I Can't Breathe (Water Table)
Object Details
- Date
- 2018
- Created by
- Torkwase Dyson, American, born 1973
- Subject of
- Henry Box Brown, American, 1815 - 1897
- Caption
- Torkwase Dyson’s work is informed by geometry, architecture, and abstraction. She is known for creating art that explores how people of color have, and continue to negotiate, spatial order. I Can’t Breathe refers to the phrase desperately uttered 11 times by Eric Garner while held in a prohibited chokehold by police officer Daniel Pantaleo until Garner fell unconscious and eventually died. Even though the incident was captured on video and officially deemed a homicide, Pantaleo was not indicted.
- Part of Dyson’s Water Table series, I Can’t Breathe was exhibited in her 2018 solo exhibition, Dear Henry. The exhibition was created as a visually symbolic letter/homage to Henry “Box” Brown, an enslaved African American who escaped to freedom by shipping himself to Philadelphia in 1849.
- Description
- An acrylic painting on cotton canvas with a grey background. Centrally depicted three distinct shapes created with various brushstrokes. On each side of the canvas is a bright cloudy white cube. Bright and wide brushstrokes of red and white impasto feature strongly at the top middle and right of the canvas, while the same white and red impasto features minimally at the top and bottom of the canvas. The painting was executed primarily in thin, horizontal washes, which resulted in the layering of numerous vertical drips. Occasional passages of thick impasto are present throughout.
- Place made
- New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
- Topic
- African American
- Abstract Expressionism
- Architecture
- Art
- Fugitive enslaved
- Self-liberation
- Transportation
- See more items in
- National Museum of African American History and Culture Collection
- Portfolio/Series
- Water Table
- Classification
- Visual Arts
- Exhibition
- Reckoning: Protest. Defiance. Resilience.
- On View
- NMAAHC (1400 Constitution Ave NW), National Mall Location, Culture/Fourth Floor, 4 052
- Credit Line
- Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Data Source
- National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Object number
- 2018.77
- Type
- paintings
- Restrictions & Rights
- © Torkwase Dyson
- Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.
- Medium
- acrylic paint on canvas with wood and wire
- Dimensions
- H x W x D: 96 × 72 × 2 in. (243.8 × 182.9 × 5.1 cm)
- Metadata Usage
- CC0
- Record ID
- nmaahc_2018.77
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