Artist Statement and Bio

Bio: 

Charlotte Holper was born in San Francisco and currently resides in Orange, California. For the past couple years, she has worked alongside many amazing artists and professors, creating her own style and form. From painting to performance to curating shows, she has explored many different paths of art. She enjoys using vibrant bold colors and lines to create wacky landscapes and compositions. Mixed media is an infinite realm that she would like to further explore. Collaboration is an effective way to curate shows and events and she is more than happy to work with fellow artists that would like to work within a community and build connections with others.

Artist Statement

“Worm”

For my final project, I have chosen to create three 18” x 24” drawings in reference of my 2016 performance, titled “Worm”. My performance consisted of a ten minute duration of myself army-crawling around the piazza. I slithered in and out of the fountain, creating wet trails on the ground. I wore a black shirt and black pants, constructing a consistent costume for the performance. The purpose of the performance was to contrast the movement through the Piazza. As people moved through the center of campus, I distracted the uniformity of the flow of passer-byers. For the final project, I used frames from videos of the performance. Watching the videos, I wanted to choose frames that included a close-up shot and two wide angles. I used colored pencils and crayons to create pastel hues and the color palette included yellow, blue, and pink. Using pastel color fields, I wanted to establish a sense of how I felt during the performance. While army-crawling through the Piazza, I felt my surroundings disappear, along with everyone who witnessed it. I concentrated on my body movement and endured the rough ground underneath me.

The drawings are a sort of documentation that represent my performance in the Piazza. The body within the blocks of cement creates a questionable scene of a figure struggling to move around a whimsical landscape. Furthering this project was initially inspired from Marina Abramovic’s Artist is Present. Her three month performance consisted of her in a wooden chair, sitting across from viewers that visited the museum to activate her piece. Before my performance in 2016, I was not aware of Marina Abramovic and her disciplined performances. The Artist is Present was a performance that engaged the viewer, yet Abramovic remained consistently calm and still during each silent interaction. Even when the curator of the show told her he was worried about her physical health, she was completely opposed to stopping the performance. During my performance, I began by lying in the fountain and creating circles in and out of the fountain. When people called my name and attempted to distract me, I focused on completing the motion of the army-crawl. Without noticing during the performance, I received bloody elbows and huge purple bruises on my hips. Like Abramovic, I was so focused on my performance, I ignored my physical limitations and continued the journey.

My final symbolizes particular aspects of my performance. Drawing the emotion of my face and my body parts interacting with the ground enables a sense of reproduction within the piece. I used soft colored pencils to render the perspective of the composition. Using these pastel colors, I was able to gradually build up value within the three drawings. This project considers a deep reflection on my past work and is recommended to others.

Reference Images

Final- Artist Statement & Bio

“Girl”

Artist Statement:

As an artist, Sammy Keane would say she is a perfectionist in the hopes of becoming more fluid. Lately, she has been finalizing works with light hatchings to add shading and depth. Keane enjoys working most with pencil, however, she is in the process of trying to expand and become more comfortable working with more drawing materials. Keane is still trying to find herself as an artist, but she is usually guided by emotional and physical influences. She has always admired Jenny Saville’s and Jean-Michel Basquiat's works and how they create a form with such fluidity. However, Keane has learned the most from her own mistakes. She constantly tells herself to step back and put her work on the wall when she becomes frustrated, it allows her to see her own pieces from a different perspective.

In Keane’s series “Girl”, she has four consecutive works that describe how she feels girls should act nowadays; strong and unbothered. In “Girl”, Keane used materials such as graphite, watercolor, marker, and glitter. This series was inspired by her own personal identity along with attitudes and actions she has noticed from generations coming after her. Keane is most proud of this work because it connects present society to the future. Some themes that Keane focuses to incorporate into her work, “Girl” especially, are strength, feminism, freedom of speech, and overall equality. Keane feels that the textual piece is the most powerful in this series; it ties all the other works together. The other three drawings construct and illustrate moments where women should take power and stand up for what they believe and think. For this work, Keane looked to artists such as Diego Fazio, Jenny Saville, and Rik Reimert to notice their combination of mediums and works that have a consecutive looking series. She also looked at many reference photos to give her inspiration and make to force her to not just copy each photo, she is working to add her own artistic flair to each piece.

