Umar Rashid

‘Ancien Regime Change 4, 5, and 6’, are the closing chapters to a series Rashid has spent the last year deploying. The first three installments came as solo exhibitions with Half Gallery, Almine Rech, and Cokkie Snoei, each located in a different country and presenting to different audiences.

It seems fitting that the storyline end in New York, (it also began in New York with the Half Gallery show) both due to this career milestone and because it is where the intricate plotline built upon both truths and fantasies takes place. The moment is the 1790s, a decade where many political and social pathways began to forge their way into modern-day. History tells us about the French and American Revolutionary Wars and subsequent democratic establishment of the French Republic and the United States, and the new concept of an anti-imperialist world. Umar Rashid asks what parts of this story were left out of the accepted, dominant narrative. 

Black and Brown characters maintain the foreground of the epic, reclaiming the erasure of their key roles throughout history.

“History is written by the victors,” a quote attributed to Winston Churchill, seems to play on a mental loop as you begin to consider the gaps in the histories we’ve been told. These gaps are Rashid’s sweet spot, where he enters the story and adds his own original spin.

Based on research but infused with fantasy, each chapter of ‘Ancien Regime Change’ offers alternative accounts with critical through lines of what was occurring in the midst of political uncertainty and widespread conflict. With each work, Rashid includes a storytelling text summarizing the scene unfolding in front of you in acute detail. He spells out the characters involved, their various causes and alliances, and the ongoings on the canvas. Black and Brown characters maintain the foreground of the epic, reclaiming the erasure of their key roles throughout history.

At first glance, the exhibition appears to illustrate a story strictly of war. Taking a closer look at Rashid’s body of work shows much more at play.

Traversing the exhibition feels akin to reading a comic book, where visuals accompany a story in an almost cinematic way. While Rashid’s paintings line the walls, sculptural objects—including but not limited to flags, quilted armor, and a jumbotron that crash lands from outer space—fill up the rooms, creating visual context and further bringing the storyline into a realistic sphere.

At first glance, the exhibition appears to illustrate a story strictly of war. Taking a closer look at Rashid’s body of work shows much more at play. Party scenes are shown aside battle scenes, sometimes on the same surface and happening simultaneously. By folding in occurrences adjacent to the conflict itself, Rashid draws attention to overlooked events happening in tandem to the histories we know. He sheds light on social and cultural movements that contributed to creating spheres of influence.

Storytelling seems to be the first language of Rashid, who is also known as Frohawk Two Feathers. Growing up with a playwright, (as well as actor and painter) father and a thespian mother, Rashid experienced a household where actual and invented realities merged.

Rashid’s multi-format approach of working mirrors multiple styles of painting all coexisting within the same body of work. Some animated, some with graffiti references, and some rendered academically, rather than feeling scattered, the artist’s strength lies in his ability to stretch boundaries of classification. To this end, try and put Rashid’s practice in a box and you will surely fail.

We may feel far off from the 1790s, but in many ways, we are in midst of many similar conflicts over 200 years later. An overwhelming amount of people are questioning their freedoms, the few in power seem to be failing the majority time and time again, and to take from one of the phrases which flashes across the jumbotron sculpture, we seem to be in an “unending war.” Rashid is here to remind us that while this narrative is nothing new, we can find power in questioning the past and unveiling the small but significant victories won by those fighting for change.