Artwork copyright Donald Fels. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission.

Artwork copyright Donald Fels. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission.

Artwork copyright Donald Fels. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission.

Black Gold: Great Lengths, 2004

Donald Fels
(American, born 1946)

Location: University of Washington - Tacoma, Tacoma

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Artist Donald Fels tells the stories of “Black Gold” through a series of eight artworks at the University of Washington’s Tacoma campus. Black pepper from India was so important to the late medieval European lifestyle of the 1400s that it often had a one-to-one exchange rate with gold. Pepper was often called “black gold.”

This is one of six “Black Gold” paintings illustrating the progression and details of the Indian black pepper trade that funded the European Renaissance (1400-1700). The paintings imitate the style of Indian movie billboards and honor Indian pop culture. They also explore the complicated and often brutal history of European colonialism.

Text on the painting: “Vasco da Gama went to great lengths to secure the world’s pepper trade. One writer says that returning to India in 1502 da Gama ordered the head, hands and feet of Muslim spice traders cut off. Another account says it was hands, ears and noses that were sliced off. Historians agree that he put an end to centuries of peaceful commerce across the Arabian Sea.”

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with University of Washington.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Visual artist and writer Donald Fels is active in the United States, Europe, and Asia. “His work explores the routes that connect people with commodities, institutions with their environments, places with the ideas that have defined them.”
Fels received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art, History and Literature from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He received a Master of Arts in Education degree from City University, Seattle.