Patrick Kelly: Reclaiming Racist Memorabilia

Racist memorabilia refers to artifacts that represent white supremacist views. While many ethnicities are subject to racist caricature, offensive artifacts depicting Black people are the most pervasive, commercialized, and closely linked to systemic racism. Patrick Kelly and his former business and life partner, Bjorn Guil Amelan, collected and utilized these objects in their studio, and Kelly reclaimed racialized tropes in his women’s wear designs. In this panel, David Pilgrim, founder and director of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Madison Moore, artist-scholar, DJ, and assistant professor of gender, sexuality and women's studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, and moderator Sequoia Barnes, artist and advising scholar of "Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love," explore how Kelly reappropriated racist memorabilia to confront white supremacy and challenged its anti-Black ideology in the United States and Europe. This program is in support of the exhibition, “Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love,” honoring the life and legacy of the fashion designer. Learn more about the exhibition: https://deyoung.famsf.org/exhibitions/patrick-kelly “Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love” celebrates the meteoric rise and enduring legacy of Black fashion designer Patrick Kelly (1954–1990). During his brief yet impactful career in the late 1980s, Kelly became the first American and first Black designer to be voted into the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode,