The Memphis Flyer: May 13 -May 19, 1993

"Heroes, Hypocrisy, & Malcolm X: A controversial multimedia installation opens this week at The National Civil Rights Museum."

by Dennis Freeland

We learn to like to be the heroes

We learn to lie to be brand name Negroes

We learn to laugh to avoid being angry

What will we do to become famous and dandy just like Amos 'n Andy

--"Famous and Dandy (Like Amos 'n Andy)" The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy

Jst Bcz Ur Paranoid Dnt Thnk Thyr Nt Aftr U, a multimedia installation at The National Civil Rights Museum is being called "the most controversial exhibit we've ever had" by museum director Juanita Moore.

Created by X-PRZ, a biracial group of four artists -- Doug Anderson and Mark Pierson of Boston, and Kenseth Armstead and Tony Cokes of New York -- the installation debuted at New York's Alternative Museum earlier this year. Memphis is the first stop on a national tour which includes Chicago and Cleveland.

The four members of X-PRZ come from different mediums. Anderson is a painter, Pierson a musician, Cokes a video filmmaker and Armstead the designer. He installed the exhibit in the gallery at the Civil Rights Museum.

"We try not to worry about the truth," Armstead said earlier this week as he worked on the installation. "We try to challenge each other with our histories. Our politics shift as our histories mix."

The foursome started "hanging out" about a year ago and found themselves talking about the proliferation of X-wear -- the ubiquitous caps and shirts bearing the silver "X" -- and started asking themselves questions: "Why do people buy these products? Who are they actually supporting? What politics are they espousing?"

"The icon is the starting point," Armstead said. "The mere fact that they would wear it is a starting point to talk about all sorts of issues important to all of us today."

We join the flavor of the month club

We swallow the flavor of the month

Holding our crotch

was the flavor of the month

Bitch this Bitch that

was the flavor of the month

Being a thug

was the flavor of the month

No to drugs

was the flavor of the month. . .

--"Famous and Dandy (Like Amos 'n Andy)" The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy

Don't invite Spike Lee to Jst Bcz Ur Paranoid Dnt Thnk Thyr Nt Aftr U. This is an iconoclastic look at Malcolm X and hero worship, including Lee's film Malcolm X. "I know people who deify Malcolm X. I have very mixed feelings about how we construct heroes," Armstead said. The only black heroes -- Malcolm X and Martin Luther King -- are dead."

Armstead said he doesn't know if Lee, who lives in Brooklyn, visited the installation while it was in New York. "I don't know. I don't care," he said. "I don't know him. Spike is definitely a popular filmmaker. X-PRZ is a more alternative-minded body."

Armstead doesn't credit Lee's movie for starting the Malcolm X craze. "From almost the beginning of hip-hop culture," he said, "the artists have been drawing on the ideas of Islam and particularly Malcolm X. You can see it in the works of Public Enemy and Niggaz With Attitude -- groups like that. Spike Lee doing his film is only Spike Lee noticing and exploiting a market -- that's capitalism."

He sees the results of Lee's film being mostly superficial: "There are certain elements of Malcolm X's life and story that are receiving more 'air time,' so to speak, but these are just sound bites."

Armstead hopes that people do not come to see the X-PRZ installation thinking it will be like the film. "I didn't learn anything from seeing that film. This [exhibit] is not about that; it's almost not even related."

Jst Bcz Ur Paranoid Dnt Thnk Thyr Nt Aftr U utilizes photos, videos, words and music to present a collage of attitudes and thoughts swirling around the concept of heroes and self-identity. The group takes a critical look at commercialization and marketing techniques.

"People wear the X and then think they are showing an allegiance to a way of life, it's ludicrous," Armstead said. "What people do is important; not what they wear. We are not willing to put Malcolm X on a pedestal. I think that is central to the way we work."

X-PRZ may use Jst Bcz Ur Paranoid Dnt Thnk Thyr Nt Aftr U as a launching pad for greater things. The installation so impressed officials of The Whitney Museum of American Art that they have invited the group to do an installation at the prestigious museum in the fall of 1994.

The symbolism of installing the exhibit at the Lorraine Motel is not lost on Armstead. "Having a show about Malcolm X in the hotel which is now a museum beneath the very spot where Martin Luther King was shot is a weird idea," he said. "I'm definitely excited about it."

Jst Bcz Ur Paranoid Dnt Thnk Thyr Nt Aftr U will be at The National Civil Rights Museum through July 1st.

Click Icon to see next page.

Return to Paranoia.