Thurgood in the House of Chaos
2009
Rashid Johnson
American, born 1977
Contemporary Art
This photolithograph shows the artist dressed as Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court Justice, overlaid with a graffiti-style set of shooter’s crosshairs. Using an image of himself, Rashid Johnson thereby questions the notion of judicial progress for present-day African Americans from the landmark Civil Rights-era decisions Marshall oversaw, including Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
The title makes reference to Public Enemy’s “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” (1988), which details an escape from prison, and suggests that mass incarceration is a form of legalized discrimination:
Cell block and locked, I never clock it y’all
Cause time and time again
Time, they got me serving to those and to them,
I’m not a citizen
The title makes reference to Public Enemy’s “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” (1988), which details an escape from prison, and suggests that mass incarceration is a form of legalized discrimination:
Cell block and locked, I never clock it y’all
Cause time and time again
Time, they got me serving to those and to them,
I’m not a citizen
- Maker/Artist
- Johnson, Rashid
- Classification
- Formatted Medium
- Photolithograph
- Medium
- photolithograph
- Dimensions
- 30 x 22 in. (76.2 x 55.9 cm)
- Departments
- Contemporary Art
- Accession Number
- 2013.30.28
- Credit Line
- Gift of Exit Art
- Rights Statement
- © artist or artist's estate
- Museum Location
- This item is not on view
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