Ah, you are in America. Massive cultural differences.
I am aware of cultural differences. They are not as massive as you think they are, and they are especially not as massive when it comes to race as you may fondly imagine.
I found it funny because it seemed like you were doing whatever the race equivalent of mansplaining is.
Well you are in for a little surprise then...
I wouldn’t think twice about hanging the picture. I also live in a multi cultural area, and while I haven’t formally studied race issues, I consider myself reasonably educated about them, mainly becuase I find history interesting and particularly I like to know what happened and why people can’t just get on.
So your own personal feelings on what is or isn't racist trump actual study of the very troubling history of race relations, including race portrayals in media and advertising, and finding history 'interesting' is a mark of expertise of some kind? And you would like to know what happened and why people 'can't just get on'?
Mind boggling.
I don’t think it would be easy for Americans to understand the utterly different attitudes to nudity in parts of Europe. Most British people don’t. In the context of the artist being Danish, female and body positivity being her thing I really don’t think there is anything gratuitous about the nudity.
As an Irish person mistaken here for an American, I am enjoying this mansplaining about 'European attitudes to nudity' a lot.
The nakedness while black really is gratuitous. Women don't usually do laundry naked any more than women usually spend time draped over cars while partially naked.
Black women in popular culture are hyper sexualised and portrayed as symbols of sex in ways that many of them find incredibly demeaning. You choose to completely ignore the fact that this naked woman is black, and that is a pity because understanding why this is problematic might give you some clues as to the operation of the power relationship between white and black that makes it so difficult to 'get along'.
As for why she did a picture of a black woman, who knows, maybe it’s one of her yoga students. I really personally feel you are reading too much into this picture. I don’t think any of the black women I know would see this picture as exploitative or in poor taste. I think things are different in America, I wouldn’t say it’s perfect here, but we didn’t have segregation in the same way and maybe that is part of the difference, I think also British people don’t take things quite so seriously as Americans (sorry for generalising!)
'I wouldn't say it's perfect here' is the understatement of the year. There is rampant segregation in the UK. On top of that there is the very rigid class system. The funny side of a depiction of a naked black woman wearing a baby and leaning on a washing machine reading would be completely lost on my lovely former neighbour, an operatic soprano and voice teacher with an Ivy League degree who was often assumed to be her children's nanny when they were out and about (her H is white). This print would elicit a sense of despair in her.
The artist has given a very general description of the impetus behind her art in general, and an explanation of how this particular print came about, but no indication at all of why she thought this particular print would be immune from the context of the portrayal in popular culture of black women, of naked black women, of black women doing domestic chores, of black women doing something traditionally African juxtaposed with an item that is a direct translation of Pear's soap from ads of yore.
FYI:
"Black women in popular culture: jezebel, mammy and sassy sidekick"
The problem with one-note stereotyping, and an assertion that media plays a part in forming our view of life even if we do not think it does.