
3. I created an artwork more like (David Hockney/Ramiro Gomez) because ______.
4. Just like (David Hockney/Ramiro Gomez) has a message for their viewers, so do I, and it’s ______.
5. The people I chose not to portray/erase are _________ because _________.

If your school emphasizes that assessment should be language or writing-focused, requiring student answers in order to turn the project in for a grade can be made a requirement. I would place these questions on the back of the rubric students expect the teacher to place a grade. I also frequently ask students to write an artist statement about themselves to accompany their project.