Obliterated Power (Supreme Court)
Artist
Dread Scott
(American, born 1965)
Date2022
Mediumscreenprint over archival inkjet print
Dimensionssheet: 67.3 × 101.6 cm (26 1/2 × 40 in.)
ClassificationsPrints
Credit LineMuseum purchase through the Ruth and Loring Holmes Dodd Fund
Object number2023.46
Label TextIn his artist statement, Scott declares, “I make revolutionary art to propel history forward. I look towards an era without exploitation or oppression. I don’t accept the political structures, economic foundations, social relations, and governing ideas of America.” Obliterated Power is a suite of prints that metaphorically destroy what Scott deems are three key sites of abuse in the American democratic system: the Capitol, the Pentagon, and the Supreme Court. He first published Supreme Court on the social media platform Instagram in May 2022, when news leaked of the Court’s opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, a 1973 federal right-to-privacy case that established a constitutional right to abortion. “I want to share this with you now,” he wrote. “Now is the time to protest and be in the streets.”
To create the suite, Scott printed “generic images” of the three government sites found online, then feverishly scribbled on clear acetate sheets atop each photograph. The printmaking studio Lower East Side Printshop translated Scott’s gestural drawings into silkscreens, which were later stenciled onto a new set of large-format photographs.On View
Not on view
2015; printed 2021
2014; printed 2021
