“POWER OF THE PEOPLE: ART AND DEMOCRACY” EXHIBITION ON VIEW AT MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON
photo by The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
CURRENTLY OPEN THROUGH FEBRUARY 16, 2023
I’m honored to have two pieces included in this amazing exhibit, currently on view! Scroll to read more about the show and the included artworks.
photo by The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
I am so honored to have my work in one of America’s premier art museums, Boston Museum of Fine Art. Currently on view in a special exhibition which reflects on Art and Democracy. This is one of the most amazing exhibitions I’ve participated in, and I’m so honored and humbled to be part of it. This show features art by Andy Warhol, Shepard Fairey, Paul Revere and many many more amazing artists. There are even pieces from Ancient Rome.
My two pieces share an intimate wall and a plaque with a piece by Andy Warhol. This is the text on that plaque.
“GRAPPLING WITH POLICE BRUTALITY IN ART. ARTWORKS BY ANDY WARHOL AND RAVI ZUPA
“Separated by a span of 50 years, artists Andy Warhol and Ravi Zupa both grapple with the issue of police brutality. Warhol’s source material was a 1963 photograph from Life Magazine of police using dogs to assault civil rights protesters in Birmingham, Alabama. Warhol heightens the impact of the scene by presenting it as a work of art. Zupa, a self-taught artist, also borrows widely from media available to him. In the poster at upper right, he imagines a conversation between printmaker José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) and rapper J.Dilla (1947-2006), while police beat a skeleton with nightsticks. In We Gon’ Be Alright, with text borrowed from musician Kendrick Lamar, Zupa transforms a print by Posada depicting the Seven Deadly Sins into a litany of measures that hold today’s police force accountable-body cams, smart phones, social media, and prosecution.”
photo by Damon Beale
AN EXTREMELY OLD PROBLEM, 2015
WE GON’ BE ALRIGHT, 2017
PERMANENT COLLECTION
These other pieces are also in Boston Museum of Fine Art’s permanent collection.
FROM THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BOSTON, “The show, “Power of the People: Art and Democracy,” highlights the ways in which art has expressed ideas about democracy throughout history and how artists have asked citizens to contemplate democracy’s promise, participate in its practice, and call for improvements. Through 180 works of art, drawn almost entirely from the MFA’s collection and ranging in time from democracy’s origins in ancient Greece to today, visitors can compare past to present and reflect on how certain democratic struggles and concepts have echoed through the ages.
The exhibition features celebrated works, such as the Sons of Liberty Bowl (1768) by Paul Revere Jr., the ancient Roman Denarius of Brutus—or Ides of March—coin (43–42 BCE), and Shepard Fairey’s poster Vote! (2008), along with lesser-known but influential works of art on view for the first time, including Cyrus Dallin’s 1912 marble relief portrait of Julia Ward Howe and a porcelain sundial from the French Revolution featuring the new calendar.
With ceramics, coins, ancient marble reliefs with carved inscriptions, paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, posters, fashion, and more, “Power of the People” invites visitors to reflect on, discuss, create, and participate in the democracy we share.”
photos by The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