For most of her works, Keane combines photos that she has saved with her imagination and life experiences to create something that is most pleasing to my eye. The more Keane gets lost in found photos, the more she becomes excited about what theme she will try to convey. While Keane is creating, she tries her best to remind herself that she is ultimately making this work for herself and no one else.

Bio:

Sammy Keane was born in Detriot, Michigan. She started making art in High School in Orlando, Florida. She is currently working to get her BFA at Chapman University in the Spring of 2020. Her work as a fine artist is mainly influenced by life experiences that connect to her physical state and emotion. Keane mainly works in pencil, however, she has created pieces in all mediums. She has presented work at SACI (Studio Arts College International), OTIS, and Chapman University. Her work is visible on Instagram (@sammygraceart) and on https://sgkeane.wixsite.com/mysite.

Rik Reimert

Reference

Diego Fazio

Reference 

Rik Reimert

Jenny Saville

Bodies of Knowledge: Anatomy and Transparency in Contemporary Art

        "Bodies of Knowledge" describes a history of humans' relationship to the inner and outer body. Aristotle was interested in dissecting cadavers to learn the secrets of life while later in the 1800s, it was shameful to host public dissecting events. Viewing the inside of the body has changed drastically because of advanced technology, including x-rays and ultrasounds. Advanced technologies have changed our perceptions of viewing our anatomical features. From breaking a bone to having a baby, we strive to create the best technology to aid health benefits. At the same time, this has changed the way artists are able to work. In the Contemporary art world, artists have used these types of technologies to create work. Since anatomy is so commonly seen in everyday life, artists utilize these tools to understand our inner and outer parts and how they relate to our lives. A great example of this is Farrah Karapetian. She uses inverted black and white images to depict large-scale x-ray images of trucks. Her work references x-ray machines at the border of Mexico and the United States. It also portrays a private versus public event transpiring. The military obtains advanced technology in which we are all affected by it, but are not always aware of it. Farrah's pieces create a conversation about what is private and what is public. I am also very interested in Frida Kahlo's portraits. She uses the interior space to express her traumas and experiences. Many traumatic experiences I have had connect with the inner workings of my body. A lot like Frida, I have gone through many physical experiences that have changed my life. Frida got into a trolley accident that resulted in her being bedridden for months. She began to draw while she spent all her days alone in her room. My physical traumas have led me to focus in on what is important. If I am disabled to make art, my life would deteriorate. My current mediums have become so differentiated that I have many ways to make art. This result is from being exposed to new technologies I have never used. Humans are so capable of overcoming physical traumas, purely because of technology aiding our weaknesses. Watching my dad, who is paralyzed from the chest down, transfer himself from his wheelchair to a car with a wooden plank is only one of many technologies that will aid him for the rest of his life. I now know that humans will exponentially become limitless in life. Health care and anatomical studies will only become more advanced, drastically changing the way we observe and experience our surroundings.

Charlotte Holper

Adrian Piper Retrospective

11/26/2018

The 1965-2018 Retrospective of Adrian Piper was very well curated and also quite informative of the artist’s progression of work. The entrance to the exhibition shows a wide variety of her mediums and techniques. Walking through the show, the viewer is able to walk up to sculptures, paintings, photographs, comparing the works in a chronological order. The show also incorporates installations that allow the viewer to walk around and through them, engaging the viewer further. The beginning and end of the show fascinated me the most, showing an adventurous and creative way to show her work. Walking into her exhibition, I really enjoyed a compilation of paintings that incorporated colorful and vibrant imagery. From 1965 to 1966, Piper created works inspired from LSD. These works were segmented like stained glass windows, creating an all-over pattern on the canvas. Two of the paintings in the compilation stood out the most, Self-Portrait with Tamika and Steve Shomstein. Piper painted these two portraits with acrylic paint in 1966.

