Searing with biting satire, double-edged social commentary and tongue-in-cheek humor, Robert Colescott’s Green Glove Rapist stages the dramatic scene of an imagined sting operation. With one eye open and one eye shut, a scantily-clad police decoy feigns sleep with her genitals exposed against an open window while her colleague waits behind a door. Both guns are cocked to await the arrival of their prey: the titular green-gloved criminal emerging framed against a star-speckled night sky. Colescott’s painting harkens back to the real case of the “Green Glove Rapist” in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1940s, when Colescott was in his early 20s. At the time, in search of an allegedly black serial rapist wearing green gloves, the local media and police launched a full anti-black campaign and proceeded with weeks of witch-hunt in demographically black areas. In the end, the culprit turned out to be a white man. In the present work, Colescott satirizes the public persecution of the imaginary black rapist in his own unique brand of humour: on the one hand, he depicts the scene as the media and the public saw it rather than portraying the actual white culprit, underscoring prejudiced association between crime and the black community; on the other hand, he deftly catches the real offenders, shining a torchlight on their acts of hate, prejudice, and unfair framing and persecution.

The first African American to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale in 1997 – and the first painter selected for the honor since Jasper Johns, over a decade earlier – Colescott is revered for his unique style of narrative figuration, and its capacity to investigate cultural stereotypes and tropes with unprecedented candor. Critic Roberta Smith described him as well-known for “pitting the painterly against the political to create giddily joyful, destabilized compositions that satirized, and offended, without regard to race, creed, gender or political leaning” (Roberta Smith, “Robert Colescott, Painter who Toyed With Race and Sex, Dies at 83”, The New York Times, 9 June 2009). Holland Cotter wrote in 1997: “What gives Mr. Colescott's paintings interest is their inflammatory content. He not only chooses hot-button topics – racism, religion, colonialism, sexism – but couches them in narrative images calculated to offend practically every audience, male or female, black or white, politically left or right” (Holland Cotter, “Unrepentant Offender of Almost Everyone”, The New York Times, 8 June 1997).

Born in Oakland, California in 1925, Colescott studied European Modernism at the University of California at Berkeley before traveling to Paris in 1949 to study with Fernand Léger; indeed, the influence of Léger’s modernist figuration is apparent within the chaotic yet gracefully structured composition of the present work. Upon returning to the United States in 1950, dissatisfied with the narrow narrative scope offered by abstraction, Colescott spent the next several decades developing his own, highly individualized artistic syntax. Arriving at his signature figuration by the late 1960s, Colescott went on to paint by now canonical works such as George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware (1975) that have become classics for their sharp combative political messages and astute social critique. Enacting the tense and tenuous relationships between genders, races, and classes which defined the cultural dilemmas and events of Colescott’s day, his paintings serve as allegories for complex social issues, compelling viewers to explore difficult, even uncomfortable inquiries via charged figuration. Colescott’s highly acclaimed works are included in permanent collections of many major musueums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Musuem, and the Whitney Museum of Art, amongst others.

羅伯特・科司考特的《Green Glove Rapist》不只演繹了一個富戲劇性的虛構臥底任務，更是對社會的尖銳評論，滿載著嗆辣的諷刺和幽默感。衣著曝露的女警擔當誘餌，睜一隻眼閉一隻眼地躺著裝睡，對著窗前露出私處，而她的同僚則躲藏在門後。二人緊握著槍準備好扣下板機，等待獵物來到——那戴綠手套的疑似犯罪者，就在滿佈星星的夜空之下從窗後出現。科司考特的畫作，取材自1940年代發生在三藩市灣區一起被稱為「戴綠手套的強姦犯」的真實案件，當年科司考特才二十歲出頭。當時為了尋找這個戴綠手套、據稱是黑人的連環強姦犯，當地的媒體及警察展開了全面的「反黑人」行動，長達數週在黑人聚居的地區進行獵巫式的搜索，最後真凶卻是個白人男子。在本作中，科司考特以他獨有的嘲諷與幽默，演繹了這個「公開迫害一個想像中的黑人強姦犯」事件。藝術家一方面重現媒體及觀眾對事件的看法，而非白人犯人的真相，指明了大眾經常將黑人社區與犯罪聯想起來的偏見；另一方面，他亦巧妙地抓到了事件的「真凶」，用強調大眾的憎恨、偏見，以及不公平的陷害和迫害。

科司考特是首位代表美國參與1997年威尼斯雙年展的非裔美國藝術家，亦是繼賈斯培・瓊斯在十年前參展以來首位獲選的畫家。科司考特以拔類出眾的敘事表現手法為人所知，而且用單刀直入的方式直奔主題，探索文化刻板形象和象徵比喻，作風前所未見。藝評家羅貝塔．史密斯（Roberta Smith）認為這位藝術家「以藝術與政治對抗，從中創作出混亂而喜樂的作品，不分種族、理念、性別及政治取態，諷刺並冒犯所有人」（羅貝塔．史密斯，<把玩著種族與性別的畫家羅伯特・科司考特終年83歲>，《紐約時報》，2009年6月9日），而他亦因此為人所熟悉。霍蘭德．科特（Holland Cotter）於1997年曾評論：「辛辣的主題，是科司考特作品有趣的原因。他不但選取種族、宗教、殖民主義、性別歧視等富爭議性的議題，配合他的繪畫風格，彷彿計算好要冒犯所有的觀眾——男人女人、黑人白人、政治左派右派。」（霍蘭德．科特，<毫無悔意地得罪差不多所有人>，《紐約時報》，1997年6月8日）

科司考特在1925年生於加州奧克蘭，在加州大學柏克萊分校修讀歐洲現代主義，其後於1949年遠赴巴黎，跟隨費爾南・雷捷學習。本作的構圖看似散亂，實則優雅有致、井然有序，當中可見雷捷的現代主義造形風格的影響。1950年，科司考特返回美國，他不滿足於抽象派的狹窄敘事視野，在往後數十年裡，他一直努力耕耘，開創出獨一無二的個人藝術語彙。科司考特的人物造型風格在1960年代末已發展成形，他亦繼續創作出《喬治．華盛頓．卡弗橫渡特拉華河》（1975）等許多作品，而這些作品因著它們尖銳而富有攻擊性的政治訊息及社會評論，成為了經典之作。科司考特身處的年代，性別、種族及階級之間的關係緊張而脆弱，造成文化中兩難的困境，這位藝術家描繪了這些關係，他的作品成為了各種複雜社會議題的寓言，透過畫作的訊息，迫使觀眾思考困難及令人不自在的問題。

科司考特的作品獲廣受讚譽，更獲全球各大美術館永久收藏，包括紐約現代藝術博物館，洛杉磯縣藝術博物館、大都會藝術博物館、惠特尼藝術博物館等。