U of M instructor resigns over blackface paintings

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This article was published 06/06/2020 (2177 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A University of Manitoba instructor has submitted his resignation after images of racist paintings he created when he was a 19-year-old student in Baltimore circulated on Instagram and were shown in his classes. 

According to screenshots obtained by the Free Press, Steven Cochrane created paintings in 2004 and 2005 depicting himself “applying and removing blackface makeup.”

“I depicted myself embodying grotesque anti-black caricatures that were codified and perpetuated in blackface minstrel performances of the 19th and early 20th centuries,” read the screenshots. 

The screenshots state Cochrane painted the portraits when he was in his third year of art school. 

While Cochrane noted the paintings were never exhibited publicly, he did show the works in classes he taught at the university.

“The images were preceded by a content warning, and they were presented as what they are — examples of misguided and failed undergraduate works. I have also shown them in a fourth-year seminar, where I presented them as part of discussion of other better-known failed works including Dana Schutz’s Open Casket and Sam Durant’s Scaffold.”

“With hindsight, I see that, far from creating an opportunity for discussion, I put my most vulnerable students in an impossible situation, exposing them to hateful content without providing adequate mechanisms to exercise consent,” read the statement. 

A message sent on behalf of Jeffery Taylor, acting director for the School of Art at the U of M, said Cochrane’s resignation was accepted effective June 30. 

“On behalf of the School of Art, I affirm that we denounce racism in all its forms, we commit to solidarity with Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC), and we commit ourselves to listen, to learn and to follow principles of equity, diversity and inclusion,” said Taylor. 

The Free Press reached out to the School of Art for further comment but no one was made available, deferring to the university’s external relations department which did not respond prior to the Free Press’s deadline. 

nadya.pankiw@freepress.mb.ca