Many of the pieces in the exhibition incorporated a small amount of color, but held more formal traits of grayscale. The time when Piper completed these two works was during a movement of drug-inspired artwork. Piper transparently shows great influences from past art movements, such as Impression, Minimalism, Surrealism, and Fluxus. The two portraits, Self-Portrait with Tamika and Steve Shomstein, both portray images of people. The canvas is broken up into carefully painted lines, breaking up the figures underneath. The paintings also reference religious iconography through the stained glass features and colorful segments. The paintings also share a similar color palette of purple, yellow, black and white. Throughout the paintings, the artist incorporates swirls and patterns to move the viewer through the piece, creating a complete composition.
The work shows a complete Retrospective of Adrian Piper's work and shows her skill set and many different mediums. The exhibition showed Pipers technique and unique behavior.

Inside-out Project

For this project, I decided to create a segmented drawing of my dad in a wheelchair. Inspired from a small-scale drawing I made in the past, I wanted to expand the idea of my dad’s health and progression of recovery. My dad recently had a hematoma on his spinal cord and was paralyzed from the chest down. I wanted to draw my dad with the the anatomy that was affected by his injury. Showing the anatomy of his body along with the tools to help him recover portrays his progression of recovery. I am specifically interested in how these tools able him to live properly. Over Thanksgiving break, me and my brother made a standing pull up bar for my dad to hoist himself out of bed. From living in the hospital for a month to moving back home, my dad has learned certain techniques to make his life easier. Accessible living is really difficult to find for handicapped people, but one only thinks about this when one is put in such a situation. The hematoma took out a huge nerve pathway in his spinal cord, which controlled his whole lower body. Such a tragic incident made us closer and more efficient as a family. With such an unknown future ahead, we feel more connected to take care of my dad. Through this project, I would like to document the process of recovery for my dad. Gifting him the small-scale drawing brought a smile to his face. I was initially unsure if he would enjoy it, since it showed his weaknesses, but he decided to hang it above his bed, as a memento. The inspiration for this project came from anatomical charts in my old science book from middle school. Visiting my dad in the hospital was really confusing to me. The doctors and nurses had different schedules and tools to aid my dad, yet I was lost in all the information. Making a tangible drawing of the tools he uses makes it less stressful to think about the problem. I also think that documenting tragic experiences can help one learn from their past.

small-scale drawing

reference pictures

Inside/Out Body

For this project, my goal was to make a connection between the outline of a body and the use of the shapes of flowers. I have recently become very infatuated with line drawings and how they connect and move the viewers eye all throughout the piece so I thought that would be a great way to combine the inner and outer body. For my collage aspect of this piece, I decided to use cutouts of flowers found on the internet and outdoors and combine that shape with fabrics from clothing found in magazines. I did not use the form on the girl as a self-portrait, however, the creation of flowers from clothing fabric is something that I am very connected too and found of. The "inner body" part of this piece is supposed to be the flowers that are meant to depict the hair, brain, and a few of the veins. The woman figure is made up of many female photographs in seated positions.

My hope is to have the viewers eye move peacefully throughout my work and notice how one simple line can great something both interesting and beautiful. The work describes both imagination and grounding. With the flowers and lines, I am trying to show the growth that a human goes through, similar to that of a flower. The use of fabric not only adds color and light into the work, but it relates personally to me and my interests nowadays.

For reference, I looked at Orlan's work and the use of layering upon a stable body. The symmetry and use of bold colors is very eye-catching. That is what I was trying to do when choosing what fabric to use to make the flower. I also chose to only use the upper half of a body just as Orlan did in this work. I chose to do this because I wanted to draw more attention to the head and chest space.

I also looked at works by Wangechi Mutu and her beautiful and wild line and brushwork. In the same way that she created her head of snacks and other creatures, I tried to depict a "busy-like" headspace. I have always thought the way she grounded her figures was amazing. 

