Respond to the Dana Schutz painting controversy in a brief but well-organized (and well-proofread) LP post. Incorporate at least one direct quotation from Zadie Smith’s “Getting In and Out” and cite accordingly. (The LP doesn’t let you easily incorporate footnotes, so try it manually by collecting your notes at the bottom of the post. You can even link the superscript numbers to the notes. In any case, show me that you know how to properly format a footnote.)
Dana Schutz’s, Open Casket, showed at the Whitney Museum in New York, created an upheaval of controversy in the African American community. The painting is a portrait of fourteen year old, Emmit Till, who was wrongfully accused of whistling at a white women and brutally lynched by two white men that left the scene with clean hands and pleaded not guilty. The mother of Till made the harsh decision to leave her son’s casket open during the funeral services to show the pain of racial oppression in America.
Schutz’s is a white American, naturally her painting sparked fury in the African American community, how would a white women have the ability to connect to the pain of African Americans? The artist had publicly stated that there was never a profit on the piece, but the publicity had shined a light on her and her work. I am a strong supporter of having the freedom of expression, especially in the form of writing and arts, if you have a strong connection that will communicate to the audience and is seen in the care and love of the genre or subject. From Schutz’s statements, I have found there is a lack of passion and this controversy perfectly communicates that there, “is always a risk in art.”1 It is difficult to understand, as a viewer, that the artist can emotionally connect with the subject. Overall, I applaud Schutz’s success in creating conversation, although a poor way of doing so.
- Zadie Smith, “Getting In and Getting Out: Who owns black pain?”, Harper’s Magazine (2017): 89.
- This is a footnote. ↩
