[The American flag has its red stripes replaced with red text. The blue background behind the stars reads in blue text "where do we go from here chaos or community".]
Colin Chase
of cries and whispers (flag) , 2018
Artwork Type: Drawings
Medium: Digital text drawing on rag, archival ink
Dimensions: Composition: 15 1/2 in x 27 3/4 in
Accession #: 20202560
Credit: Collection of University Art Museum, University at Albany, State University of New York on behalf of The University at Albany Foundation, purchase of University Art Museum and Susan Van Horn Shipherd '64 and UAlbany Alumni Association Arts and Culture Committee and University Art Museum Director’s Fund
Related Exhibition:
History Lessons
Copyright: © Colin Chase
Object Label:
Show Object Label(s)Chase provides meditations on Black life in the United States by repurposing and questioning patriotic symbols and mottos in his digitally composed series of cries and whispers. Lyrics from the R&B song “None of Us Are Free” (first recorded by Ray Charles), a call to fight racism, are reproduced in the red stripes and transposed to Morse code in the white stripes. Coding and decoding suggest modes of communication that can evade state surveillance or express messages to fellow members, and they echo an idea expressed in Demian DinéYazhi’’s print, elsewhere in this exhibition, that the American flag can contain hidden messages for different people. Repeated in the blue field is the title of Martin Luther King’s 1967 book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, which King wrote for an exasperated audience disillusioned by plateaued Civil Rights progress and a limit to the support offered by white allies.
–History Lessons
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