Viscountess of the Magic City

Rashaad Newsome is a contemporary American artist whose work consists of collage, sculpture, performance, film, and computer programming. His work explores how the appropriation of Black culture communicates ideas of power within popular culture, and how race and power intersect with the lived experiences of queer people and queer history. Newsome created “Viscountess of the Magic City” as part of his “Herald” project, in which he used contemporary imagery from print publications to translate medieval and Renaissance heraldry into hip-hop and pop culture status symbols. Conveying a nautical theme, the work presents an intricate assemblage of cut photographic images which together compose an abstract coat of arms. “Viscountess of the Magic City” is an over-the-top portrait of desire, wealth, and power, as fueled by American capitalism and the human impulse to fanaticize.