July - September 1993

Installation View

The contextual nature of history is viscerally depicted by the six joined lightboxes that form the largest tableau in the installation. Photographic reproductions of the holds of two slave ships create a confining, claustrophobic space, as hundred of Africans undergo the Middle Passage, the brutal hyphen between two identities. Malcolm X's most repeated aphorism, "By Any Means Necessary," is here a bitter irony and a very real expression of the historical facts of slavery, as well as the incomprehensible mindset that produced it. The multiple uses of Malcolm X's words and image in our society is given another twist in the lightbox with Malcolm X gesturing out, Nation of Islam signet in our face, and the text superimposed over his face, "It's the prominence you bring to that which others overlook. Those who find vitality hidden in the margins understand." This phrase takes on quite another meaning when you realize it comes from a Gap advertisement, or does it?