Lastly, I looked at many different continuous line drawings and different techniques to help me successfully convey what I wanted without it looking too messy or busy. I also tried to find ways to connect the flowers and the face without it looking too childish or unintentionally layered. 

https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/39394/orlan/

https://chiaroscuromagazine.com/shows-and-exhibitions/fine-art-fine-craft/wangechi-mutu-fantastic-journey.html

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/94766

"The Body and Technology"

The essay is an analysis of the relationship between bodies and technology. Performance becomes a specific medium to explore these connections with technology. The Industrial Revolution forced the body to work as a machine through factories and assembly lines. After the Industrial Revolution, the New Knowledge Economy forced people to think of their bodies in a different way. Through performance art, individuals used their bodies to engage with this idea of the body as a machine. Through advancements in our society, the body interacts with the world on different levels. The invention of photography has changed the way we see the world. The body is placed behind a camera to visualize modernity and change. Humans find it necessary to remember the past through a visual context. Photographs have changed the way bodies interact. Instead of physically engaging with the world around us, we find images of certain aesthetics to relieve such tensions. For example, one may find an image of a painting online, instead of taking a trip to a museum or gallery to physically experience the piece. The Mona Lisa is one of the most reproduced images in the world. Many people know this image, yet do not have the privilege of taking a journey to the Louvre in Paris. Our technologies have compressed time and space to an extent of no return. Will we ever experience the world the same way? Will we ever return to physical experience?

Performing Body

Charlotte Holper
Performance Body Project
November 4, 2018
The Artist is Present
Marina Abramovic, a Serbian performance artist, was born on November 30, 1946. A daughter of two Yugoslav Partisans, Abramovic grew up in a very strict, uniform household. She was disciplined immensely by her parents, especially her mother, and was deeply affected by this. Abramovic explores the relationship between the artist and viewer in her work. Through her performance, she became a pioneer in engaging the viewer within her art. Beginning performance art in her 20s, Abramovic pushes herself to create experiences that strain her physical and emotional state. One of her performances, titled The Artist is Present, explores the experience between the viewer and artist. For three months, 736 hours and 30 minutes, Abramovic sat in her Retrospective in the Museum of Modern Art, surrounded by other performers re-performing her work. Her performance consisted of sitting in a chair, while observers could sit opposite of her for as long as they desired. She created a space in which viewers could freely gaze at her while individuals could come up and experience her performance one at a time. Documenting the whole performance, people had many different reactions to her silent, static behavior. Some began to weep as others would sit there for over an hour.  Her art became a personal experience of being able to spend time with the mastermind. Inspired by this performance, many artists traveled from far and wide to see her work and reacted in many different ways to her.
The Retrospective took many months to plan. During the performance, she planned to place a box in her chair to relieve herself when she needed to pee.  Abramovic also sat from the museum's opening to closing, 9-5, ending her performance every day by kneeling down and curling up into a ball. The strain of her body was noticed during her piece because of the knowledge that the goal was to sit there for three months. The curator of the show, Klaus Biesenbach, even had worries about her physical health and well-being. With the discipline of her parents, Abramovic carries that with her through her art. In a documentary about her art, Abramovic tells an anecdote about her mother waking her up in the middle of the night to fix her bed only because she was "sleeping messy". She plans her art in a way that exceeds her limits. She sat strong as her body felt the limitations. As her curator told her to stop, she was adamant about finishing what she started. The idea that Abramovic carries out her performances to the end gives inspiration to other developing artists. The performance became an introspective experience for the artist, but also her viewers. As people sat and gazed into her eyes, some silent and some verbal, many individuals projected their own lives and experiences onto the artist. She gave everyone time and attention, no more, no less.
The drawing that is inspired from The Artist is Present describes the experience of both, the artist and the viewer. Creating an intense environment, I portray Marina Abramovic sitting in a chair in the foreground while viewers are blurred in the background. Abramovic's body is completely still and static as the viewers are difficult to depict. The experience of her performance created a sensation of viewing Abramovic in person. The masses came to spectate and watch her from 9-5. Many people would fight to be first in line, while others would mirror her behavior, becoming calm and silent. The drawing portrays the stillness of the artist, while also depicting the great movement of MoMa visitors.

