Art:Flemish-style portraits question race, equality

CNN) -- Photographer Maxine Helfman didn't foresee the
current outcry around civil rights in America back in 2012,
when she began shooting portraits in the style of the old
Flemish master painters -- using only black models.
Placing people of color within a portrait style that historically
was the domain of the European elite is a political statement
on inequality couched in a beautiful tableau.
Helfman's subjects in the "Historical Correction" series wear
the same aloof expressions of 17th-century noblemen and
women in portraits commissioned from artists like Frans Hals.
Light plays across their faces, white collars and billowing
black vestments in a manner familiar to followers of the Dutch
and Flemish masters.
The difference is that their faces are varying shades of brown.
Helfman, 61, wanted to create historical documentation of a
population that never was. The images subvert the obvious
storyline -- that social strata often break down along racial
lines. Her photos are a "contradiction," she said, to the stories
of inequality that are being told in protests across the United
States.
"When I shot them I had the same inspirations, but
we didn't have issues that were so highly charged
as we're dealing with now racially," Helfman said.
"In my lifetime I've seen them come up over and
over and then something inflames them again, and
it just shows you we haven't gotten there."
"There," meaning equality.
Helfman stages the subjects of her photos to
command respect. She doesn't place other objects in the
frame (to avoid distractions), and she shoots from a slightly
lower plane to place the model on high. "When you get just a
little bit of a lower angle, you're giving that person power."
Also a commercial photographer, Helfman often plays with
notions of power and what should be in her fine artwork. She
draws inspiration for her art photography from painters like the
Flemish masters and contemporary photographers like Carrie
Mae Weems and Seydou Keita.
Flemish portraits of heroes, villains
Helfman enjoys provoking the audience by placing her
subjects in unexpected situations -- many of them involving
clothing and culture. One series put young boys in dresses
and invited viewers to interpret what and who they were
seeing. Images from another series depict black women in
black face paint dressed as geishas.
"The longer my series have been out, the more even I
understand the layers -- and especially when I hear other
people's reaction and other people's comments," Helfman
said. "They just kind of take on a life of their own."
Using gender and race as provocation is fraught with potential
pitfalls for Helfman, a white woman. She takes great care to
be respectful, often consulting other artists or experts for
another cultural point of view.
"I never want to create something that's tongue-in-cheek
because that defeats the purpose," she said. "It's
disrespectful to the (statement) I'm trying to make."
What she aims to do, she said, is make viewers think and
rethink.
"At face value when people look at them, it's a beautiful
image. You're so easily brought into these, and by the time
you are, you give it some thought and ask some questions."
Maxine Helfman is a photographer based in Dallas. You can
follow her on Facebook.