Skip to main content

Visit Main Menu Block

  • Hours & Admission
  • Accessibility & Amenities
  • Tours & Group Visits
  • Visitor Guidelines

Exhibitions and Events Main Menu Block

  • Exhibitions
  • Events

Art and Design Main Menu Block

  • The Collection
  • Projects & Publications
  • Past Exhibitions

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Image

Previous 1 / 1 Next

Albert Chong

Throne for the Justice, 1990

Description

Maker

  • Albert Chong, b. 1958, Jamaican

Title

Throne for the Justice

Year

1990

Medium

Solarized silver print

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • solarized silver print

Supports

  • photopaper

Dimensions

102.9 x 80 cm (40 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Signed on back of photograph

Type

  • Works on Paper,
  • Photographs

Credit

Walter H. Kimball Fund

Object Number

1997.64

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

African Affinities

January 19 - March 25, 2001

Albert Chong describes himself as "an artist using the tools of my ancestors to conjure their spirits for advice and protection." His ancestors are African and Chinese. He grew up in Jamaica and has lived in the United States since 1977, making photographs that speak to issues of identity, cultural affirmation, and the practice of creating imagery for the camera.

One of Chong's best-known bodies of work is his series Thrones for the Ancestors. Chong made the throne in this photograph for his father shortly after he died. His father was the Justice of the Peace in Kingston, Jamaica, and he was known simply as Justice. His father's portrait is on the chair seat surrounded by cowrie shells, rocks, and dreadlocks. Chong has often used cowrie shells because of their connection to African and African American culture, including their use as currency in the Yoruba culture, their use as embellishments in African art, and their adoption by African Americans as an icon of Africa. The dreadlocks, referring to Albert Chong's own hairstyle, make a personal connection to his father. When composing his thrones, Chong charts his own enigmatic world, blending altars from the Yoruba-derived Caribbean Santeria religion and many forms of East Asian ancestor veneration. As the art historian Kellie Jones has noted, Chong's interest in creating thrones is related to his Jamaican background. Jamaica is a bastion of West Africa's Akan culture, and the Ashanti, a group within that culture, use stools as altars.

The haunting quality of this spiritual portrait is heightened by Chong's use of the Sabbatier effect (commonly known as solarization), a photographic process that causes a reversal of tones through exposing the negative or print to light during its development.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in Copyright. This object is Throne for the Justice with the accession number of 1997.64. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

RISD Museum

  •  Facebook
  •  Twitter
  •  Instagram
  •  Vimeo
  •  Pinterest
  •  SoundCloud

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Footer Secondary

  • Image Request
  • Press Office
  • Rent the Museum
  • Terms of Use