Performing Bodies

Sammy Keane
Cindy Rehm
Advanced Life Drawing
3 November 2018 

Performing Bodies Project

For this project, I chose to draw and write about Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh. These two performance artists collaborated and tied themselves together at the length of an eight-foot rope for one year, from 1983 to 1984. I came across this piece when reading the packet "Performance Art", written by Kristine Stiles, earlier this week. I was fascinated with this piece in particular because it was, and still is, something I could never imagine doing. Most performance pieces I have seen or learned about usually only last a day or even a few hours, so this piece was rather shocking to me. After doing further research I learned more about them as individual and collaborative artists. "Tehching Hsieh (b. 1950, Taiwan) is a NewYork-based performance artist whose career involved a continuous series of long durational performances. Art became for the artist a way of life, completely integrated in his daily routines" (culture trip). "Linda Montano is a seminal figure in contemporary feminist performance art and her work since the mid-1960s has been critical in the development of video by, for, and about women" (lindamontano). I found these two are both powerful and influential artists who would (and did) obviously go to great lengths to prove a point in not only the art world but in society itself. 

While looking on the internet about this performance piece, I found many possibly images that I could attempt to depict. I came across a photo of them both simply going on with their day, looking as if they are doing work or bills, sitting back to back. I was most interested in this photo because they seemed natural, as if they were not even tied to one another. The photo I chose to draw is placed below.

The role of Montano's and Hsieh's bodies in this photograph seem simply natural. If the rope tied around their waists was removed, it would look like they were working in any other office. It is not only shocking that they were able to spend an entire year at an 8-foot length, but it is also somewhat comforting to me. When learning about this piece, I was inspired and my imagination began to wonder about what other seemingly 'impossible' things could artists do. I think the bodies in this photo, and throughout the year, are neutral bodies rather than charged. The overall goal was to go on with their daily life. As I stated above, my personal reaction to this piece was basically disbelief. A year is a long time and I just could not stop thinking about moments such as sleeping, using the restroom, and even sitting at a table with another person for that long. Montano and Hsieh's performance pieces usually concentrated on the problems with duration, this one specifically.

Below are images I referenced when creating my drawing.

Photo Links

https://frieze.com/article/live-work
https://www.google.com/search?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_drawing
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/old-man-reading-1882-vincent-van-gogh.html
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/illustrations/old-man-sitting-in-chair-drawing
http://carolynchenart.com/sketches.html

"Performance Art"

Analysis of Performance Art by Kristine Stiles

From the reading, the essay discusses the beginning of Performance in the art world in Japan, Europe and the U.S. Sparked from World War II, artists attempted to use their bodies as subjects after a huge demolition of culture throughout the world. The Holocaust was one of the largest genocides in history and people needed heal after such an event. Different art movements embraced the act of using one's body in their art, such as Dada, Bauhaus, and Gutai. The history of performance also sparked from the Situationist and Fluxus movements. After World War II, artists attempted to reclaim their space in the art world. The Nazis took away many freedoms from creative types during the war, especially the destruction of art, literature, and other forms of expression. Another leading demolition of culture at the time included imperialist commercialization infiltrating different countries, especially America into Japan. The Situationists wanted to create happenings, in which viewers could experience art instead of statically viewing work in pretentious environments. The urban space became a transformational experience for artists at the time, resulting from a compression of time and space in busy cities. Futurists were also inspired by the change in pace, attempting to interpret this within there movement. Creating work that represented the feeling from rural to urban was the main drive for Futurists and Situationists. From the rise of performance art after World War II, the movement spread to many different countries. Artists picked up where other artists left off. Jackson Pollock was creating huge gestural murals that included the subject of his movements throughout his work. He attempted to represent his grand movements through his splattered and bold mark-making. Many performance artists create experiences for the viewer rather than a piece for someone to look at. The gesture of performance becomes a happening for "experiential immediacy".

