Frank Schroeder is a classically trained French Artist, whose hip-hop inspired work though rooted in classicism is a continuing dialogue with neo-expressionist graffiti artists from the late 1970s and 80s.
His paintings are often rooted in conflict, in a colonial history that brought him from France to the Ivory Coast and a life of tumult and war. His escape lay in the paintings of the French Masters, Gericault and Delacroix, and the poets and philosophers of 19th and 20th century. Into that potent mix came urban art, an immediate and expressive form that enabled him to tell his story, quickly, viscerally and in tune with the burgeoning hip hop scence.
The Last Supper: Dealing with the Man was featured in Forbes.com during Art Basel in Miami. A brief interpretation of the piece brings up so many themes that ring true about our current times. The composition is anchored by a table set with a white cloth. This proverbial "table"- where decisions are made, is draped in ignorance. It represents the establishment: clocked and protected b white privilege. The system and society might invite us to the table, but our presence is not respected. Sitting at the table, thirteen black mask float disembodied, all in a row. While blacks have been nominally included in the national conversation over the past few decades, like the masks, we sit in silence. Systemic racism and overt injustice have rendered black and brown voiceless and without individual personhood or agency.
Schroeder so simply amends this famous redo as "dealing with the Man". Society, educational systems, the workplace - every step of the way we are dealing with "the Man" - with system rigged against us. But as the Masks hover, there is a lightness to the message, and the background opens up to blue skies. As a black Frenchman, he so elegantly captures the universal Black experience that results from the systemic oppression Black and minority people face around the world.: " Never let the man get you down".
