Dread Scott

Dread Scott, 2022, "Obliterated Power (Supreme Court)", screenprint on archival inkjet print, 26.5" x 40" image and sheet, edition of 14, $3,500 unframed

Dread Scott, 2022, “Obliterated Power (Supreme Court)”, screenprint on archival inkjet print, 26.5″ x 40″ image and sheet, edition of 14, $3,500 unframed

Dread Scott, 2022, "Obliterated Power (Pentagon)", screenprint on archival inkjet print, 26.5" x 40" image and sheet, edition of 14, $3,500 unframed

Dread Scott, 2022, “Obliterated Power (Pentagon)”, screenprint on archival inkjet print, 26.5″ x 40″ image and sheet, edition of 14, $3,500 unframed

Dread Scott, 2022, “Obliterated Power (Capitol)”, screenprint on archival inkjet print, 26.5″ x 40″ image and sheet, edition of 14, $3,500 unframed

Dread Scott, 2022, “Obliterated Power (Capitol)”, screenprint on archival inkjet print, 26.5″ x 40″ image and sheet, edition of 14, $3,500 unframed

Lower East Side Printshop is pleased to present three new prints by the renowned artist Dread Scott, created in 2022 through the Printshop’s invitational Publishing Residency Program.

Dread Scott “makes revolutionary art to propel history forward.” Although his primary focus throughout his career has been on the experience of African Americans in the United States, the three symbols he explores here undoubtedly touch us all—architectural and visual projections of the three branches of American government and power. Scott remains sincere in his desire for a better society for all of us. He is fiercely critical, with a mordant sense of humor, while encouraging the viewer to re-examine the ideals of American society.

For this series of large scale screenprints, Scott has selected photographs of three symbols of American power and “obliterated” them with hand additions. For the first time in his impressively diverse practice, he puts painting and drawing front and center. His vigorous and gestural drawing was translated into layers of subtly colored screenprints, printed over the archival inkjet photo background.

Although Scott has had the idea for quite a while, and the work on the series started in early 2022, the current events make the images particularly germane today.

 

Past publications

Dread Scott (b. 1965, Chicago, IL) studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and The Whitney Museum of American Art, Independent Study Program. He gained notoriety in 1989 when, as a student, he exhibited a participatory installation titled What Is the Proper Way to Display a U. S. Flag. He was subject of numerous articles and interviews, including the condemnation by then president George H. W. Bush. His work spans photography, performance, installation, prints and video. Scott is the recipient of Guggenheim Fellowship, a United States Artists Equality Fellowship, a Creative Capital Foundation grant, as well as numerous residencies and honors. His Fellowship, Open Society Soros art has been exhibited at MoMA/PS1, The Walker Art Center, CAM St. Louis, Kunsthal KAdE (Amersfoort, Netherlands), and Cristin Tierney Gallery in New York. It is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, Auckland Art Museum and Worcester Art Museum, and has been featured on the covers of Artforum and The Brooklyn Rail, and on the front page of NYTimes.com. In 2019 he presented Slave Rebellion Reenactment, a community engaged project that reenacted the largest rebellion of enslaved people in US history. The project was featured in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, by Christiane Amanpour on CNN, and highlighted by artnet.com as one of the most important artworks of the decade.