The canvas recalls Lunch on the grass or A Sunday afternoon on the island of Grande Jatte. As in the paintings of Edouard Manet and Georges Seurat, masterpieces of 19th century French art, the atmosphere is that of bourgeois happiness. A family picnics near a lake. A little girl plays croquet, a boy listens to music. These harmless moments of happiness nevertheless sound like a political message. All the characters are Black. Like the artist to whom we owe the painting. In 1997, when Kerry James Marshall, born in 1955 in the still segregated state of Alabama, painted Past Timeshe wanted to make African-Americans the equals of the heroes of European painting.
This black Garden of Eden, measuring three by four meters, will be exhibited in the largest museums in the United States, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. But this evening of December 14, 2019, in Los Angeles (California), the work serves as the backdrop to the 50th birthday party of Sean Combs, aka Puff Daddy, P. Diddy or simply Diddy. The rapper, producer and businessman bought it at auction at Sotheby’s the previous year, for almost 20 million euros. A record for a living black artist.
Sean Combs is so proud of it that he had it installed at the entrance to his Beverly Hills palace. One by one, his guests pose in front of the canvas. Among them, musicians Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Pharrell Williams, Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Cardi B, Usher, Nelly and Queen Latifah, actors Chadwick Boseman and Kevin Hart, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and founder from Twitter, Jack Dorsey… All are (very) rich and (very) famous. The vast majority of guests are Black. They were invited to the party by an audio message recorded by model Naomi Campbell. The host, in a silver tuxedo jacket and gold cufflinks, is jubilant.
“This investigation is far from over”
On November 4, 2024, Sean Combs spent his 55th birthday far from this splendor, in his cell at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a New York prison among the harshest in the United States, where he has been incarcerated since two months under registration number 37452-054.
His fall began a year ago, following the complaint filed by his ex-partner, the singer Cassie, who accused him of rape, of forcing her to perform sexual acts with other men and of continued physical violence during their relationship which reportedly lasted from the mid-2000s to the fall of 2018. The case was settled out of court but other lawsuits followed. Nearly thirty women and men filed complaints. A lawyer, based in Texas, announced that he represents 120 people, including twenty-five minors, who are preparing to do the same. A wave of revelations and testimonies arose, unstoppable.
