Sanford Biggers | Cheshire Smile

Sanford Biggers

Cheshire Smile

Santa Monica, USA: Peter Norton Family Christmas Project, 2008

4.4 x 10.2 cm.

Edition size unknown

https://artistsbooksandmultiples.blogspot.com/2023/12/norton-family-christmas-greetings.html

Sanford Biggers told Time Out in 2010 that he places "no hierarchy on chronology, references or media” and that his themes are "meant to broaden and complicate our read on American history.” His work often references African-American ethnography, hip hop, jazz, Afrofuturism, urban culture and icons from Americana.

He employs history as a "malleable material” to repurpose and reinterpret, connecting past and future temporalities to create what he calls ‘future ethnographies’. A 2016 work called Laocoön features the corpse of cartoon character Fat Albert (Fatal Bert) as an oversized inflatable. 

His 2008 project for the Peter Norton Family Christmas card consists of a plastic light up sculpture, and a lenticular card that reads: 

Every year since eighty eight

A Norton Christmas project was made.

All mimsy were the borogroves

Who got what Peter gave.

For this year's gift, the twenty-fourth,

What artist for the edition?

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Sanford Biggers accepts the mission!

He put his thinking cap on straight, What does the season call for?

A light, a fright, a toothy grin,

Something one can't go to the mall for.

One two! One two! The job complete, Sanford chortled with delight.

So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And bid you all Good Night.

The light and card both feature an exaggerated toothy smile reminiscent of the titular Cheshire cat, from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. The work conflates the infamous ear-to-ear grin with the history of minstrel blackface and the “darky" icon that appeared in cartoons, comics and advertisements and adorned consumer goods such as sheet music, postcards, jewelry, food, even children’s toys and literature. 

Biggers later produced  Cheshire (Janus), an illuminated sculpture using similar iconography (see below). The sculpture improves on the multiple, using the backlighting to make the toothy grin appear and disappear as it did in Caroll’s book and Disney’s animated adaptation.1

Cheshire Smile has an estimated value of between two and four hundred dollars. 

1. When Disney classics such as The Aristocats, Dumbo, Jungle Book and Peter Pan stream on Disney+ they all feature the prior warning "This programme includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. We want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together”. The worst of them all, Song of the South, is not available to stream or purchase. Alice in Wonderland does not feature a warning.