Dread Scott in groupshow in Spain.
The Rebel City (Miguel Amado)
Kyle Goen & Dread Scott /Nicoline van Harskamp /Anna Moreno / Ahmet Öğüt / Oliver Ressler / Allan Sekula /Gregory Sholette / Stephanie Syjuco
The Rebel City examines the urban space as a site of anti-capitalist struggle. It brings together artists based in Europe and the United States—regions where capitalism originally developed, and where it has been contested in recent years.The featured works engage with dissent symbolically, by evoking the iconography, intellectual roots, and material culture of protest.
The exhibition includes works that cite the 1999 Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization; works that refer to Occupy Wall Street, a fundamental example of an anti-capitalist uprising in a metropolis; works that consider anarchism’s role as a key theoretical source of anti-capitalist politics; and works that explore the financialization of daily life.
Curated by Miguel Amado
May 24 till October 25
adn platform
Avda. Can Roquetas esquina Victor Hugo
08173
Sant Cugat del Vallès
Tel. +34 93 451 00 64
2-channel HD projected video, Running time 7:16, 2012 Stop is a 2-channel projected HD video installation. The videos are projected on two opposite walls. One projection features young men from East New York Brooklyn, the other, young men from Liverpool UK, each of whom have been stopped numerous times by the police. In the video each repeatedly states the number of times they have been stopped. Stop was created as part of Postcode Criminals, a collaboration between Dread Scott, Joanne Kushner and young adults form Brooklyn, NY and Liverpool, UK. In 1996 NY police chief William Bratton met with his counterpart Ray Mallon in the UK to share zero tolerance policing strategy. The result was that youth in Liverpool and in New York were further criminalized and have been drawn into an unusual symmetry by police and governmental forces. Postcode addresses the effects of police intervention in their lives and their communities.
From the 1870s to the 1970s millions of people believed they could change the world and set out to do just that. Let 100 Flowers Blossom, Let 100 Schools of Thought Contend looks at the past with an eye to the future. It consists of 100 photographs and 100 flowers in vases on shelves in front of each of the photographs.
The photographs are images from the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution and the Chinese revolution—revolutions where the proletariat held power and was attempting to lead all of humanity to a classless communist world. The images include photographs of communards from 1871 standing around a toppled statue of Napoleon, an agit-prop train with an eager crowd gathered around a Victrola in 1919; university walls in Beijing in 1970 covered with hand made “big character posters” polemicizing for the author’s view on how transform society. The photographs are printed in a slightly brown or sepia color. The flowers are replaced regularly during the run of the exhibit so that they are fresh.
Decision is a performance that reflects on a country whose democracy is rooted in slavery. These roots are woven into the fabric of the country including in its founding documents. The performance featured three main elements:
- I read from the text of 1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision that ruled that slaves were property and were “so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
- A group of 4 nude Black men. The men were guarded and controlled two live German Shepherd dogs and their handlers. The dogs frequently and loudly barked at the group of men throughout the performance. The barking made it difficult to hear the reading.
- The audience was part of the performance. They were corralled into a line and asked to go into a “voting booth” one at a time and respond to questions within the booth. To get to the booth, they had to pass through the line of Black men.
The three elements happened simultaneously.
The nude Black men stood in a line and changed positions occasionally throughout the performance. There was no separation between the dogs with their handlers and the prisoners that they “guard.” Likewise the audience was not separated from the men or the dogs, though they were not be allowed near the dogs. The men looked at the audience throughout the performance.
In the voting booth, the vote would not stop the control and harassment that of the Black men in the performance. The questionnaire in the booth posed moral questions to each audience member individually. Would they have voted in a segregated election? And would they vote in the upcoming US presidential election if their vote implied acceptance of continuing the legacy of slavery within US society?
Clifford Owens, Lawrence Graham-Brown, Wilmer Wilson IV and “Roc” Belizaire performed with me. Mallory Catlett directed the performance.
Decision was part of Brooklyn Bred, a set of performances at the BAM Fisher curated by Martha Wilson. It was premiered as part of BAM’s 30th Anniversary Next Wave Festival.
The text of the Dred Scott Decision is a lengthy argument for white supremacy. It’s arguments are rooted in the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and U.S. law and custom. It is well worth reading.
I Am Not a Man. I am but I am not. I Am Not a Man was a performance that was presented on the streets of Harlem, New York. I walked bearing a historic, but crucially altered, protest sign that read “I Am Not a Man.” Throughout the walk, actions in the performance evoked the humiliation that is visited on Black people and the negation that defines our existence.
Making reference to the 1968 Memphis Sanitation workers strike where the iconic “I Am a Man” sign originated, the performance inverted the sign’s statement, pointing to the importance of the Civil Rights protests as well as to their limitations. Along with this historic resonance, the performance simultaneously addressed our era—racism is foundational to America and has not abated. Despite assertions that America has entered a post-racial period, reality contradicts this: 1 in 9 young Black men are in prison; predatory lending policies have caused the greatest loss of wealth for people of color in modern U.S. history; Henry Louis Gates gets arrested “breaking into” his own home; etc.
I Am Not a Man resides in the uncomfortable space between a race-free fantasy world and the lived experience of millions.
The performance took place September 9, 2009.