Esteban Jefferson and the Notion of Erasure in the Museum Context

Esteban Jefferson lives and works in New York, where he was born in 1989. From an early age, he loved to draw. His parents took him to see numerous exhibitions, where he was introduced to contemporary art and began entertaining the idea of becoming a professional artist. Jefferson studied visual arts at the renowned Columbia University, from which he graduated with a BFA in 2011 and a Master’s in 2019.

The painting Flâneuse is part of the series “Petit Palais,” inspired by a visit to the Paris museum of the same name, and is a reflection on erasure in the museum context. During this visit, Jefferson noticed that the majority of work exhibited in the museum was accompanied by exhaustively researched wall texts. Yet, what drew his attention most was a pair of busts of African subjects, which had been put in an out-of-the-way place. Set behind the museum’s ticket counter, they were lost in a sea of institutional clutter, including signage, desks and computer monitors. Their titles – Buste d’Africain and Buste d’Africaine – seemed rather cursory, and, as the artist was to discover, so was the research that accompanied them. The works were vaguely dated 19th century, and the two figures remained as anonymous as their creators. Only after launching his own investigation was Jefferson able to ascertain that the two busts were actually made in Venice in the 17th century and were given to the museum by a collector, in the 1940s.¹

The series “Petit Palais” asks challenging questions about the representation of Black people in Western museums. Through this project, the artist confronts colonialist conventions in museum displays and seeks to redress the prejudice perpetuated by institutions. He also hopes to open a dialogue with the museum, in order to rethink the way the busts are exhibited. The focus of this body of work is on incidental visual encounters between the busts, the public and the Petit Palais’s employees. Jefferson depicts visitors near the busts, ignoring the works sitting forgotten on the sidelines while they engage in banal tasks. In Tarifs réduits (2020), for example, we see several figures standing at the ticket counter, waiting to pay to get in. These scenes are inspired by moments the artist observed at the museum.

The pink and beige tones that set the atmosphere of the painting Flâneuse suggest the lobby of the Petit Palais, whose walls are covered with pink marble. True to form, Jefferson leaves a large part of his canvas “unfinished.” As he explains, “I like the idea of refusing to paint in everything and only focusing on the part that deserves labor.”²

According to the artist, the title of the work is a direct reference to Baudelaire’s “flaneur,” that solitary figure and observer of modern life who ambles through the streets of the city, seeking to “draw the eternal from the transitory.”³ Thus, the work Flâneuse features an older white woman, absorbed in her phone, oblivious to the bust right next to her. Her hands and head are painted with precision, while her floral dress dissolves into the background, where the bust of the African woman is vaguely sketched. No relationship or recognition is established between the two figures; the phone, in the foreground, is the only object worthy of the visitor’s interest.

Flâneuse displays Jefferson’s finesse in working with oils and the deftness of his detailed brushwork, even when the canvas is barely touched by paint. Moreover, this work is a high-profile addition to our collection of contemporary art, because it outlines the broader questions found throughout the artist’s output, but also because it displays with chilling accuracy the challenges facing museum institutions today.