Galleries—Downtown, Short List
"The old hipster Expressionist (he's seventy-seven now) shows more juicy, hotly colorful paintings that make high comedy of sensual and racial themes, with a difference. Colescott's always bravura paint-handling has been set free from cartoony designs, attaining a lush, skittery, entirely assured lyricism that stands up to de Kooning's. Images of African totems and loving couples come and go like illusions in summer clouds. Memorable colors include sizzling red, loamy black, and the noncolor of blank canvas, which Colescott employs with newfound dynamism."

The New Yorker March 17, 2003

Robert Colescott at Phyllis Kind
"Mr. Colescott's expressionistic cartoon allegories of sex, violence and race are becoming increasingly less legible. Here and there one can still make out comic faces, icons of consumerism, interracial couplings and the like, but it's all beginning to dissolve into a kind of manic action painting that gives an impression of feverish dreaming. The paintings have a joyful recklessness that some of today's too-careful younger technicians could learn from."
— Ken Johnson

The New York Times Art Guide March 28, 2003

Funnyhouse of a Negro
Interview with Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks
— James Hannaham

[JH] "Why is it so goddamn funny to blackify whiteness?" I ask. "For example, artist Robert Colescott painted a mural called George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware. I think that's hilarious. Is it just funny because I know I'm not supposed to laugh? What is that?"

[SP] "As you fuck with it, it fucks back. But it's not just painful or meaningful. People reduce it, people forget how much fucking fun we're having. It's not all about pain — by saying it's all about pain we deny ourselves the pleasure. By saying it's all about a certain group pushing down another certain group, we deny ourselves an existence that occurs without the presence of any other group."

The Village Voice November 3, 1999