Artist: Thornton Dial, Jr.
Date: 2002
Size: 193 x 340 cm
Museum: Souls Grown Deep (Atlanta, United States)
Technique: Assemblage
In this piece, Dial recalls one of the most horrifying specters in American history and consciousness—the African slave ship. Overall, the work is an ominous scene of entrapment, composed of welded iron bars, chains, and tangled fencing. The golden yellow ship sails are goat hide, a reference to the trade in human chattel, a cargo of human flesh, with a nation’s culpability remembered by the eerie presence of the U.S. flag hanging from the ship’s prow. Chained at center is a disturbing and paradoxical figure: a stuffed Mickey Mouse.With a dark sense of irony and humor, Dial uses the pop-culture icon as a tongue-in-cheek representation of the slaves, imprisoned down in the ship’s hold like rodents, while the character
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