The Unauthorized Biography of a Black Man
Artist
barry johnson
Date2020
Mediumplywood; paint
Credit LineMoPOP permanent collection, gift from barry johnson, production by Overall Creative, in partnership with Union Square LLC
Object number2021.41.A-.W
Text EntriesSeattle, Washington artist barry johnson (b. 1984) created this twenty-three-panel mural during the global COVID-19 pandemic shutdown when many businesses closed to cover the windows at Two Union Square in downtown Seattle. The work features local dancer and choreographer David Rue. Painted with his eyes closed, the sequence slowly deconstructs Rue’s face ending with the James Baldwin quote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
2020 was a moment of converging crisis from the Black Lives Matter movement to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdown and those feelings are reflected in what we created and consumed in pop culture; not just that year, but even now.
23 wood panel series painted with a close-up portrait of a young man who slowly disappears by the end panel.
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On View
On view
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