Roma art: Theory and practice

Abstract

“Reading the texts of Frantz Fanon, bell hooks, Walter Mignolo, Gayatri Spivak, Peggy Piesche and relating their ideas to the current state of capitalism, migration, racism, class, gender, etc., it became necessary to reform and re-formulate our existing vocabulary for the description and representation of Roma.”1 This essay applies these new frameworks of understanding to the interpretation of works by Roma contemporary artists. The artistic careers mentioned in the essay demonstrate the operation of structural oppression towards the Roma, and offer models on how to revolt against this oppression and on how to reject the majority’s dominance in order to construct new Roma identities. The Roma artists appear in contemporary art (canon) as incoherence, threat or a dangerous element hindering its systematic operation. Their art is organized around the question of visibility; and on how they can rewrite or modify the mainstream discourse once they arrive at the position of visibility.