An exhibit that the artist says contains “images of white privilege in America” and “how it negatively affects the black community” has opened in Chicago.
It contains provocative caricatures of Christ on the cross with a bag over his head and the message “I can’t breathe,” multiple perversions of the American flag and cell bars made of money rolls with black faces behind them.
Included, too, are messages about “white privilege” across a backdrop of saltine cracker boxes, a black Statue of Liberty and a noose hanging from a neon sign that says “nickle ride.”
But perhaps the most provocative: a body lying on the floor representing Michael Brown–the Ferguson, Missouri teen killed last year after a scuffle with a police officer.
WGN calls them “thought-provoking images.”
“There are many artists coming out of this movement and we’re activists and we’re just expressing and we happen to be expressing through visual art. But we know that the arts are very healing and so I think it’s self-help for many people,” exhibit artist Ti-Rock Moore tells WGN.
News reports emphasize she is a “white woman” from New Orleans.
“We know this is a courageous exhibit for us also for Gallery Guichard in the heart of Bronzeville to deal with race in such a way that it makes people stop and we’re really excited about that,” says gallery owner Andre Guichard.
He says he hopes “it creates something positive” “from incredibly negative images.”
WGN adds the exhibit is “courageous indeed and quite timely.”
According to Fox 2, Michael Brown’s family “praises” the exhibit. His mother attended the opening.
It will be on display through August 10.
According to WGN reporter Julie Unruh, the exhibit “does require some maturity and may not be for all ages.”
Moore says 10 years ago when Hurricane Katrina hit her city, “she watched the people in her city abandon it.”
“The sadness she felt back then is still alive today,” according to Unruh.
Brown was killed August 9, 2014 by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson and the exhibit will be open through that “anniversary.”
“I’m not pretending that I’m coming from a point of view that I have experienced racism,” Moore said in a 2014 interview with the Times-Picayune. “I’m coming from a point of view of completely being able to view privilege, white privilege, all the time in my world. And the power and the entitlement.
“My whiteness carries an unearned advantage in the American system. We’re living in a society of very complicated systems that create advantages for white people and disadvantages for others. That’s what my work is about.”
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