Political Portrait

“I STAND WITH FORD”

Within a structure of systematic oppression, women have been objectified and inferior to men for all of America’s history. When women received the right to vote in 1919, Congress took initiative to balance gender equality. The Kavanaugh case showed an extreme lack of progress within our justice system. Watching the live Kavanaugh case reminded me of the horrors of not being believed. Reflecting on my own experiences, the case forced me to realize my own burdens living in a Patriarchal society. Staying up late at night, I spent countless hours thinking about the side of Christine Ford. She was ridiculed for telling her truth, to receive ‘attention’ for her sexual assault. I finally recalled an experience that I had three years ago. Lying in bed, I remember myself waking up on my friend’s couch, completely naked, with a used condom next to me on the nightstand. A million different thoughts raced through my head as I walked towards my friend’s room to question her about what happened the night before. I enter her room as her and her boyfriend were cuddling in bed. I bluntly ask her what happened, as she further describes my attraction to a random guy at the party. Not only do I not remember this guy, I do not recall talking to him or hooking up. She tells me we had sex on the couch. My mind is racing, questioning myself and my friend. Did my friend know I was black out drunk? Did the guy know I was black out drunk? I immediately decide to uber home, distraught from not knowing anything that happened to me. I quickly look the guy up on Facebook, message him to ask if he used a condom, closed my phone, and tried to piece the puzzle together. He messaged back so soon, and I looked at my phone in horror. He responded, “yeah, the first time, but I don’t know about the other times.” After that, I took a trip to Walgreens, took a Plan B, and pushed the memory out of my head. Three years later, I am lying in bed, horrified at myself. How could I forget about this experience of being used? I am dealing with it now and processing these questions. This drawing was a way to deal with this thing that happened to me. I don’t have any influences other than this experience and this burden that I hold every day now. It is extremely hard to talk about, but sharing this in critique made me realize I am lucky to have people that believe me and support me. Ford’s courage of sharing her story made me realize I am not crazy and neither is anyone who has been sexually assaulted.

Political Self

Political Self Project 

Sammy Keane

For this project, my overall goal was to place my self-portrait in a medical setting. My Mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer when I was 15. Because of her, I have always thought of different ways I can implement her into my work. I chose to seat myself in a medical chair and have an IV going into me (through a chest port, the same way she was given chemotherapy) the same way as any person who would be given chemotherapy. The political aspect of this project was discussing the insane prices for medical care, chemotherapy specifically. In 2018, an estimated 1,735,350 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States and 609,640 people will die from the disease. Many of these people do not have the funds or insurance to get the care they desperately need. While including myself in the piece, I chose to have the words "The costs for chemotherapy can have estimates as high as $30,000 over an eight-week period. CHEMO SHOULD'NT = DEBT" written on the bottom. My goal was to not only connect myself in the setting but to also address the statistics of the price people going through chemotherapy will also have to pay. 

Watching my mother, along with four of my aunts and two of my cousins, go through the pain of chemotherapy for Breast Cancer has been some of the hardest moments of my life. The medical bills my family members have had to pay because of something they cannot control are even more disgusting. Cancer and the price that comes with it is something I have always been exposed to. I chose to place the text in my work at the bottom because I wanted to make it feel almost as if it was a propaganda piece. To make it as life-like and real as possible I used reference photos of medical chairs, Iv bags and stands, hats women wear, etc. I created my own additions and changes that would make more sense and were more specific to my personal project. 

I had my friend take a picture of me sitting in a similar way someone would be sitting in a medical chair and I also used that a reference while drawing. My feet are in the front are the largest part of my drawing. To make sure I got them as correct in value and proportion as possible I referred to my the picture of myself and the drawings shown below. Overall, I am very happy with the outcome of my drawing, I tried my best to have as much differentiating value as possible while also keeping the work of my pencil hatching rather than smoothing it out. For this project instead of referencing artists per say, I found different images through google and Pinterest that inspired me and would help this drawing in particular.

