Esteban Whiteside: Beyond Rage

In this first solo survey of neo-expressionist and primitivist artist Esteban Whiteside, rage is a reflection, a satirical volley between political assertions and pop culture musings. Rather than run from the boiling canopy that hovers overhead, here rage sweetens the bitter edge of our collective contempt for the extractive, imperialistic — the twisted reality colonialism has cultivated within and outside of ourselves.

But how do we personally define rage? Is it something that lives in our minds or does it reverberate through our bodies? Is it a temporary flare or a growing fire waiting to be expressed? Does it latch on like an unsteady companion to our joy, labor, and pain, or is it a psychic reflex that offers us protection? Is it an urgent response to being silenced, or an evolving archive of triggers? Does it quietly rumble or does it holler? Can rage die, or must we carry it forward?

In 1961, James Baldwin said: “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one’s work. And part of the rage is this: It isn’t only what is happening to you. But it’s what’s happening all around you and all of the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference….”

This is how rage takes form in this presentation. Much like our 2023 exhibition entitled, Uncensored, which explored political commentary through the lens of comedy, Whiteside’s work offers a delightfully witty as it is sobering perspective into the hard, cold world we occupy. Where this show differs from the former rests in the artist’s investigation of the undeniable trauma we experience (the elephant in the room) and where and how he chooses to place the onus of responsibility squarely into view.

“Real radicalism implores us to tell the whole ugly truth, even when it is inconvenient. To own the hurt and the pain. To own our shit, too. To think about it systemically and collectively, but never to diminish the import of the trauma.” ― Brittney Cooper, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

The horizon reveals much as we cling to outdated systems on the verge of collapse, systems which never really afforded equity for all anyway. Some might say, but at least there was hope….Hope that our contribution to this evolving experiment would win over hearts and propel us forward eventually. Hope that through our back-breaking labor, we could move beyond the rhetoric into a free space of radical imagination. Perhaps then we could dream and maybe, brick by brick, build anew.

But if we let history be our guide, then our current predicament calls for something more immediate. Our dreams need not be deferred. Instead they can be activated through a community-centered actualization of purpose as the Siksika (First Nation Blackfoot community) saw it, or as Dr. Karenga Maulana brought nia back to us through the fifth Kwanzaa principle.

Beyond Rage then is a kaleidoscope of the artist’s inside voice, ripe with questions that need answers. Together, these 30+ contemporary art pieces by Whiteside, which are made of a melange of paint, resin, found, collected, and repurposed materials double as our animus and our mantra. As bell hooks posits in her book Killing Rage: Ending Racism: “My rage intensifies because I am not a victim. It burns in my psyche with an intensity that creates clarity. It is a constructive healing rage…. It is a way for us to learn to see clearly.”  – Amy Andrieux