Payback is a motherfucker. The final death of Harlem Carl. Or, in another time, he would have outlived us all.
Year: 2022
Medium: acrylic, ink, and spray paint on canvas
Dimensions: 213.4 x 182.9 cm (84 x 72 in.)
Acquired from Blum, 2022
Rashid has consistently taken his fictional Frenglish Empire, a cross between modern France and England as his theme. Through meticulous historical research, he has created a narrative that blends this fictional empire with historical fact. This work is a representative work from his prominent painting series “Ancien Regime Change.” It depicts a Frenglish king named Harlem Carl, modeled after Rashid himself, about to be killed by a cavalry straddling a raging horse while widely brandishing a broad saber like a falchion or machete. The soldier kicking the king at the foot of the cavalry is dressed in a military uniform reminiscent of a French army officer during the French Revolutionary Wars. The name Harlem Carl is inspired in part by Charlemagne. Imitating this great emperor who is even called the father of Europe, means a reference to the history of the development of Christian Europe since the Middle Ages. On the other hand, “Ancien Regime” is a term that refers to the monarchical period before the French Revolution. Rashid’s work offers a new and even absurd narrative with a touch of humor and criticism to this Western view of history, which has developed at the end of European imperialist and colonialist thought and history. Thus, it opens up a different perspective of history that may have existed behind the other side of historical facts. What can be interpreted in the long title and the word “Alive.” that is spray-painted upside down? This work was exhibited at the solo exhibition “Ancien Regime Change 4, 5, and 6” (2022) at MoMA P.S.1 in New York.