URL's for Reference Photos
https://www.medical-supplies-equipment-company.com/homehealth/product/medical-recliner-chair_23592.html
https://www.whatnext.com/blog/posts/30-ways-to-stay-positive-when-you-have-cancer
https://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/cold-cap-designed-to-help-chemo-patients-retain-hair/article_56fc986a-9dfa-59d1-9e8b-c941744b58bd.html
https://www.formfonts.com/3D-Model/2349/1/e1050-other-equipment/e1020-institutional-equipment/e10-equipment/equipment-furnishings/stand-with-plasma-bag/
https://www.pinterest.com/buffalochip47/artillustration-the-foot/?lp=true
https://www.pinterest.es/pin/831477149923291017/
https://www.behance.net/gallery/45907577/Life-Drawing

Analysis of "White Artist's Painting of Emmett Till at Whitney Biennial Draws Protests"

          From the New York Times, Randy Kennedy writes about the white artist, Dana Schutz, who was selected in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, to submit an abstract painting of Emmett Till's dead body. Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by two horribly racist white men in 1955, remains a symbol for the civil rights movement to this day. Till's mother demanded for an open casket at her son's funeral to show people the brutality of police in our country towards innocent black people. Kennedy further explains the protest of Dana Schutz's painting. Parker Bright, an African-American artist, stood in front of the painting, with his t-shirt, stating "Black Death Spectacle"(1). The problem with this issue of the painting, does not fall in the artist's hand. I find that anyone has freedom of speech and is allowed to express what they believe is true, but for the curators of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, it is a huge responsibility to curate important voices internationally. To curate a white person's art to represent black mourning holds a deeply embedded issue in our country. Not only does this silence black culture even more, it symbolizes the superiority of white culture in America. Kennedy's article brings up an important issue of systematic racism in our country. It is so deeply rooted that most non-black people do not see, feel, or hear these prejudices. The systematic racism of Dana Schutz's painting is not that she wanted profit from an image that was not hers to claim, it was the fact that it was chosen out of so many diverse artists from the U.S. to be internationally representative of our country.

Analysis of "The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning"

           From the New York Times Magazine, Claudia Rankine writes about the precarious experience of being black in America. She introduces anecdotes of friends, beginning with a mother of a black son, who states, "The condition of black life in one of mourning"(1). This mother refers to a violent history of systematic racism in our country. America, "the land of the free, home of the brave", becomes a hypocritical stab in the back to groups of people that live in fear of prejudices and profiling. The author of this article also describes the normalizing of profiling people of color. She explains the history of killing black people in America, "Dying in ship hulls, tossed into the Atlantic, hanging from trees, beaten, shot in churches, gunned down by the police or warehoused in prisons..."(4). Black people are wrongfully profiled, imprisoned, and killed every day, and there is an absence of national mourning. In order to create equal civil rights in our country, society needs to respect black culture without prejudice and stereotypes. The author, later, brings up the movement, Black Lives Matter, that was started to demand equal rights for black people. Many critics contest the movement, stating, "All Lives Matter", arguing that it defeats the purpose of equal civil rights. The Black Lives Matter movement creates a national mourning for those dead black lives that went unrecognized. If this movement did not bring to light the massive amount of wrongfully killed black people that were not front-page material, there would be no discussion for these innocent people. From the language that is created in our justice system, this issue is more than surface-level. From the article, Rankine explains the history of our language, "The legacy of black bodies as property and subsequently three-fifths human continues to pollute the white imagination"(8). Creating new language that treats black people with the same respect as white culture can help the justice of our country. Eliminating the 'n' word or any other derogatory slander from white people's vocabulary would help stop the history of oppression with black people. In conclusion, white people are responsible for the oppression of black people throughout American history. As a culture, we can take steps towards a better country if we change the education and justice system to a more equal and humane future.