Artist Statement:
“A Celebration of Blackness” (2006)
25 Billboards and 10 Letterpress Broadsides, Dimensions Variable.
"A Celebration of Blackness" Posters
click image to enlarge
“A Celebration of Blackness” is a public art project commissioned by the Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, Alabama. After completing “The Bad Air”, I wanted to extend my contemplation on Blackness to other people via a public art project. The citizens of Mobile were asked, “What do you think of when you think about Blackness?” Ten out of 300 responses were selected for letterpress posters. Five out of the ten selected responses were chosen for a citywide billboard campaign for the Mobile Museum of Art’s Black History Celebration in February 2006.
|
Carl Pope is doing the hard work of imagining a future for the United States at one of the bleakest times in its history. His work is at once a form of geography, re-imagining and imaging the forgotten histories, people and places in America and a new psychology, creating a state of mind capable of sustaining the shocks of the present. It's soul food for the mind, in sharp contrast to the quick hit of consumer pleasure that dominates the art market, and it's all the more important for that.
—Nicholas Mirzoeff, Professor |
|
|
|
|
Billboards from "A Celebration of Blackness"click image to enlarge |
