Colonial White

ARTFORUM - How Whiteness Works: The Racial Imaginary Institute at the Kitchen By Lou Cornum, July 23, 2018

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"A desire to get outside the gallery room is however immediately apparent in Colonial White (2018), a project set up in the lobby by Charlotte Lagarde (who is white) encouraging people to take a paint chip, identified by the manufacturer as “Colonial White,” out into the larger world and take a picture with the chip held next to an object or image that manifests its name. The photos sent to Lagarde feature the US Capitol, a grocery shelf with bags of Domino sugar, and a copy of the Bible. The presentation echoes Adrian Piper’s My Calling (Card) #1 (1986–91), included in her retrospective now on view at the Museum of Modern Art, actual calling cards that she distributed to acquaintances who made, agreed with, or laughed at a racist remark in her presence, perhaps not realizing Piper was a black woman. Whereas Piper identified herself as black with the text on the cards, Colonial White collects objects and environments that may seem innocuous to some (but rather obviously pernicious to me), linking the construction of racial categories on the basis of color to colonial history." 

 

HYPERALLERGIC - How to Talk About Whiteness

By Ryan Wong, July 24, 2018

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"Charlotte Lagarde’s “Colonial White” also goes back to the roots of American myth. She asks a group of participants (as well as visitors to the exhibition) to take a ‘colonial white’ paint chip, photograph it in a situation or place that embodies the colonial, and write why. One participant compares colonial white to the trendy gray omnipresent in gentrifying buildings in San Francisco. Another takes a picture with the Capitol Building, noting that the relationship is self-explanatory."

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VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY NEWS - Exhibition exploring race in contemporary art opens at the ICA in October.

By Lesley Howson Bruno, January 23, 2019

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"filmmaker and visual artist Charlotte Lagarde will invite the community to participate in her citywide project “Colonial White,” which asks participants to photograph a white paint chip in a place, with an object, or in a situation that embodies whiteness to them."

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